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.

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?

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.

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.

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.