Dear Ray,
I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan and I love watching you lose. Ironically, I am at a loss after the tragic unfolding of events in your life the past several months. I am not happy that the Steelers don't have to stuff you anymore, nor am I happy that you will no longer rack up fantasy points against me. I am not elated; I am disturbed. I have consciously decided to put my fandom on hold in order to examine deeper implications. I feel it is appropriate to disclose that I was so disturbed after learning of your crime that I requested your face come down in the school cafeteria where I teach. It felt like a fundamental violation of my student's trust to have someone notable smiling at them with a milk mustache, telling them to do healthy things after being caught doing an abusive thing. Your situation makes me sick. And please allow me to be clear, I said your situation, not you, makes me sick.
I also remember feeling ill back in 2000 when another former Raven left the courthouse with little assumed guilt. Do you remember him? I think his name was also Ray. I think you called him Dad. Maybe it was just an endearing term. You most certainly looked up to him. I remember hearing you guys share something in common: you both grew up without fathers. He lost his to choice. You lost yours to senselessness.
Please understand that I do not bring this information to light without purpose. You see, I think your situation is bigger than we all really know. In the simplest of terms, I believe your situation brings to light an age-old evil: The progressively blatant and destructive assault on family. It's bigger than me, you and your situation.
I believe domestic violence does need to be brought to the table. I believe it is a cancer that has plagued families since the beginning of our days. I lost a friend to domestic violence during a strange and tragic turn of events. Since then, I've always wanted to do more for the cause. Now maybe I will.
***
I want to apologize for your experiences. I don't think you should regret experiences that define you, but I am sorry you got a raw deal. I also want to apologize for all the tragic choices that were made around you, choices that left you fatherless. I'm sorry you had to learn about inequality the hard way. I'm sorry my words can not redeem any of it.
I'm sure athletics provided you an opportunity in a time and place where genuine opportunity was privileged access. I'm sure you had to fight and claw your way through grade school, taking care of your family and making a name for yourself at New Rochelle High. If you were ever going to change your circumstance you had to get noticed. Getting noticed gets you out of the projects. I hear running for over 400 yards in a game gets you noticed.
While some men come into the league by way of privilege, you did not. YOU had to make your own way. YOU had to support your family. YOU had to run the ball. It became YOU against the world. In your mind, there was no other way and I'm inclined to agree. What real alternatives did you have? You did what you had to do not only to survive circumstance but transcend it. You had to believe you were always the best, always right, must win. And herein lies the issue: Ability and Ego largely governs the success and failure of NFL player's.
I believe your ego betrayed you.
I have a feeling it was this same functional ego that influenced you to take overly aggressive and unwarranted action against your wife, Janay. You just had to be the best, the right one, the winner that night. And now, that same necessary ego that provided you with fame and fortune has, in an instant, taken it all away.
You had to fight to survive, and now you picked the wrong fight.
Now you are the example. The poster child for domestic violence. I believe this will lend itself to a greater tragedy. I believe this will become a limited conversation about you and men around the country who abuse women. There will be more awareness raised. New policies and procedures will be implemented at the league office. They will try to inform your former colleagues how to "respect a woman" and "control your anger." The attention and intention will be overwhelming. Unfortunately, I doubt any of it will change.
Instead of focusing our attention on the topic of domestic violence, I believe we need to refocus our attention on systemic problems that plague our underprivileged communities. We are throwing young men in jail for selling drugs while neglecting to realize this is their only viable shot at economic prosperity. We are telling young men to treat women right while failing to criticize a subversive culture that undermines the dignity, respect and honor of women. We are telling young men to be "men" while neglecting to realize that most of these men never had a man in their life to teach them how to act. We are telling young men to make an honest living while neglecting to realize that we are sending them into the workplace without the education and opportunity they need. We want our men to take pride in their communities while failing to combat a spirit of poverty that thirsts for violence, drugs, crime and prostitution.
I am hesitant to suggest what you should do next, although I have some thoughts. I hope you continue to become the husband and father Janay and your children need. When you tell your children, I hope you are a better man than you are today. I hope your influence will reach into the disadvantaged communities where the poor and fatherless need men to take a stand. I hope you demand justice and equality for these communities. I hope you demand an education that suits their needs and jobs that pay respectable wages. I hope you see the desperate need to mentor young men in these communities. I hope this becomes your legacy. We desperately need men to be men in our communities. We must embrace the fight, the struggle of manhood.
A moment has ruined your life, but I urge you to be thankful that you still have a lifetime to make it right. I'm sure Joe Pa would have gladly forfeited those 111 wins, perhaps all 409, for this same opportunity.
If you are having trouble figuring this all out I urge you to find a man to help you through this. I think the other Ray is doing ok now. Maybe you should give him a call if you haven't already. He is a man that made it back. He learned. He changed. I hope you and your family experience this same redemptive narrative.
This moment could tear your family apart. I pray you do whatever is in power to fight for your family. I think it would make your father proud.
God Bless,
David Thompson
