No Sympathy for Michael Vick

Unless you've buried yourself in a ditch under a rock, you've heard about the Michael Vick case with the Atlanta Falcons quarterback having legal troubles with dog fighting. There is speculation over moral issues like whether dog fighting is wrong or is it a sport much like bull fighting. There are those who say that the only reason that Michael Vick was arrested was due to him being Black and why other issues like the Jena 6, the torturing of Megan Williams, or the legal issues with bootleg condoms being sold in urban communities did not get as much exposure. As a Black woman who cringes at the thought of yet another Black man having legal issues and a hardcore dog lover, I've read about this case and up until now have offered no opinion on it. But after watching the BET Hip Hop Awards when rapper David Banner waved Vick's jersey and said he still has love for Michael Vick and Katt Williams saying there are more important things in the world than dog fighting, I'm finally fed up with folks acting like dogs killing dogs is no big deal.

If I see someone with a baby walk by, there's about a 25% chance that I'll look at the child. But if somebody is walking a dog, my head immediately curves to grin at it. I am a hardcore dog lover, a former dog owner for 13 years, and genuinely enjoy animal companionship. I've been a vegetarian for two years now, have no future intention of eating anything that used to have eyes, and think that PETA had every right to target Michael Vick for dog fighting. I regularly read about PETA's legal cases against anybody who participates in animal torture, and I do not believe that race was their leading reason for going after him. He was wrong. Flat out. Plenty of Black people, myself included, complain about the injustice and slanted legal system when it comes to us, but this time around, I'm not sympathizing with this dude. I signed the petition to have him arrested for that immediately. I don't follow sports. I didn't know who he was. I read the case. I saw the proof. And regardless of him not being there when the mansion was raided for drugs, nobody should own a home and not know what's going on inside of it. It's irresponsible, immature, and cruel to just let somebody run a dog fighting operation in your home. I later read information that he was one of the people to kill the dogs who lost. Now how untouchable does a man think he can be to have people in his house operating an illegal business knowing full well that he's a celebrity who people have their eyes on anyway?

In the October 2007 issue of The Sourcemagazine, there is an in-depth article on how dog fighting came about in ancient Rome where dogs were thrown into coliseums against elephants and were stomped to death for entertainment. "After the fall of the Roman Empire, fighting dogs appeared in medieval England around the 12^th century. In a practice known as baiting, dogs were pitted against bulls, bears, lions, and elephants," according to The Source. The article, "Survival of the Fittest," went on to explain that with the development of the Staffordshire bull terrier around 1800, the ultimate fighting dog who could battle for hours, dog fighting became more popular. According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, dog fighting appeared again in the 1750s after being outlawed by Parliament with the Humane Act of 1835. Sporting Dog Journal and Pit Dog Report, magazines created in 1967 and 1970, had breeding registries, fight records, bloodlines, and information on purchasing bull terriers (American pit bull terriers), and the magazines are still printed today. That information threw me. If dog fighting is illegal, why have the owners of these magazines not been looked at and the people who are reportedly continuing the practice arrested just like Michael Vick? The more I read information like this, the more I wonder do folks who point the finger at race have a point. PETA doesn't seem to care about race. They go after anybody who kills or tortures animals with a vengeance, including slaughterhouses and medical testing facilities. But as long as this practice has been going on and the more America slaps dead cows, pigs, horses, and deer in their grocery stories, how can we ignore animal cruelty with other animals? All in all, it's killing animals. Does it make it any better when slaughterhouses chain a cow so the calf can feed off of her even when she has no choice in the matter? The cow is trying to kick and scream from pain, but is locked down on its side left to be sore and miserable. Is that any worse than having a machine to lock a female pitbull into place so male pitbulls can rape her to reproduce? When the cow can no longer produce milk, it is killed for meat. When a dog turns its back on a fight in defeat, it is slammed into the ground, hit with break sticks, shot, or kicked to death. To me, it's all one and the same. If dogs were more popular to eat, nobody but PETA would even be concerned with animal cruelty.

On my way home from seeing Tyler Perry's latest movie, "Why Did I Get Married?," I was in a pretty good mood until I heard a White guy on the train complaining about a case he has after some woman complained about him dog fighting. He told his friend that he couldn't figure out how she knew because he used German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers instead of pitbulls. According to him, he had his lawyer say that the Labs had wounds from allergies, but German Shepherds are not allergic to anything so he couldn't use that excuse. He ranted about how Google should be more responsible and tell Shepherd owners that these dogs don't have allergies. Why? So he can find another kind of dog to have raped and fight to death? I tried to block him out, and then I alerted myself hoping he'd say where he lived or where people could see these fights so I could tell PETA. His girlfriend cuddled up next to him and listened to him talk about dog fighting like he was crooning J. Holiday's "Bed." This conversation was by no stretch of the imagination romantic.

Plain and simple, I hate to hear about a brotha going to jail who doesn't deserve to be there, but in Vick's case, I have no sympathy for him, no love for him, and I don't care what happens to him. I don't care that the 27-year-old Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, 35-year-old Purnell Pearce of Virginia Beach, 28-year-old ATL representative Quanis Phillips, or 34-year-old Tony Taylor of Hampton are having troubles with the legal system. Why should I sympathize with them when they didn't sympathize with something I love more than them? Dogs. What people do not understand about K9s are that they have teeth and can kill you at a moment's notice. They choose not to because they want the same love, caring, and health that any human being wants. They breathe. They eat. They whimper and cry. They protect. But when they are cornered, they fight for protection and hate to be caged, much like so many Black men who are in prison now. Brothas, if you don't want to go to prison for doing something that you know is wrong, don't whine about it later. Just don't do it. And this is not just for Black men. I think anybody who is responsible for dog fighting should be imprisoned. Everyone and everything has a right to live and people watching a living thing die just for the hell of it and for your entertainment are some sick individuals. Would you be entertained to watch two prisoners go at it until they kill each other or a woman being chained to the floor so babies can breastfeed from her and then kill her when she's done feeding? Yeah, I didn't think so.