Sleep at the switch
Forget culture: Abusing a child is wrong
W E begin today’s stroll down Absurdity Lane — around the corner from Calamity Street — with the succinct wisdom of reader Andy Schefman, who writes, “And to think the NFL thought that Michael Sam was going to be a distraction.”
It was inevitable the latest crime wave afflicting college and pro football would result in digestion softeners, some “Yeah, but ... ” rationalizations and explanations that might pass and be repeated as logical excuses.
That often arrives in the form of playing the “Culture Card” and escorted by the stench of, “You can’t expect different or better from us/them.”
Choosing to excuse or defend the indefensible as a matter of one’s “culture” is painfully wrongheaded, the kind of response that would keep one’s culture stuck in reverse for decades past, today and decades to come.
Charles Barkley, the noted multiple TV networks goto sports psychologist and admitted problem gambler and problem drinker whose 1:30 a.m. arrest for drunken driving en route to a date with a hooker — didn’t hurt his TV career or commercial endorsements a bit — Sunday, before Adrian Peterson was alleged to have brutalized a second 4yearold son — one from a different mother — was among those to explain Peterson’s approach to “punishing” or “disciplining” his child.
Although it appeared to be a cruel and sustained torture of one of Peterson’s whoknowshowmany children, Barkley explained it as both cultural and regional.
Noting that both he and Peterson “are from the South,” Barkley said that whippings were common forms of child discipline, then, after providing Peterson that excuse, he added he wasn’t excusing Peterson and that times have Sleep at the switch changed — as if Peterson were too busy parenting to have gotten that message.
Wait a second, Dr. Barkley. I’m from the North and my old man both used and spared the rod. He’d give me the back of his hand, but not the clench of his fist. He’d give me a swat — just one — if he felt his words needed emphasis.
He didn’t leave welts up and down my body. He didn’t crack my head open. And there was nothing I could do — or any kid could do — at 4 years old to justify, let alone rationalize, such an assault. Even in the South.
But if the physical abuse of children and women are to be explained or marginally excused as “cultural,” there are two ways we can go on this:
1) We can overhaul our judicial system to establish Courts of Cultural Considerations — Courts of Well, It Depends, or ...
2) We can stop rationalizing the indefensible as cultural and better spend that time advocating a change for the better — no matter how late — within that culture.
I’m nauseated by public figures who, left with nothing sensible, would make a close call or jump ball out of right or wrong by invoking the “cultural defense.”
For every Cris Carter, courageous enough to simply state wrong is wrong and right is right under any circumstance, there are some celebrities eager to ignore common sense and decency.
On ABC, Whoopi Goldberg joined those who cited “culture” to defend Michael Vick after he was indicted for operating a bloodandcarcass dogfighting operation. That excuse came from ESPN after Stuart Scott referred to a blowout as a “pimpslapping.”
And we’ve heard that in response to the latest rash of NFL womenbeaters and Peterson’s sense of active parenthood. Pacers star Paul George tweeted that Ray Rice’s fiancée was ask
ing for it: “If she ain’t trippin’ then I ain’t trippin’.”
OK, they win; it is cultural. An environment that features pimps slapping around prostitutes, dogs trained to kill other dogs, women and kids raised to expect abuse by men who aren’t expected to know right from wrong is cultural. Now what? C’est la vie?
But what does such public pandering accomplish? Why not instead take advantage of one’s fame and forum to scream it all has to stop, all has to change? Why not cease the shrugging, nosolution mitigations, and, on behalf of the next children born into such a “culture,” act to eradicate it?
Only the good — food, church and charity, for example — should be sustained as cultural, not criminality, not children born to a longshot culture of selfimperilment.
Now word that Cardinals RB Jonathan Dwyer was arrested for suspicion of domestic violence, West Virginia CB Daryl Worley arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman outside a club, early Sunday morning. But if we’re not supposed to expect any better from a “culture,” what then, other than more, should we expect?