Weekend Worthy

Worth your time from around the web this week…

Asking the Wrong Question
Asking why Janay stays with an abusive husband is as appalling to me as asking whether or not Mike Brown stole some cigarillos.   #NotThePoint

Honestly, I had never even heard of Ray Rice before this week.  I don’t watch football and I don’t think I could name a single NFL player.  But the way we have responded to this is astounding.  Does Janay need to get her sh#* together?  Probably.  But that’s not what we should be talking about.  We should be talking about the fact that Rice punched her so hard that he knocked her out.

Do you know how hard you have to hit someone to knock them out?   I have two boys and both of them, at different times, have fallen down an entire flight of stairs, hitting their heads multiple times on the way down.  Weren’t knocked out, though.  The older one fell backwards off a stool once and landed head-first on concrete.  Wasn’t knocked out, though.   And one time I lunged to catch Isaiah before he toppled backward off the couch only to have my arm accidentally act as a hinge behind his knees causing him to flip upside down onto his head on the hardwood.  Wasn’t knocked out.

Add to this one act of violence the undoubted dozens that have gone before it, the cover ups by the higher-ups, questioning the victim in front of her abuser, the 42 million other women in our country who experience rape and physical abuse at the hands of their partners every year and how we have irrevocably indicted ourselves with our response.  It’s overwhelming.

Different Rules Apply
A story about the different rules that apply based on our race.   A longer one but it’s worth the read.

“I went home. The other guy didn’t.
That’s white privilege.”

Female Socialization
Speaks for itself.  I read this several weeks ago and it has stayed with me.

Guy who couldn’t get a single call back changed one letter on his resume and the phone started ringing.