Observe the Baltimore Ravens and the Ray Rice affair: Which is worse – to appear soft on domestic violence or to deny a black man the right to earn a living for his family? Quite the moral quagmire. The Minnesota Vikings weren’t any better with Adrian Peterson. First they suspend him for alleged child abuse, then they reinstate him, then they suspend him again after checking the wind direction. You can almost hear the waffling taking place:
“Do we give our players the benefit of the doubt (especially hall of fame players)? Aren’t they innocent until proven guilty?”

“But then again, we have a rare opportunity to be perceived as paragons of virtue, and we will need those chips given the rap sheets and paternity cases streaming from our personnel”.

The ambivalence is a telltale sign of a lack of moral clarity. People who know what they stand for realize situations can sometimes be challenging to disambiguate, but they stay true to their values.

Consider Dr. Douglas A. Kramer’s letter that appeared in the Monday, September 29, 2014 edition of the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Kramer questions whether compassion and thoughtfulness are part of the equation for NFL and all employers. He lists 9 separate actions that discourage Mr. and Mrs Ray Rice from getting the help they to build and maintain a happy, healthy relationship:
1. Terminate the husband’s employment
2. Repeatedly broadcast a humiliating video of the wife on television
3. Deprive the man of an activity crucial to his identity
4. Assume the woman has less personal power than the man
5. Define the couple by a single 10-second event
6. Disrupt the main social support system for both people
7. Forget the parents have a daughter who will someday see the video
8. Never even consider asking “how can we help?
9. Abandon our inherent thoughtfulness and compassion.
The good doctor makes some good points. One might fairly ask if the NFL is really interested in helping solve what they claim is a serious problem or if they are merely practicing CYA with some public speeches and gestures.
It’s almost comedic to see celebrities, the media, and the NFL brass rush to occupy the moral high ground only to find themselves in unfamiliar territory, as if they wonder whether they expected it to look and feel different.