It’s tough to admit this publicly. I’ve kicked the dog a time or two – not recently, but I have struck another living thing out of anger. I think back on that and I cringe, because it feels really dark. It can be terrifying to reflect on a time when I haven’t been able to control my anger. If I were to prioritize the sin tendencies I have in the order of how quickly I want them rooted out of me, vindictive, reactionary anger would be number one. I can’t imagine what it would be like for one of my physical displays of violent anger to be video-recorded and made available for all to see. It’s one thing to wear a scarlet letter that tells the world what we’re guilty of. It’s another thing to wear a self-incriminating video recap of a universally despised indiscretion.
The Ray Rice elevator video footage is pretty brutal. You may know that Rice, an All-Pro Super Bowl champion running back with the Baltimore Ravens, has been served a lifetime ban from the NFL for punching his fiance (now wife) in the face in an elevator in a New Jersey casino earlier this year. A few months back, released video footage outside the elevator showed Rice dragging his unconscious wife out of the elevator after the altercation. At that point, it was speculated that Rice may have injured his wife, or that she was severely under the influence. This week, the video inside the elevator was released, and the former was shockingly confirmed.
Rice has been usually considered to be a good guy. His teammates, while clearly distancing themselves from his actions, have spoken well of him publicly all week. He hit a woman though. In our culture, we have rarely seen something so high profile and so egregious caught on tape. Professional athletes with higher profiles than Rice, Floyd Mayweather for example, have seen the public disdain over their domestic violence die down over time and most of their followers unite around them again. The video evidence for those incidents wasn’t replayed on continuous loop on SportsCenter for weeks though. Is Rice’s otherwise positive and peaceful reputation able to survive this long term? Or does the harsh judgement that comes from what our eyes can see on tape make it less possible for us to care whether he’s ever “restored” or not?
Rice’s now wife, Janay, has insisted that this was an isolated incident and that their relationship is being healed. It has all the markings (we hope) of a redemptive story of restoration, but I just wonder if our ever increasing opportunities to see people at their worst make it more difficult to experience the grace and healing that those of us who have acted violently from a dark place might need one day.
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4 responses to “Left Hooks in Elevators: Acting on the Anger in Our Hearts”
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The whole thing stinks.
‘Sin’…the gift that keeps on giving.
It’s tough isn’t it? Mike Vick and Chris Brown’s restoration might suggest that the public can get over something this bad — but then, things like this accumulate in our consciousness, and we near some sense that we’ve “had enough,” or its the “last straw” in what we’ll tolerate from public figures. I’m feeling that way, about football players behaving badly. Intellectually I know that each crime is committed by an individual, but we’ve had plenty of reasons to grow weary and angry about these stories of violence.
Moreover, how do you send the complicated message that this is beyond the pale — not ever, ever tolerable, not ever okay — because that’s what it will take, after all, for the violence against women to subside. How to combine that with the message that a person isn’t the worst thing they’ve ever done, as Helen Prejean puts it. So I’ve found myself a little uncomfortable with all the Christian bloggers talking about forgiveness for Rice. Well, yes, but let’s hope if this were 1930 we’d have more to say about lynching than to speak of the need for forgiveness and healing, because of course, we’d want it to stop. We’d want it to be viewed as so outrageous that only an outlier would ever even consider actually doing it. About violence against women, there needs to be some measure of, what,– is disgust too harsh a word?
Howie – thanks for the article. Tough to watch on TV, brings back memories of my parents. Try watching THAT as a child. And when I see the video, it brings me back to that very scared, 5 year old little girl, helpless and out of control, wondering when he’s going to come after me…..again! And you’re right, it is a very dark place when outrageous anger wells up inside me, the monster lives. I hate it. But only through Christ’s am I able to deal with the monster in my heart and head. Praise God! Thanks again for the article. Btw, I believe the casino was in NJ last February, not LV.
Thanks for the correction (I’ve fixed that) and the candor Sylvia – well said.
Tanya, I don’t think disgust is too strong a word, especially after viewing that video. I wonder though, does the video add to the disgust level? It seems to. Floyd Mayweather went to prison for 3 months for hitting his children’s mother in front of them. There’s no video of that, and he (unlike Rice) was charged and convicted. Taken equally, with no video, my disgust meter registers a little higher on the Mayweather incident – yet he has (for the most part) seen his image restored, and kept his HBO show…..but you’re right, none of it is ok.