Well, for those of you that follow Uncommon Sense, as you can see, this issue of domestic violence within the NFL has really gotten under my skin. This is an all-too-common incident in this country. Are we going to cure it overnight, to bring these athletes as well as the rest of the offenders, correct? No, we have an unbelievably twisted and uphill path to making this type of violence the scarce and rare occurrence it should be. But with all the court dockets so full, jails and prisons overflowing and family service workers overloaded, why are we not looking at setting an example of caring not only for the victims, but those who carry the burdens of this cyclic behavior. Family counseling, anger management, intensive therapy, education; where are all the hand-wringers now?
The corporate sponsors pulling their advertising and those boycotting the NFL by cancelling their sports packages on dish and cable and the sports bars refusing to show football games are all doing a disservice not only to themselves but to the victims as well. Everyone knows that these things are driven by capital whether it is the support or the repair. If you don’t supply the capital or the way and means of gaining the capital, the product and all the events, procedures and functions it supports die with it.
When Exxon and BP had oil spills, the people boycotting them thought they were “taking a stand” against corporate tyranny; but, if you don’t continue to buy their products, they won’t have the capital to fund the recovery, they file bankruptcy and nobody wins. This is a knee-jerk reaction that only serves to put the sponsor’s name on the marquee and draw attention as a the social consciousness of the people involved, when in fact it stands as self-serving alone. What if the tens of thousands of people in the Twin Cities area and major supporters of the Minnesota Vikings all decide that Radisson Hotels acted hastily in their move to pull sponsorship from the team? Would that be a social statement? Not as big as the financial statement it would make!
If I were the CEO of the Radisson Hotel corporation, I believe it would have been more prudent to meet with the Vikings and the NFL and work out a plan that would begin an educational process for not only the athletes involved, but create an initiative for the general public to get educated and counselled in preventing domestic violence, violence toward women, children and families and to learn to be examples of how they can be role models for the next generation. I would have a much more amiable reaction to these concerns if the largest parties involved showed more compassion and less punitive behaviors.
