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I hate to write this, but I feel I must.  I hate to discuss morals and ethics when a person has died, but I feel we must.  So, here goes…

For the past three weeks Tiger Woods and his wife (maybe soon to be ex-wife) Elin Nordegren have been on the cover of every newspaper across the globe.  With headlines about mistresses, call girls, Playboy and Playgirl, Gatorade, Accenture and Nike, “Kobe specials” and no ring at the pump…we have heard it all.  But, the one thing that continues to be ignored is domestic violence.  And after a domestic dispute, Tiger was bruised and bumped, tooth knocked out and scratches on his picture perfect face – but all the media and the public spoke about was when would the next woman emerge with an attorney by her side.

And now, today’s story is not so glitzy.  Not so funny.  Not so made for TV special.  A young man, NFL star Chris Henry, and his girlfriend got into a fight.  That we know.  She drove away and he jumped onto the bed of the pick-up truck.  That we know.  He fell off the pick-up truck while she was driving and died less than 24 hours later.  That we know.  And that is all we know.  We know of past problems of Chris, but that is no importance to this discussion.  With my dearest respect to the deceased, I noticed something in the media this morning that is troublesome.

Headlines read “NFL Star Killed In Domestic Dispute.”  Not that I have any great knowledge of the English language, but I do know that if one is killed, someone has to be the killer.  Of course, one could kill oneself, but in this scenario, we can make the assumption that he did not.   So, who is the killer?  It is not so hard to understand that the media is inferring that his girlfriend is the one who killed him.  If the girlfriend was trying to escape via the pick-up truck because she feared for her safety, and he jumps onto the back of the pick-up and falls off, was he killed or did he die?

And the reason why I raise this question is in no such way to accuse him and/or her of anything, but rather question how we as a society deal with domestic violence.   When the media says that he was killed, it implies that she was at fault.  Maybe she was, but right now, we do not know that, so why do we go there? 

We live in a very, very violent country and world, for that matter.  We ask our children not to be violent, yet we fight in two wars (some would say unjustly).  We tell our young boys not to hit girls, yet we do so ourselves.   We say things like “man up” or “act like a lady” and suppress showing real emotion.  And we so often accuse the victim of provoking or instigating the violence, and pretend like they deserve it.  The beating of Rihanna by Chris Brown should have opened a national discussion, but it didn’t.  Tiger Woods has become a freak show.  Maybe Chris Henry can inspire us all to take this a little bit more seriously. 

May Chris Henry rest in peace and may his family heal one day from these deep, painful wounds.

Humbly,

Michael Skolnik

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