Video courtesy of NBC news.

Say what you will about Vice President Joe Biden's propensity to gaffes; but when he's on, he is dead on. In an interview with the Today Show's Tamron Hall on Tuesday, the VP's commentary on the Ray Rice suspension (and, on a larger scale, violence against women) was right on point.

Biden helped create the Violence Against Women act in 1994, and has since been a vocal advocate against domestic violence. The entire interview is worth a listen, but the key point of the VP's interview speaks to the attitude in this country towards domestic violence and its victims:

"It's never, never, never the woman's fault. No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman. No means no. [...] The one regret I have is we call it domestic violence as if it's a domesticated cat. It is the most vicious form of violence there is, because not only the physical scars are left, the psychological scars that are left. This whole culture for so long has put the onus on the woman. What were you wearing? What did you say? What did you do to provoke? That is never the appropriate question."

Domestic violence isn't a rare phenomenon in America. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, an estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year, and 1 in every 4 women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.

But these are just numbers, considered in the abstract, without faces and names. It shouldn't take a brutal video to make people care about domestic violence. All to often, it takes the spectacle of violence to thrust an issue endured in silence and solitude into the national spotlight.

source: NBC News, the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

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