It Is Time To Leave the Rice Family Alone

Bullshit sensationalism like this must stop.

Sympathy for former pro football player (and it looks like "former" may be permanent) Ray Rice is difficult to come by these days, as it likely should be.

But this Instagram quotation from his wife Janay, the young woman who was beaten badly in a casino elevator in front of a camera, keeps coming back to haunt me: "To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is a horrific [sic]. THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is!”

The chattering class will not let this go as long as its talk radio and TV shows can squeeze another viewer from it, as long as 24/7 online magazines and newspapers can bring in another hit. The've examined the national impact, the local effects, the personal dilemma to the nth degree and almost nobody disagrees that this was a bad thing, something that must change in our society.

But it's time to let this family--husband, wife, small child--heal. It's time to leave them alone.

The greater issue of domestic violence has been her since long, long before Ray Rice and it has been an NFL issue since I can remember. This isn't the first and, unfortunately, it won't be the last. And, far more important, this is not an NFL issue; it is an American issue, a world issue.

Could be that even our right-wing, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing legislators--state and federal--will get at least some of the issue and maybe even the Republican women in the Senate will become sympathetic to this huge problem. Maybe the Rice case will have been valuable.

But it's time to leave the Rices alone and let them get their lives back.