When domestic violence is the norm

It's a sad day when the NFL Players' Association (NFLPA), no bastion of progressive values in its own right, inadvertently takes the NFL to task for its flawed implementation of domestic violence training.

The NFLPA and the NFL have long been accustomed to discord, constantly wrangling over players' rights, contracts and revenue splits. Tuaranna "Teri" Patterson, deputy managing director of the NFLPA, made her contribution to this ongoing narrative when she circulated an internal memo highlighting the paradoxical nature of the program.

After it bungled the Ray Rice scandal, the NFL bowed to public pressure and cobbled together a triumvirate of female advisors to consult on domestic violence. For his part, Commissioner Goodell met with a cadre of former players to discuss how to ameliorate the NFL's personal conduct policy. Not only have these efforts been remarkably specious, even for the progress-averse NFL, but the NFLPA has claimed in recent days that both the NFL and the Baltimore Ravens refuse to cooperate with their investigation into Rice's case. Moreover, the NFL has declined repeated requests from associations of players' wives to join the dialogue. Since the NFL has gone to such lengths to downplay domestic violence, it would appear that it is either in disbelief or in denial, or perhaps that it cannot bear to reckon with its constant and gross oversights. But Patterson's memo reveals something darker, which bespeaks billionaire apathy and the unwavering conviction that domestic violence is not a problem. Not a problem. 

According to the memo obtained by ESPN, Patterson addressed several shortcomings of the program: "presenting the training in a manner that doesn't treat all players as 'perpetrators'; building positive consensus to respond to warning signs; [and] focusing on follow-up and providing continuous resources at the Clubs to address potentially violent situations as well as preventing them." A lack of resources was to be expected, and, frankly, a "positive consensus to respond to warning signs" seems a little hokey. Her first point, however, is painfully clear.

(The irony of the NFL deeming its own employees guilty before proven innocent cannot be understated. That inversion of the foundational tenet of our justice system has been inflicted upon the NFL countless times, each necessitating a series of ungainly press conferences. In order to ensure due process, innocence should always precede guilt -- even when the defendant is an evil juggernaut. On the other hand, compassion is a rare commodity in the NFL, so maybe this isn't ironic.)

By treating "all players as 'perpetrators,'" the NFL has done two things: rehashed the racist trope about black men being inherently violent and acknowledged that its players do, in fact, commit these acts. Since a thorough examination of institutionalized racism in sports would exceed my allotted length, I will focus instead on the latter consequence.

When it sought to mollify its critics, the NFL, though laboriously, created domestic violence programming. The NFL could have gone the rehabilitative route, or the preventive route, but it opted for the guilty-before-innocent route, at best a questionable methodology that flies in the face of modern psychology. Though certainly misguided, labeling them all as criminals a priori was deliberate, tantamount to an admission of complicity. The NFL knows that its players commit domestic violence. It simply does not care.

The harrowing tales of football wives, the public outcry, the bad press -- these all reinforced what the NFL knew. What's far worse is its prolonged indifference.