Just when you think you can't grow any more; just when you think you've found your flow, someone calls you up and asks you to talk and write about the very thing you hope to avoid. This is the position I find myself in today.Just like people admitted they didn't know who Juanita Bynum was, I didn't know who Michael Vick was. Nor did I care to know. Nothing personal. I just have never been a big football fan - despite having spent four years at the University of Michigan. I am sure that this is identified as a sin somewhere in the good book.
Today, I gave my take on the latest concerning Michael Vick and his recent indictment by a grand jury in Virginia on state charges relating to a dogfighting ring operated on a property owned by the quarterback in rural Surry County. Why, oh, why are we still talking about this? Now, I didn't get too much into this the first go around like the brothers on this site when Vick was originally brought up on federal charges on which he is scheduled to be sentenced on December 10th after pleading guilty last month in federal court to his involvement dogfighting.
However, unless you were dead, you couldn't help but get wind of it every 5 seconds on some news channel. I am saddened and angry by this whole emphasis and focus on Vick for a number of reasons. Among them is that this just represents another Black man who seems like he can barely stay on top of the mountain long enough before he is somehow knocked off. At 27 years old and a $130 million NFL contract in tow, Mr. Vick had it made. Now fighting dogs has put him in the dog house.
There are those who want to blame hip hop for the glorification of dogfighting as part of hip hop culture that contributed to Vick being in the situation that he's in. I would have to disagree on this one. First, it was the glorification of the exploitation of Black women in music videos and now it's dogs. It's fair to say it certainly hasn't been a good year for hip hop. However, I am not sure if I would pin this whole dogfighting thing on hip hop. My research shows that dogfighting actually goes as far back to the 18th century during the Roman empire and during Elizabethan times in England. Black folks didn't create dogfighting. In fact...
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