Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was arrested Saturday on charges of child abuse. The arrest comes after a May incident in Texas, when Peterson is thought to have disciplined his four-year-old child by hitting him with a "switch" made from a tree branch, leaving lacerations on the child's skin.
The Vikings deactivated Peterson for their game against the Patriots. On Monday, Peterson was reinstated by team owners while "the legal process ... proceed[s]."
Reaction to the Peterson case was swift. Former NBA star Charles Barkley said many African Americans in the South discipline children the way Peterson did. Former Vikings wide receiver Cris Carter said he didn't use corporal punishment the way his mother did.
The Rev. Irene Monroe — appearing on WGBH's Boston Public Radio — was disturbed by a spate of recent incidents involving NFL players involved in off-the-field violence. "I think the NFL should change its name from the National Football League to the 'National Felony League,' at this point," Irene Monroe said. "It's just atrocious."
Monroe noted that some African American parents use corporal punishment to prepare their children for racial inequities. "A lot of times you'll have black parents — in what we describe as 'flogging,' and rightly so — flogging their children as a sort of proactive way to discipline them and get them ready for a racist society," Monroe said. "Eighty-nine percent of African Americans agree with corporal punishment."
The Rev. Emmett G. Price III, also speaking on Boston Public Radio, agreed. "In the cultural context, whipping, spanking, flogging (...) has been a part of the tradition. It has been an 'interceptory process' by which you manage your children out of fear," Price said. "African American children don't have a second chance for success. (...) I feel for this four-year-old."
Boston Public Radio cohost Jim Braude said that there is a difference between spanking and using a switch to discipline a child. "This is physical assault of the worst kind."
Rev. Monroe quoted First Lady Michelle Obama, who has spoken about spanking her children. "I did it one or two times and just found it to be completely ineffective because it was less about teaching a lesson and more about my own [feelings]."
"That also assumes there's only two approaches. There's also a third alternative. You learn how to manage behavior in a different way," Price said. "We have the retrospective ability to look at our own lives — for those of us who were whipped, or spanked, or flogged — and [see] that it may not have been the best situation, (...) although we understand the scenario by which it occurred."
Braude and co-host Margery Eagan asked Price and Monroe whether it was appropriate for Adrian Peterson to cite Biblical verse in his defense, as he did in a series of Tweets.
"This mis-analysis or mis-exegesis of the Bible really rivets me, because that's not the appropriate" analysis, Price said. "He made a decision, it was a bad decision for a whole number of reasons."
Rev. Monroe said there is some hope on the horizon. Monroe cited the abandonment of corporal punishment in Catholic schools as a significant departure. "I used to call the nuns 'thug-ettes' because these little 'thug-ettes' used to beat the hell out of you, not realizing they were beating the life of you," Monroe said. "They know today not to do it. There is hope in terms of positive disciplining."
