The ballyhoo about Michael Vick
By Ifezue Okoli
August 22, 2007
The ballyhoo about Michael Vick's dog fighting activity is nothing but vice paying homage to virtue. This sentimental charade cloaked as "public outcry"; from the backwoods of America to the Capitol Hill, is propagated by the same hypocrites that condone and engage in the inhumane treatment of ducks and other animals, not to mention their insensitivity to their fellow human beings. You will not see them on the street protesting, when another human being, particularly a young African American male, has been brutalized or malicious murdered or railroaded, as so frequently happens.
They love dogs more than their fellow man and when they are not blasting ducks to pieces in their hunting trips, they are force-feeding them for their decadent relish of “foie gras" — an act no less inhumane than dog fighting.
I don’t approve of what Vick has been accused of doing. I can’t imagine any action, by a person of his stature, more stupid than what he has been accuse of. But it seems to me that he is being singled out and selectively treated. The way Vick has been targeted is not surprising, after all as an African American male, sporting corn rows, he is in that category of “the usual suspects”, with the ever present perception of criminal persona hanging over them.
A few weeks ago Tank Johnson was essentially railroaded. He lost his contract with the Chicago Bears because an over-zealous police officer, who was after sensationalism than keeping the law, pulled him over and booked him with a false allegation of DUI. Well, it turned out that Johnson was not driving under the influence. But who cares; it is not justice they are after, it is carriage of malice.
I know I will be accused of playing the race-card, but the truth is only just that, the truth and I have spoken it. Vick did wrong, but the same people screaming “stone him”, “crucify him”, are themselves with unclean hands. As Dylan once said, “when something is not right, it is wrong.”
You can read more about the author's views on perception in his upcoming book:
The Power of Definition (How Perception Becomes Reality).
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