Men behaving badly: Ray Rice, Roger Goodell, Danny Ferry at forefront of rough week in sports
"Nothing to see here! Please disperse!"
It's one of the funnier lines in one of the funnier movies: Frank Drebin in "Naked Gun," standing in front of an exploding building, telling gawkers to move along.
The sobering truth behind that humor is on full display this week in sports. There is abuse of power, incompetence and obfuscation right in front of our faces, and the show of games on the field is no longer an effective diversion from the truth.
The truth that will define the week and maybe the year, which we cannot un-see, is what took place between Ray Rice and Janay Palmer in a hotel casino elevator earlier this year. Domestic violence is mostly private, and yet on Monday, millions saw TMZ's footage of the Baltimore Ravens running back punching his then-fiancée in the face. The AP reported later in the week that hotel staffers who arrived at the scene could be overheard saying, "She's drunk, right?"
Nothing to see here. Just a drunk woman.
The video proved Palmer was the victim, no matter what she drank or said or did that night. Rice was the sole perpetrator. It was the NFL and the Ravens organization that needed to apologize for their lethargy and ineptitude in handling the entire situation.
The distrust and suspicion would only grow. There was NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's strong denials that the league had seen the tape – literally, "nothing to see here" in the front offices. That defense began to crater when the AP reported a law enforcement official sent the tape to the league and confirmed its receipt. And while all the commissioner's men were under siege, Palmer was continually criticized for doing too little to leave her husband and doing too much to protect her home life. This was a sad glimpse into how women are treated – individually and institutionally.
There would be more of that kind of revelation throughout the week. New York Mets co-owner Jeff Wilpon was sued by Leigh Castergine, who was the first woman ever to hold the position of team vice president of ticket sales. Castergine claims Wilpon "humiliated" and "disparaged" her for becoming pregnant without being married. Castergine is an Ivy League graduate, and still her boss allegedly made jokes about how she would make more money once she got an engagement ring.
In still another disturbing development, we found out what we weren't seeing in an NBA front office. Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson announced he would be stepping down after a 2-year-old email was unearthed in which he made racially insensitive comments about the franchise's fans. Some said the email wasn't all that bad, and that Levenson is a businessman trying to push product, but what stung people of all races was the way his email reduced customers to commodities. Every owner says his team's fans are the greatest in the world when the arena lights are on, but in the corner office, a man in power was reducing hard-working people to something less.
So was his general manager. Danny Ferry also came under fire this week for his own racially charged comments about Luol Deng during a free agency call. Ferry said Deng "has a little African in him. Not in a bad way, but he's like a guy who would have a nice store out front but sell you counterfeit stuff out the back."
Ferry claimed he was only reading comments prepared by someone else, but this type of bigotry requires no analysis. "Not in a bad way" is another version of "No offense, but" and "I have lots of black friends." What follows is almost always some slight of an "other."
Even in a society where the president is African-American and his former secretary of state is a woman, minorities face invisible barriers stacked deep behind the visible ones. Women don't get the benefit of the doubt when they've been assaulted; African-Americans are mired in stereotypes even by those who aren't overtly racist.
And in some cases, a member of a historically reduced group joins in the discrimination. Paul George woke up on Thursday and tweeted cringe-inducing sentiments about how a domestic abuser isn't really attacked if he's hit first. Here was an African-American NBA player like Deng pointing a finger at a woman who had been punched in the face by a pro athlete she loves.
Half a world away, supporters of a woman who had been shot and killed by the man she loved were devastated when sprinter Oscar Pistorius was declared not guilty of murder. The verdict isn't much of a surprise, considering how difficult it is to prove anything in a court of law when there are no witnesses. We will never know what really happened on the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed, just like we rarely find out what really takes place in domestic violence cases.
What we do have is a community of public judgment that's never existed before. It's been said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, but nothing pours over stink like social media. The chorus of catcalls for Roger Goodell, Danny Ferry, Jeff Wilpon and Bruce Levenson this week was unending and unyielding. The public tribunal can be cathartic – when it isn't just plain hateful – and it can also do some good. It's safe to say the fat cats hear and feel all the venom, and they respond more quickly than they would have in the past. The latest NFL "investigation," led by former FBI director Robert Mueller, won't be allowed to linger for months on end without some serious scrutiny.
The mob mentality is dangerous, yes. Social media can be an ugly place. But it's comforting to know that when someone in a position of authority tells us there's nothing to see here, there will still be onlookers peering over shoulders at the burning building.
And, no, we will not disperse.
