Andy Ngo tweeted a video today of former NFL running back Zac Stacy brutally attacking a woman believed to be the mother of his child.
The video is absolutely brutal and hard to watch. (If you do want to watch it, you have been warned.) Stacy is seen punching her, striking her, slapping her, throwing her through a television, and pile-driving her through a baby table. You can hear the woman beg Stacy to stop. The brutal attack happened directly in front of their five-month-old infant.
Sadly, such incidents have become an all-too-familiar scene among NFL players. Yet, as news reports of NFL athletes beating women keep popping up, there aren’t any NFL players kneeling for these victims the way some kneel to protest the very idea of the United States.
In fact, in the most recent Super Bowl, each team had (at least) one player involved in a domestic violence case — Tyreek Hill of the Kansas City Chiefs and Antonio Brown of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Many of the incidents seem either to go unpunished or to be forgiven completely. There does not appear to be the widespread concern for those accused of beating women that there is for perceived social justice violations.
Incidentally, both Hill and Brown received less punishment for hitting women than Jon Gruden did for sending insensitive emails.
While many of the players and even the NFL itself have taken on the mantle to bring awareness to issues off the football field, they have done shockingly little to deal with football players who hit women. And this invites the question: why not?
Try to find an NFL player to comment on the latest police shooting, and there’s a mile-long line. Ask any NFL player to speak out against videos similar to the one of Zac Stacy, and the silence is almost deafening.
The NFL will dedicate millions to make itself look good by pressuring police officers to not use force against violent criminals, but it will do very little to make its own players stop using force against women who are half their size.
This season, the NFL took it upon themselves to incorporate social justice messaging into every team’s NFL experience. Stadiums were decked out with social justice messaging in endzones and on goal posts. Football helmets were labeled with the names of black people shot by police or other vapid social justice statements. Yet, to date, there has not been one public display rebuking NFL players who beat women or public displays mourning the plight of any of these victims.
NFL players will make a concerted effort to stop alleged injustices that they have no control over, but they do absolutely nothing to stop the injustices they commit. Isn’t there something horribly wrong here?
