After Ray Rice was officially reinstated by the NFL on Friday, ESPN published a first-person piece from his wife Janay Palmer that allowed her — with the help of Jamele Hill — to give her side of the story. Palmer’s perspective is worth reading in its entirety, but one piece that stuck out was her revelation that the Baltimore Ravens had provided a “suggested script” before Ray’s and Janay’s first press conference following the domestic violence incident.
During the press conference, which came months after the incident, Palmer expressed regret over the role she played in the incident. This outraged many people who felt any apology from Palmer was a classic case of victim blaming.
“I wanted to tell everyone what was really on my mind. When it was my turn to speak, I said I regretted my role in the incident,” Palmer wrote in her ESPN narrative. “I know some people disagreed with me publicly apologizing. I’m not saying that what Ray did wasn’t wrong. He and I both know it was wrong. It’s been made clear to him that it was wrong. But at the same time, who am I to put my hands on somebody? I had already apologized to Ray, and I felt that I should take responsibility for what I did. Even though this followed the Ravens’ suggested script, I owned my words.”
When the infamous elevator video was released in September, the Twitter world dug up this cringe-worthy tweet from the Ravens.
Naturally, the team deleted the tweet when officials realized how horrible it sounded in the wake of the graphic nature of the video.
Here’s the point. While Palmer may have regretted hitting Rice and the role she played in their argument and physical altercation, the Ravens had no right to prompt someone in her situation to say anything. It’s obvious the team went into face-saving mode, but all of that came crashing down when the actual video was released.
If Palmer wanted to take some responsibility for what had happened, that is her choice. The Ravens should have never “suggested” she do so.
