The Measure of a Man

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”

– Plato

Until Sunday evening, the “Slap Heard ‘Round The World” was either something to do with the WWF and a reporter or Sidney Poitier, depending on your frame of reference. If you associate it with tights and 20/20, then you remember an investigative report that was about to blow the lid off of professional wrestling and the scripted nature of the same. If you’re thinking of Poitier, then you’re a fan of In The Heat Of The Night, and a scene in which Poitier deviates from the book of the same name, and slaps a white man back after being slapped by him. Both references referring to moments that shifted a cultural conversation, though one decidedly of greater historical import.

And then Will Smith had to go and steal that title for himself.

You’ve already read or skipped so many opinions of the moment on Sunday night that Smith forever linked himself to Chris Rock that you wouldn’t find anything new in mine. the juxtaposition of two mostly-likable men on opposite sides of a suddenly mile-wide chasm was disheartening and troublesome for all involved. What has been heartening is the conversation it has fostered and continued in the role of physical violence in today’s world, especially when it comes to men and men of power.

And though the title of the article and the quote it’s fashioned after speak specifically to the Y-chromosome, this type of violent reaction can happen to anyone. With anyone. It just so happens to be a much bigger problem statistically with the male side of the species. The world of sports has been particularly plagued by this sort of black eye, both literally and metaphorically, for years now. It’s only been in the last decade or two that anyone started doing much about it. How have those efforts gone, and is progress actually being made?

The NFL has had an evolving domestic violence policy in place for three decades now, and the results of the efforts have been mixed. While learning about domestic violence, violent impulses, and how to better handle them is now a part of every player’s training on their way into the league, you only need google names like Ray Rice, Zac Stacy, Mario Edwards, Jr. and others to find that there is still a massive problem running through the league. While the NFL and its players are also spending more time and money on efforts to help domestic abuse victims, their players are often still on the wrong side of the equation when it comes to such matters. Even more frustrating, a player’s abilities seem to tie directly into their ability to be forgiven, no matter what the list of their sins might be. Rice was back in the league in an unbelievably short time, and Cleveland’s recent signing of Deshaun Watson only adds more fuel to the fire.

The NBA has its own list of troubled souls who have had domestic violence troubles, and a spotty history of punishing the same. There was an nine-year stretch between Ron Artest seeing time away from the game due to domestic violence issues in 2007 and 2016 where several players were investigated, some even with charges against them, and the league still turning a blind eye. Happily, the last six years have seen basketball take a harder line against such issues, hopefully with a long-term downturn in cases. But not yet. Sadly, not yet.

Major League Baseball is also no stranger to domestic violence, and was a bit behind some of the other leagues in addressing the problem. Baseball didn’t have an official domestic violence policy in place until seven years ago, with only 14 players seeing suspension since the late ’90’s. If it shows any indication the league has started to take a more serious stance on the subject, with the most recent violator, Sam Dyson, facing an entire season’s suspension, the longest the league has ever handed out for such actions.

The NHL is even further behind on this topic, being the only one of the four majors above to still not have a formal domestic violence policy in place, instead choosing to take each item on a case-by-case basis. With a long history of issue dotting the league’s history, including the recent case of Slava Voynov, who missed the entire 2019-20 season, has multiple offenses of this sort dotting his past, and is still looking to be eligible all over again, with the league happy to entertain taking him back. Voynov still makes a check to hit a puck our of Russia’s KHL, in the meantime.

Problems in soccer? Yep. Track and Field? Ask Oscar Pistorius. Lacrosse? Tennis? Golf? Yes. Yes. Yes. There’s not a game being played that isn’t plagued by overaggressive men who take their anger out on someone less powerful than them. The same men who are usually asked to be overaggressive for their paycheck. Tricky and troubling waters, indeed.

Though it rages throughout sport, domestic violence pervades every part of our society. The machismo that pushed Will Smith to strike Chris Rock certainly wasn’t domestic violence, but it was unneeded violence all the same. Was Smith more a man for sticking up for his wife? Was it Rock for taking it and keeping the evening on course? Aren’t we tired of even having to ask these questions? I’ll admit, I am happy to see those collisions and aggressions out on the field. But when you step off that field, the measure of who you are as a man is how you do and do not utilize that power.