The tone of many of the 347 comments to an AOL Sports interview in which we were quoted:
illustrates the point that in America, the influence of race is not only inescapable, but it is present in everyday affairs even when Blacks may think it is not. It appears not merely as a surface issue, but a sub-surface factor in snubs, glances, transactions, decisions, media coverage, and language. Though many of the commenters feel that Blacks who view the Vick dilemma are sticking “race” in where it has no business, the comments of supposed progressives Joe Biden, Don Imus, Michael Richards, and the CNN editors who used the word “refugee” in their Hurricane Katrina graphics, demonstrate it is never absent. Rush Limbaugh demonstrated that it informs the way people view NFL quarterbacks- no less a football expert than he called one of the three best quarterbacks in the league at the time overrated because he is Black.
Though Black Americans go about their daily lives without the time to wonder if every slight, overpricing, dating misspeak, or media gafffe was inspired by subconscious racism, many are. Only those who are mistaken for white, or standing within unknown earshot, may attest to the racist jokes in poor taste, the comments about parking in certain parts of town, or the remarks about a co-worker not present. Rather than invoke the so-called “race card” at every opportunity, most Blacks swallow 95% of the daily indignities, personal, professional, or media-generated, the better to pick their battles. No one is saying dogs don’t matter, or Michael Vick, if proven guilty, is a saint. The commenters are angry that skin color is even a part of the Vick discussion. All most of the Blacks, or advocacy groups have said is that where have PETA, the ASPCA, and The Humane Society been all these years? People have been cockfighting, bullfighting, steer roping, hunting for sport, and abusing animals long before Michael Vick was born. How did we get to the point where some species were endangered, through the acts of Michael Vick? There is more to the name calling vitriol in these comments (that he is an “animal”), and the desire to do something to him physically, than love of living things. Were love of living things the motive, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay would have driven Americans off the deep end in their revulsion and protest. Did they? Not so much. Were people as ticked off when the NYPD pumped 50 bullets into Sean Bell on the eve of his wedding?
Racism must be present, despite all claims that were Tom Brady or Bret Favre so indicted, people would be similarly incensed. Vick plays a position that, for reasons of race, no Black had won a Super Bowl playing until 1988. Vick plays a sport in which more than half the professional players are Black, and more than half at the major college football powers, yet less than a handful of those colleges have Black head coaches. Vick is a member of the race Don Imus called some athletes he had never met “nappy-headed”. How can complexion not figure into peoples’ perception of Vick?
No one likes to hear that, as it is an accusation of subconscious racism. Who wants to be called out for doing something unwittingly? The commenters say they are tired of Blacks attributing everything to ethnicity, and even blame certain Black “leaders” for doing so over and over again. Black folk are fed up with some whites making everything racial from anti-Dukakis and anti-Harold Ford campaign ads, to beer commercials, to cocaine laws. As if racism is dead, and people are making these things up. People are imaging that in recent years, companies such as Avis Rental Car and Bally’s Fitness have marked applications to designate “race”, for varying reasons. Banks don’t “red line”, and evrybody has more check cashing centers than investment institutions in their communities. Sure- and Senator Biden would have pointed out that Senator Edwards is “clean” and “articulate”. As if one expects a U.S. senator not to be a competent speaker.
When the Imus story was a big deal, MSNBC’s Nora O’Donnell, who is not exactly a Klan member, remarked that the Rutgers lady basketball players were “..so articulate…”. Uh, yeah, Nora, they’re in college, just as you once were, only you didn’t have to balance sports and athletics. If O’Donnell, Biden and Imus view Black through a prism of color, why wouldn’t those who are reacting to Vick? Studies show Black drivers are pulled over on the Jersey Turnpike in larger numbers per capita than they represent in the population. Studies show that NBA officials call more fouls and technical fouls per player on Blacks than whites. Are PETA members living in some color-blind society outside the U.S.? Race permeates everything from how teachers view and treat pupils, to how reality show contestants communicate with their Black peers, to the Harold Ford senate race. It is a factor, and not an imagined one, in whether CNN and MSNBC devote more time to the disappearances of Chanrda Levy, Laci Peterson, and Natalee Holloway than that of New York law student Stepha Henry, who is still missing. It was a factor in the language of the Katrina and Rita reports. All Black Americans, and a few whites are saying is, why would this factor disappear when it comes to a multimillion dollar quarterback with a second home? Not that he is right, not that animal torture is fine, but that the volume of protest is unprecedented regarding animal rights. NFL players such as Bret Favre hunt deer every season, for sport, not food- we’ve never heard of peep of PETA about them. The fact that 347 people even wish to make their feelings known concerning Vick says a great deal, and that so many claim to have “read the indictment”. If as many citizens read the FISA laws, the Libby indictment, or about the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, we could really save some living things.
BCB
[...] smokin’ suckers wit logic with this right here: The fact that 347 people even wish to make their feelings known concerning Vick says a great deal, [...]