Twitter comes to Janay Rice defense for staying with husband

By: Niamoni Watson

Back in February TMZ posted footage showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice dragging his unconscious then-fiancé out of the Revel Casino Hotel elevator in Atlantic City. Consequently, Rice received a minimum two game suspension for the incident.

Aside from the mere slap on the wrist punishment, Rice’s then-fiancé Janay Palmer defended Rice in a press conference and later married the NFL star.

On Monday an extended video of the assault was released by TMZ Sports that showed Rice punching his wife twice, with the second blow knocking her unconscious. Soon after the video surfaced, Rice was terminated from the Baltimore Ravens and suspended indefinitely from the NFL.

This morning, Janay took to instagram to lash out about the burden media has caused on her family describing the event as a “nightmare.”

In the post, Janay seems fed up with the media stating, “No one knows the pain that the media and unwanted opinions has caused my family.” “To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing,” Janay said, “THIS IS OUR LIFE! What don’t you all get [?]”

When TMZ released the video of Rice punching and dragging Janay out of the elevator, social media exploded with major backlash on Janay defending Rice for his inexcusable actions, but mostly her decision to stay with Rice.

Author and domestic violence victim Beverly Gooden came to Janay’s defense and created the Twitter hash tag #WhyIStayed in response to society shamming Janay’s decision to stay with Rice.

 

The hash tag spread like wildfire on Twitter encouraging other women, who were domestic violence victims to share their stories.

 

On her website, beverlygooden.com, Gooden speaks on her reason for creating the hash tag stating, ”Leaving is a process not an event. And sometimes it takes awhile to navigate through the process.”

The topic is still trending today as it shades light of how difficult it is for domestic violence victims to leave their abusers. The hash tag did nothing less than prove that there are various things at stake when deciding to leave an abusive relationship.

As a society, we must not chastise but encourage women in these unfortunate situations to be brave and understand that leaving a domestic violence relationship is easier said than done.