Making Choices
(I still can’t bring myself to post a real dog fighting pic because they are too gross. This will have to do).
In his Washington Post article, Playing to Wrong Crowd, Mark Maske makes a good point about misplaced loyalties and the role it played in Michael Vick’s undoing. The choice of staying with “your boys” or lifting yourself up, is a choice that many black athletes have to make and too many are making the wrong one. It’s not exclusive to sports. It’s a choice that young black men who grew up in neighborhoods where many of their childhood friends were involved in some form of criminal activity, have to make. Once you have gotten your opportunity to move up, do you bring your friends up with you or do you try to stay up to some and down for them? It’s a balancing act doomed to failure.
Vick put himself in this position by letting his boys keep him down instead of making the choice to pull them up. And don’t be mistaken, it was his choice. He was not the follower in this group. He was the The Man and his boys would have either followed him up or gone their separate ways. No, Vick made a choice and probably considered himself “keeping it real” which to many in the black community means “doing things the wrong way.” And don’t give me any of that “he can’t leave his boys behind; the boys who stood by him when he was nothing.” That’s BS. He can and should leave behind anyone who isn’t willing to appreciate the changed circumstances and responsibilities his fame brings him and help him preserve what he’s worked so hard for.
Instead of answering the call that the honor of playing professional football for millions of dollars gave him, he answered the call of the streets and whatever sick name you would give to hanging/drowning/electrocuting animals. In the end, his “boys” he was keeping it real with turned on him at the drop of a dime. I guess they were just “keeping it real” too.
And enough with the argument that he shouldn’t go to jail for “just” killing dogs. He is not going to jail for killing dogs (although the sick way he did it would be enough reason for many, including me). He is going to jail for funding, operating and participating in a criminal enterprise. Although I’m sure the “dog” aspect makes it seem worse, crime is about Intent to commit a crime and taking Action necessary to follow through on that crime, not about who does or doesn’t love dogs.
9 Responses to “Making Choices”
That was an overall very good post, but it should not be directed to only ‘black’ athletes. Almost all athletes, regardless of their race, that come from disadvantged backgrounds face the same situation and mentality, and I don’t think any one race has more or less of an issue with it.
Once the success starts, it is an indication of the individual’s character as to whether they can cut the ties that bind them to the past.
They guy killed and tortured animals for amusement. I don’t really care what he goes to jail for as long as he goes.
As for answering the call to play pro ball with honor I don’t even get that statement. Fame and fortune are anything but a chance to develop integrity and class. You’ve either got em or you don’t. It is however an excellent opportunity for you to display a lack of them for the world.
As an animal lover, I think they should lock Vick up and throw away the key. It is almost inconceivable that a human being would choose to do this to a living, feeling being for profit and pleasure. It seems like pro athletes no longer feel that they need to be role models for our youth, and act like irresponsible, spoiled children, whose every indulgence must be met immediately. Vick should be shunned by the sports world for these criminal and heinous acts.
I have never been able to believe that someone who could do to animals what Vick and friends did don’t have a serious potential to carry their violence over to people. Not when it comes to the level of cruelty they displayed.
Awww. Awww. That picture is so cute. It’s like they’re puppies kissing or playing or some’at. You can’t have a serious discussion like this with a picture like that. You just can’t do it. I read a sentence of your post, and then I scroll back up, and go ‘awwwwwwwwwww’, and it happens over and over again. I can’t even think about the substance of what you’re saying because that picture is just so ridiculously cute. It’s like a baby farting for the first time.
Yes, Austin, the indicator of success is abandoning your past. That’s a pretty steep generalization there, don’t ya think? Especially targetting the poor, as though every poor person on the planet spends their days fighting dogs and roosters. I don’t know. I’ve been poor. I’ve never had the inclination to electrocute a dog because he wasn’t pulling his weight in the squared circle.
People need to stop trying to manage insight and judgment into athletes as though this is a black thing or a poor thing. No, it’s an individual thing. People need to get their acts together, and it doesn’t mean sticking buy your friends and past or leaving them. It doesn’t mean any of what you’re talking about. What it means is people need to not run dogfighting rings or kill their spouses or fix games or any of that business. You know why? Because these are terrible things, and many of them are illegal.
That’s the big insight. It’s not this half-hearted take on black youth. It’s not. It’s not even accurate to say it’s just for the formerly poor athletes, or even to include the rich athletes thereafter. It’s not accurate to make those sweeping generalizations and figuring the answer to the problem lies in a Disney take on overcoming yourself. It doesn’t. It lies in a fundamentally basic grasp of reality, the legal system, and personal responsibilities and obligations.
It’s not wrong for Michael Vick to hang out with his friends. It’s not wrong for him to feel loyalty to them. It’s not wrong for Michael Vick to be a black man, even though that allows you essentially to patronize him in your opening post there in this ‘life lesson for black kids’ sort of way. It’s wrong for Michael Vick to run a dog-fighting ring, and go about killin’ dogs. That’s what he did. That’s what was illegal and was immoral.
Don’t try to pin it down to what you make out to be the loyalties of black men in America, because all that does is allow you to preach to black folk at large on how to live. Don’t put it on poor people, either, for the same reasons. All it does is give you a mount from which to preach your sermon, but your sermon doesn’t hit the mark. We all have a fair understanding of the realities. The reality is, don’t run a dogfighting ring. Don’t kill anybody. Don’t fix or throw games. That’s it. It’s very simple. All athletes and people in general need to do is to remember those basic things.
Enough of the nonsense you’re spouting and the rhetoric you’re using to spout it. It just furthers economic and racial prejudice needlessly. Poor people and black people don’t need a lecture about Michael Vick. If you look at the screen and you can’t figure out what’s wrong with what Michael Vick did, then this lecture wouldn’t reach you anyways. But, if you look at the screen and you can figure it out, then chances are the lecture being produced on here in the posts above insults your intelligence and probably strips you of some dignity as well.
Surge – do you specialize in misinterpreting and twisting out of context to justify launching into a rant? There is no point in even responding further to you.
I have to add that I find the Vick apologists almost as despicable as he is. Today’s WaPo contained an editorial by Courtland Milloy condemning those who judge Vick as hypocrites, because they enjoy eating steak and watching boxing matches- both , according to Milloy, examples of our innate cruelty and inhumanity. Milloy contends that he is a dog lover and has no love for Vick- but then tells us why our outrage is misplaced.
Perhaps he should remember that the slaughter of livestock for necessity is legal, while organizing fights to the death of animals that are valued pets for profit and sheer bloodlust is a felony. Those who choose boxing as a career are making an informed choice that they will be well-compensated for, but can we say that the mangled and murdered dogs used by Vick and his cohorts were willing volunteers or stood to profit from the lethal risk?
I am much more in agreement with the original post than with some of the comments trying to justify toleration of Mr. Vick’s behavior on cultural grounds. I find nothing – nothing – that I could consider justification for sadistic behavior. I think the original post makes a point – people make choices. If the choice to stand by with your friends includes anti-social behavior, giving it a pass for reasons of cultural diversity seems dubious at best, if not wrong headed. And others have pointed this out: many of Vick’s apologists, especially early on, were defending him on grounds of race or class issues. Maybe that point needs to be re-examined. Not all values are worth retaining, and change may involve turning one’s back on such things as blood sports. All to the good. Refusal to change culturally can lead to increasing social and economic isolation.
See Myron Magnet’s article from City Journal:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_black_america.html
Perhaps it is time for all ethnic and gender groups to recognize that no one has a patent on man’s inhumanity to man, and that all of us are capable of unspeakable things, especially when acting as part of a large, anonymous group (for example, a lynch mob). Whites, blacks, males, females, all have this potential, and all have done it. The challenge is encourage less violence, and discourage behavior like Vick’s.