CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Though Carolina Panthers fans can’t be happy with the Sunday night thrashing their team took in a nationally televised game against Pittsburgh, they didn’t mind thinking about football – just football. But even as Steelers and Panthers fans exchanged some pre-game trash talk while enjoying a meal in the Carolina sunshine, they had some things to say about the issue of domestic violence, one that has enmeshed NFL leadership and the team that plays in Charlotte.
In some ways, their sentiments were not that different from members of a panel of survivors of domestic violence the day before – both groups were critical of the NFL’s reaction to the Ray Rice episode but grateful that the issue is in the open. On Saturday, at a meeting of the Charlotte Area Association of Black Journalists, three women added dimension to the image of victim. And fans and survivors found common ground.
