Category Archives: NFL

Justice is Love’s Surname

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Survivors get to decide what they do with their story.

My daughter reminds me of this when I complain about a particular rape narrator who seems to be exonerating people who actively refused to value her need to be heard over points in a game.

What I would tell if she answered my email is:

  • Describing your rape in sexually explicit details obscures the message that rape is always about anger and power and objectifying the victim. Do not give potential felons a script for how to commit a crime.
  • Why exonerate anyone who has now or in the past facilitated rape culture? Anyone who actively compensated for rapists needs to be called out and fired, not hugged and beatified–no matter how many teams he or she has taken on to victory.
  • What happened to you has and will happen to a lot of other people–male, female, gender non-binary, old, young, non-consenting. Don’t sell all of them out by sanitizing or excusing deeply broken human systems.
  • Don’t unwittingly hand potential perpetrators a script for rape. Whether or not you realize it, when you tell a story where no one has enforced negative criminal or civil consequences for raping you, you are not changing rape culture.
  • No victim of rape should walk down the road you have. Every person deserves incisive rules for sexual safety. We need to change those rules.
  • Most victims chose or are pressured into silence. They should not have to fear the stigma of being a crime victim who speaks out..

…but they are, and as long as they are, your message is not enough, whether it is what you say or don’t say to a group of athletes, or what you tell the mother of a rape victim

By not answering her at all.

Lights Out

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Make no mistake. In the heart of the God of love, a stadium in the dark matters less than a child found strangled and bare in a park.

The child is a girl. The girl is thirteen. A foster child. Nameless. A mere silhouette.

Lost child.

So when you remember this amazing, expensive game we all stand still for.

Remember the dark.

Not a failure of technology; a failure of heart.

God in the dark.
Grieving

Sex and the Super Bowl

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So the Super Bowl is a magnet for sexual slavery and child abuse. What can you do about it?

1. Pray. God honors our prayers.

2. Contact the NFL. Tell them you are going to skip the commercials.

3. Contact the sponsors Let them know that you plan to watch the game but boycott their increasingly violent, sexualized ads.

4. Tell your friends. I did not even realize this was an issue until a friend posted it on a social media site.

5. Contact the teams directly. Tell them you are concerned about forced sexual slavery in New Orleans surrounding the Superbowl.

6. Contact the NOPD Ask what they plan to do to fight sex trafficking during this event.

With the exception of prayer (free and universal), most of this personal activism can be made through online email forms or social media.

Just imagine what it would look like if we all raised our concerns on Facebook or Twitter to say let’s stop the abuse of children and the vulnerable this year at the Super Bowl.

There is an awful lot of money at stake. But one child saved is worth every penny.

And please….spread the word.

Gladiator Sport

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I am not a football fan and I truly dislike the NFL, it’s sex-driven advertising and superfluous cheerleaders, but I watched today’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Denver Broncos with interest. They are both good teams. The Broncos were the clear favorite–playing at their home stadium at their native altitude in bone-chilling snow flurries.

It was a good game. By the middle of the first overtime I was convinced that both teams could walk away with a sense of victory. They played well.

As a mother I watch these highly trained, gifted athletes pound each other and I worry about the damage they are doing, especially to their heads. I worry also about their hearts. It can be tough on one’s soul to be rich and famous. When you watch a game like the one played tonight in Denver you must respect the power and skill of the men on the field. But I want more than that. I would trade NFL gladiator football for a professional flag league, if I knew that what each man did off the field was as brave and as sold-out as what they do on the field.

Lately with scandals ranging from Notre Dame to Penn State and individual players facing charges of recklessness, violence or worse, we all need to examine our allegiances. We cheer for teams, we will them to win, and sometimes we look the other way when they use their fame and talent as an excuse for terrible things.

The NFL is quick to admonish that the use of their game footage is for the private use of their viewers, however this is a public, national past time. We need to applaud the skill and talent of brave men, and make no excuses for our athletes when they fail at things much more important than carrying a ball across a very long field.