Thursday, August 30, 2007

Enough is Enough - This Ain't About Dogs People

There comes a time when enough is enough. For the past few months we have been absolutely bombarded with the Michael Vick story. Yes - I get that Americans love dogs (even these disgusting violent pit bulls that have been known to viciously attack children). And no - as bad as pitbulls are - it is not accpetable to kill a dog. But honestly folks if we are to believe this is somehow an issue that even remotely affects our lives then we have absolutely lost our damn minds. But since the most powerful judicial system, media, and politicians and corporations and sporting institutions in the world want to demonize this man for his involvement in a large Southern rural sub-culture (which by the way is predominantly poor and white) - AND since Michael Vick's public downfall has become somehow more important than hundreds of dead Iraqis a day, hundreds of thousands of dead Somalians, not to mention 6 teenage Black boys in Louisiana (Jena 6) who are being abused, imprisoned and face two decades in prison for a school-yard fight against a racist white boy (who by the way did mock lynchings with his white pals and suffered nothing more than some bumps and bruises).. but let's get back to reality - please.

The NFL has tolerated, accepted, and promoted (all the way through the hall of fame) football players who beat the living shit out of their wives, girlfriends, not to mention football players who have been involved in vicious beatings and shootings of other human beings...yet somehow, some way the commissioner (Roger Goodell) of the NFL feels empowered to write a demonizing letter to Michael Vick as if he is below redemption. As if his crimes are so bad that he is no different then a serial killer. And nowhere, nowhere do I see a pushback.

I'm not a Michael Vick apologist, but something sickens my stomach in an awful way when Robert Byrd (D - West Virginia), one of the most powerful men in the Senate, let alone the world, gets on the Senate floor a month ago and spends our tax dollars to shout, with tears running from his cheeks that: "It is a brutal, sadistic event motivated by barbarism of the worst sort and cruelty of the worst, worst, worst, sadistic kind. One is left wondering: Who are the real animals? Who are the real animals, who are the real animals -- the creatures inside the ring or the creatures outside the ring? The training of these poor creatures -- weigh those words -- the training of these poor creatures --weigh them -- the training of these poor creatures to turn themselves into fighting machines is simply barbaric. Barbaric! Barbaric! Barbaric! Let that word resound from hill to hill and from mountain to mountain, from valley to valley across this broad land. Barbaric, barbaric! The Book of Proverbs in the Holy Bible, the King James Bible, tells us a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The immortal Dante tells us the divine justice reserves special places in Hell for certain categories of sinners. Madam president, I am confident -- madam president, I am confident that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for the souls of sick and brutal people who hold God's creatures in such brutal and cruel contempt! I yield the floor."

Really Robert? Really? I mean Ted Kennedy, the good liberal from Massachusetts patted Byrd on the back after his most emotional Senate floor speech and said, "Good job Bob." Yet how about these words, Bob, do you recognize these words: "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds," or how about these Bob? "the Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." Well he ought to recognize them, because he said them as a rising star of the Ku Klux Klan during a period in which Black boys and men were being lynched on a regular basis in the South. Now the same piece of shit (I'm sorry if it smells like it then it just might be it) named Robert Byrd somehow believes he has the moral authority to damn Michael Vick to hell????? Does anyone else find an obscene familiarity, similarity, ugliness and eerieness in the current venom that is being spewed in unison by every sports writer, Byrd, Roger Goodell, the Virginia prosecutors, to that of the past????? Enough is enough.

Stephon Marbury pointed out that Americans love hunting and didn't understand the American theory of animal hierarchy. And he's right. What makes it acceptable to slaughter rabbits, deer, cows, chickens, ducks, hell you name it we'll kill it...but not dogs???? I don't get it and don't care to get it. Michael Vick is a human being. And you know what he hasn't raped, hurt, or killed another human being. I don't care if people think he's an overpaid, spoiled athlete.. The truth is he is going to federal prison for being a BLACK MAN. Check the history - it is rare for people to serve time for dogfighting and a virtual precedent to have this amount of federal and state resources on something that no one gave a shit about until they heard Vick was involved. Now that PETA (and I sincerely hope you are not a member) has spent all of its time and energy ensuring the public lynching of Michael Vick..are they headed to defend the Jena 6? I doubt that. No something about the lives of Black boys somehow doesn't excite America the way some dead pitbulls does...Jesus..2007 ---- can anyone tell me things have really changed? I'm done..and about to buy another Michael Vick Jersey! Sorry just the way I feel.

3 comments:

KZ said...

damn boy - u took the words right out of my mouth - but honestly I could have never expressed them in the historical context as you have and in light of the current Jena 6 situation. I only hoped you had sad something about isn't it weird that that fuckin nba ref is gettin no where near as much media attention...almost like if it did, it would bring down the establishment...and oh no we could never let a white man do that...only nba players who fight each other can do that!
KZ

Unknown said...

You are quite right about the kind of mindset which has become dominant.
>How does one recover/heal from that mindset? No one, as far as I know, has
>ever tried to figure out what Einstein meant when he said after Hiroshima
>that "With the splitting of the atom, everything changed except the way we
>think". That sentence is much more profound than what it seems: the
>splitting of the atom began with the deliberate splitting of humanity about
>5 centuries ago: with a twin genocide which decreed that some people were
>not worth anything as humans.
>
>The mindset which led Vick to do what he did is also part of the mindset
>which has led his detractors to decide that only they will decide who
>counts and who does not as humanity.
>
>Vick is not part of the "discoverers". As a "discovered" he has provided
>the discoverers with an opportunity to pretend that only they are morally fit to
>pronounce on what is evil and what is not.
>
>One is left wondering what it is going to take to recover/heal from this
>kind of mindset. JD

Lariena said...

Wow Danny!?? I mean wow!? This is a very powerful piece and I hadn't thought about it in these terms until I actually read what you wrote.? I am an avid animal lover and deplore any acts of violence against these creatures.? What I do find alarming (now that you point this out) is that where is the media outrage or coverage of the laboratories committing more heinous offenses/ inhumane experiements against poor defenseless animals or the farms that are housed in cages that are too small, who are killed inhumanely, etc.?
Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention and for actually getting me to think.

Success is dependent on effort."
Sophocles