Domestic violence and intimate partner violence has been in the news a lot lately with the video of Ray Rice being released publicly, a few more very public incidents involving NFL players and the NFL’s complete mishandling of the whole thing and tone deaf response to these issues.
The good news, if there is any, is that there is a lot more attention and awareness being brought on domestic violence and abuse and society is having a discussion about how to prevent this heinous crime from happening.
For better and for worse, sports leagues serve as role models and flashpoints of society. This is why the NFL is so embroiled in the controversy they are in. It has caused everyone to take a look at how they handle and try to educate their players on this issue.
Adam Silver told Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press that the NBA is indeed reviewing their policies regarding domestic and intimate partner violence in the wake of the current controversy surrounding the NFL:
“We learn from other leagues’ experiences. We’re studying everything that’s been happening in the NFL. We’re working with our players’ association. We’ve been talking for several weeks and we’re going to take a fresh look at everything we do.
We have in place the appropriate mechanisms for discipline, although we’ll take a fresh look at those as well. But most importantly, it’s education, and it’s not just the players, but it’s the players’ families. That’s what we’re learning, too.
We have to take these programs directly to the players’ spouses, directly to their partners so that they’re aware of places they can go to express concerns, whether they’re anonymous hotlines, team executives, league executives. And we’re consulting experts. There’s a lot to be learned here. It’s a societal problem; it’s not one that’s unique to sports.”
Some of this certainly is about education and raising awareness as much as it is about punishing those who perpetrate the crime. As much as Adam Silver might say, as he told TMZ, that Roger Goodell is handling everything as best he can, he does not want to be the next commissioner caught in the crosshairs of this kind of bad publicity. Particularly after the way he has gracefully and aggressively handled the Donald Sterling and Atlanta Hawks racism firestorm.
Then again, there is still a cultural gap to make.
In addition to high school scare tactics at the Rookie Transition Program, the NBA did try to teach their rookies something about the issue, even if it came across a bit callous (at least how Sarah Lyall of the New York Times Magazine writes it):
And in a session on how to make good decisions, they were shown clips from familiar movies and asked to vote, using handheld devices, on what the characters should do next. After a scene from “Blue Jasmine” in which a character gets into a fight with her boyfriend after she sleeps with another man, the players voted on what they would have done, with options including “hit the girlfriend” and “leave and go get high and drunk.” (No one chose those.) Sixty-two percent of the rookies said they would “call another girl and hang out with her.”
It still feels like we have a long way to go with this very important social issue inside and outside the NBA.
At least Silver and the NBA appear to be taking a proactive stance to address the issue rather than waiting for some crazed fact pattern or video to change policy and minds.
