Paul George did a dumb thing.
Yes, it was dumb. Very dumb. He took to Twitter with his thoughts on the Ray Rice and Janay Palmer situation. It’s a chilling debacle, one which should already know about. Rice punched his then-fiancee, now-wife and knocked her out cold. He was initially suspended two games, but then additional video evidence of the incident emerged and the NFL suspended him indefinitely while the Baltimore Ravens sent him packing.
That’s your back story. The one you probably didn’t need. The one that doesn’t do the story justice. And while this has all been unfolding, everyone who’s anyone has commented. Some takes have been moving, others dumb. Some have made sense, others haven’t. There’s plenty of good, bad, ridiculous, emotional and spot-on opinions out there. Regardless of what they are, though, the message should be the same: Don’t hit women. It’s that simple.
Fighting in itself can be dumb. But our society values the violence certain sports—boxing, MMA, football, etc.—promote, so it’s a part of us. It’s in our DNA. So the message needs to be: Don’t hit women. Never mind telling Janay Palmer what to do. She’s the victim here, and whether or not you agree or disagree with how she’s acted since, none of us can pretend to understand what’s going through her mind. Victims of domestic violence may not even understand.
And that’s why the message needs to be simple. Leave the profound stuff for the bigger issue at hand—domestic violence in general. Let this be something that starts a series of bigger movements and what not. But let this actual something not be manipulated and twisted and distorted and contorted into something about football or identifying with Ray Rice.
Let it not be about what George tried to make it about.
It started almost innocently, with this tweet:
Keep it 100 lets act on this police violence like we actin on this Ray Rice case! Stay strong homie !
— Paul George (@Yg_Trece) September 11, 2014
Then it snowballed into tweets that have since been deleted, but their aim will live on in infamy. Here’s what George tweeted, courtesy of SB Nation:
I don’t condone hittin women or think it’s coo BUT if SHE ain’t trippin then I ain’t trippin.. Lets keep it movin lol let that man play!
If you in a relationship and a woman hit you first and attacking YOU.. Then you obviously ain’t beatin HER. Homie made A bad choice! #StayUp
Oh boy.
George apologized rather swiftly:
Let me apologize to the women and to the VICTIMS of domestic violence people my intent was not to downplay the situation..
— Paul George (@Yg_Trece) September 11, 2014
The Pacers reacted quickly as well:
Statements from Larry Bird and Paul George regarding George's ill-advised Ray Rice tweets. Bird hammers George: pic.twitter.com/Qz6gnZX0RC
— Jeff Zillgitt (@JeffZillgitt) September 11, 2014
This is all just wow. In a bad way.
Opinions that contradict popular public reaction are fine, so long as they’re communicated correctly. George’s opinion—whatever it may be—wasn’t. That’s another part of the problem: What the hell was he trying to say here?
“Let him play” really gets me. It’s like George thinks this is about football or money or something. It’s not. That Janay Palmer continues to stand by her husband isn’t the issue. That Rice isn’t playing football isn’t the issue. Domestic violence is the issue. That Rice wronged his wife, that he committed a detestable act is the issue.
But here George was, seemingly trivializing it, inclusion of “lol” and all. That’s inexcusable, and the apology alone doesn’t suffice. Conducting himself properly in the future would be the actual apology.
Is George a bad dude? Not sure. I don’t know him. The paternity suit filed against him in May by an ex-stripper sure isn’t flattering, but neither I nor you should pretend to know him because of that.
Hopefully he didn’t understand what he was doing, or how ridiculous his message—again, whatever the hell it may be—was coming across. And, more hopefully still, perhaps this will remind him, along with the rest us, to think before we speak.
And tweet.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
