As much as I love dogs — and I really do have an affinity for them — this case primarily repulses me because I believe Vick got involved with breeding vicious pit bulls because rap-music culture made it the cool thing to do.Does he think Vick, if guilty, should get jail time? No. "Honestly, I don’t wish jail on the people who despise me the most. Incarceration is that dehumanizing." Should Vick be suspended before the season starts? Again, no. "I believe in treating everyone fairly. Suspending Vick would be too prejudicial (legal term, not a race term) and inhibit his ability to receive a fair trial."
So Michael Vick, allegedly, owned a farm and a "business" that raised and trained dogs to attack and kill each other for the entertainment of him, his friends, and his family. Who's to blame? Jason Whitlock names names.
Vick has destroyed his athletic reputation while trying to keep pace with T.I.
N.W.A., the late-1980s rap group, hijacked hip-hop years ago, and calls to return it to something resembling decency and self-respect have fallen on Def Jam ear$.
Allen Iverson and his sneaker/jersey sales hijacked the image of black professional athletes years ago...There you have it. T.I., NWA, Allen Iverson, and Russell Simmons are the real culprits here.
And, if you have a scorebook at home, we now know that Russell Simmons is adamantly opposed to the killing and brutalization of dogs, but he is in favor of the glorification of killing black men in music.
I know I join Whitlock is sincerely hoping that Vick grows and learns from this and becomes a better person so he can be a leader to his teammates and an example to all of us of a person who can learn from his mistakes and "evolve" away from hip-hop destructiveness.
4 comments:
I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't blame everyone else for actions Vick allegedly took.
I liked Dave Zirin's take on the whole thing (I get his weekly e-mail dispatch, I think it is usually the same stuff he writes for the Nation), from this week's column:
The case is no longer just about what Vick did or did not do on the
property he owned in Virginia that housed an alleged dogfighting operation. It's about celebrity, racism, the South and the precarious position of the African-American athlete. As someone in the Atlanta sports-radio universe described the local populace, "Half hate him. Half don't. Why? He's a black quarterback who represents hip-hop culture."
The whole column can be found at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070730/southpaw
If what people have said so far is true, I think Vick was involved in some pretty deplorable shit, but as Zirin points out there are forces at work beyond the straightforward reaction to the act(s) of dogfighting itself.
P.S. I worked on an affiliation of an independent at a steel processing plant in Hammond, IN (just outside Chicago). The president of the local mentioned that he was involved in cock fighting, and by involved I mean raised the roosters and brung 'em to the fights. Another staff person asked him if they put little metal spurs on the cocks to give them weapons. His response "Oh yeah. It'd be inhumane not to, the fights would go on for hours without the spurs."
Much like the Duke rape case, Vick's problems have nothing do to with race(ism)or the culture of the South or any of the other crap written about it. The man is a psychopath and should be treated as such. Anyone - no matter color they are - who can treat animals this way is little better better than a rabid beast themself. Nothing the law does to this man is too much; it is a tradgedy that they cannot lock the sick bastard up for the rest of his life.
like a scab that i just can't help picking, even when it comes up in off-topic comments...
the Duke case had *everything* to do with race. (in fact, since the rape charges have been dropped, one could argue that it has *more* to do with race than with sexual assault...)
"culture of the South"? not relevant in the Duke case, as all of the accused were privileged white boys from Long Island or New Jersey, i.e. "up north" where everyone is so much more educated and enlightened than us dumb hicks down south!
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