When Whoopi Goldberg has an opinion, it is often delivered in a passionate, loud octave accented with stiffened fingers angrily jabbing the air about her as if the person disagreeing with her is there to be poked at until he or she changes his tune to a melody the host of The View enjoys whistling to. Her defense of ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith’s defense of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice’s defense against his violent then-fiancé Janay Rice is not exactly being defended by shocked viewers.
Perhaps they were expecting Goldberg to express horrors over Mrs. Rice’s videotaped battery, but you’ve got to hand it to Goldberg here. Although her views on The View may rank highly unpopular with most, as Smith’s opinion did earlier, she spoke her mind and accepts the consequences. Goldberg, no doubt, has a very disgruntled Twitter feed to deal with right now.
There is a nugget of truth to what Goldberg said. Far too often, the subject of domestic violence against the male in the couple is ignored and belittled by those who can’t accept a man that takes repeated blows from a short-tempered woman, wondering why he didn’t just knock her unconscious with a single punch. Domestic violence towards the husband or boyfriend is a very real thing, but hovers in the shadows of violence delivered from the husband towards the wife. This may be due to embarrassment or it may be due to the fact that the numbers of cases don’t even come close in comparison.
The video shows Mrs. Rice falling to the floor like a sack of potatoes as Ray Rice moves about her frame in the hallway outside of the elevator in an uncertain manner. Maybe he was nervously awaiting help to arrive and, without access to the beginning of the video that would show this spat from its ugly beginning, we won’t know exactly what sparked this fight, just how high-strung Mrs. Rice may have been and if Ray Rice’s actions were merely a situation of one forgetting his own strength in the heat of the moment.
As one person told us, she finds value in the lesson that she teaches her daughter in that, if hit, her daughter should hit back, but if her daughter hits, be prepared to get hit. There is validity in this statement as violence on either side is never excusable nor should a man be expected to take his punches without retaliation when being delivered by a woman because, by nature, she tends to be the weaker sex.
But isn’t another valuable lesson in life to be the bigger person? To judge the situation at hand before jumping to action? When is it okay to shoot someone because they were throwing rocks at you? Self-defense is an argument with many layers and, although we should never cower in the corner while being attacked, coming at someone full force in a fight that is clearly mismatched between a featherweight and a heavyweight cannot and should not be brushed aside with the simple claim of, “she hit me first, your honor”. This type of defense can be overused and, even scarier, eventually will have no bounds.
Of course, is there any possible reason to even discuss the situation between Rice and his former fiancé any further? After all, despite her seeing stars and Rice’s claims of domestic battery, the pair still tied the knot. Case closed. See you at the divorce proceedings in a few years. Our question is, will separation be due to domestic violence that can only be softened with a multi-million dollar settlement that only a wife can get?
This situation between Rice and his wife has lost our interest at this point. It’s actually insulting considering the frequency and true horrors of domestic violence cases that are, not only ignored by the media as they don’t involve celebrity athletes, but don’t end in a storybook wedding with a healthy prenuptial agreement. In reality, many victims of domestic violence have to plea law enforcement for years in order to get the offender thrown in jail. Mostly, the victims just wind up with a piece of paper asking that the offenders their distance. These men and women stay in their troubled relationships out of fear of what may happen to their children, inability to go too far without being tracked down and, of course, no funds to disappear with and start a new life. Not in Janay Rice’s case. At $25,000 a punch, she’s clearly made a vow to stick around for the big payout in the end.
We hope that she at least donates a large portion of this hypothetical settlement to a battered women’s shelter.
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