The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: If Michael Vick were White He Would Still be a Piece of Human Debris

Race is an undeniable and complex element of Vick's story, both because of his style as well as the rarity of black QBs in the NFL. A decade after he became the first black QB to be drafted No. 1 overall, about one in five of the league's passers is African-American, compared with two-thirds of all players. But after his arrest for dogfighting, so many people asked: Would a white football player have gotten nearly two years in prison for what Vick did to dogs?

This question makes me cringe. It is so facile, naive, shortsighted and flawed that it is meaningless. Whiteness comes with great advantages, but it's not a get-out-of-every-crime-free card. Killing dogs is a heinous crime that disgusts and frightens many Americans. I'm certain white privilege would not be enough to rescue a white NFL star caught killing dogs.

Dog equals God.

On a day when I read about a noble four legged friend sitting Shiva for his slain Navy Seal human friend, the following piece on Michael Vick was really ill-timed.

I generally like Toure's writing. But, I cannot cosign this excuse making disguised as an exploration of Michael Vick's wicked behavior. So, this will be a bit of a promo that I am cutting on the subject. Proceed at your caution.

The following is normative as these types of editorials often are. Moreover, I maintain no semblance of fairness or empathy towards Michael Vick, the beast that he is.

In all, this will be one of those moments where the silent majority will agree or disagree with unanimous sentiment. I may lose a few of you. More generally, this honesty and real talk will confuse those who want to brand me as being a stereotypical "liberal" or "progressive." Black Pragmatists are so much more than that my friends. I embrace that ability to go both Left and Right at the same time. Black folks are and remain both modern and postmodern.

I cannot resist using that gift.

Blackness can be oh so confusing.

We rarely talk about sports here on We Are Respectable Negroes. However, sports is also politics. And when we talk about million dollar slaves and the politicization of the black body, questions of race and representation cannot help but bubble to the surface.

I cannot accept the soft bigotry of low expectations wherein some make excuses for the criminal behavior of people of color out of a sense of pity (or as I term it, "liberal racism"). That does not mean that structures are unimportant. We must always take a full account of the whole person.

Thus, when I talk about street pirate flash mobs, thuggish criminal behavior, Moynihan's prescient insight, or upright-walking, mouth-breathing, human apes, I accept the structural and institutional variables. But, I always zero in on human agency and the power of choice. The latter may be truncated and limited by classism, sexism, or white supremacy. Nevertheless, they are still operative and are not universally overriding.

I cannot escape the following though: One of the reasons I love the Black Freedom Struggle and see we/us as part of it even into the Age of Obama is that despite how easy it would be to justify the wrong, black folks as a people have more often than not chosen the correct path of action.

Michael Vick's criminal behavior and cruelty towards his pet dogs is one of the sites where all of those questions intersect. His resuscitation in the eyes of some parts of the public is also an opportunity to critically interrogate the role of celebrity in American public life. I would also suggest that on both counts, much of the sports viewing public has failed...and done so miserably.

There is a common error: All matters of criminality and irresponsibility are not necessarily related to "blackness" or "culture." Certainly, the latter is socially located and specific. It is also contingent on historical circumstances. I bristle when I see folks who should know better seeking to explain the inexplicable; to make sense of that which is prima facie absurd and cruel on its face.

In the barbershops and other parts of the black counter-public which I frequent, and where I have brought up my thoughts on Michael Vick, I have been met with anger and at times rage. The latter often comes from man-children who can tell you every stat on the Madden NFL video game, but not how much they have in the bank or in their IRAs--their opinion is significantly discounted in my eyes as they have not learned to grow beyond the idolization(s) of youth.

I have also met smart and wise men who would echo the following.

As Toure suggests:

Here's another question: If Vick grew up with the paternal support that white kids are more likely to have (72 percent percent of black children are born to unwed mothers compared with 29 percent of white children), would he have been involved in dogfighting? I ask this not to look for an excuse but to explore the roots of his behavior. Vick's stunningly stupid moral breakdown with respect to dogs is certainly related to the culture of the world he grew up in, which he says fully embraced dogfighting.

But it's also related to the household he grew up in.

Those smart folks I alluded to above also make claims about the "culture" of the South and how dog fighting is "acceptable" there. Or that this matter isn't about race, rather it is about "regional identity." Others offer the experiences of black folks hunted by dogs during slavery. Therefore, our historical closeness to such animals is not the same as that of whites. More well read brothers always go back to Brother Cornel West's points about cultural nihilism in (black) American life and excuse-make on the basis of neo liberalism's failings and how deindustrialization and the black culture industry made us all into "victims."

Insert finger into throat to induce vomiting.

We can grant all of those points and still be left with a puzzle: the killing, maiming, and evil treatment of sympathetic, loyal, and feeling animals by Michael Vick and others is relatively uncommon. Given the macro-level forces that drive race, class, and culture, how do we explain those poor black and brown folks in Katrina who died with their pets, doing everything to save their animal family members? How do we explain those other working class and poor black folks who would feed their pets in the time of the Great Recession before they themselves ate?

It is true that we live in a cold world where many children are born into broken homes. Street courage and toughness is prized above empathy and vulnerability. We also live in a moment where little black boys are told they are "little men" at age the of 5 or 6--"the man of the house"--and then we shake our heads when these same children commit adult crimes and get into mischief because they lack impulse control and life wisdom.

These "little men" are often abused and slapped in the faces by their caregivers when they show any weakness, vulnerability, or curiosity. Amd ultimately for these hard women and hard men who "parent" those kids, human sympathy and empathy are liabilities. Childhood is discarded when they are young. Ironically, it is cultivated and prized when they are adult "baby boys."

The racial state would have it no other way. Bad black parenting does the work of white supremacy. And yes, I did indeed say that.

The black underclass and those afflicted with ghetto related behaviors have for the most part still not found a way out of that labyrinth.

I must ask: How does sociological theory obfuscate what we actually know about the Michael Vicks of the world?
Toure continues:

So let's look at him a different way. Let's see him as someone in the third act of the epic movie that is his life, leading a team that many expect to see in the Super Bowl. Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" is playing underneath because the humbled protagonist has finally overcome his personal demons and has begun living up to his athletic promise. And to those who believe we should judge a man by how he responds when dealing with the worst life has to offer -- with how he climbs after he hits rock bottom -- Michael Vick has become heroic.And that has nothing to do with race.

Michael Vick is no hero. How did our standards for heroism fall so low such that the ill deeds of humans who kill and abuse their trusting pets, and then go to jail for their evil, is elevated as some great journey of self-discovery and reinvention?

Michael Vick is a piece of human refuse. I would say that if he were black, white, brown, yellow, green, or red. A sense of linked fate does not protect him from the consequence of his choices.

Yet sadly, the union of money ball, plus a stereotypically desperate story of underclass ghetto degeneracy is perhaps one of the few areas where Vick's race provides any defense for those whose commitments on these issues are more casual and contingent.

If a poor white country boy (or a rich white man) had done Michael Vick's horrible crimes I am unsure if there would be any redemption song. Well, I take that back. Perhaps there would be, as many who can make millions for others often find forgiveness in a culture where falls from grace and rising again are viewed as noble second acts in life.

Thus then, for Michael Vick, the soft bigotry of low expectations mates with the prime mover of greed and the capitalist bottom line. Nevertheless, the balance sheet on his personhood and soul are still a gross negative.

Animal murderers and dog fighters have a propensity for other criminal deeds. Mark my words, Michael Vick may have gotten a second act in life; he will not be able to correct the character defect which motivates his behavior. Vick will be in jail again, and perhaps next time it will be for an even greater crime.

I sharpen my knives waiting for that day.