You May Not Like What I Have to Say

I don't approve of dog fights but then I also think that boxing is a cruel sport. Two people climb into a ring, and try to see which one can knock the other one out first.  I don't get it, but lots of people clearly don't have a problem with boxing, even though on occasion, someone dies as a result of being in the ring. One is legal, the other is not; I get that. I also understand that the dogs don't have any say so as to whether or not they will become fighters. 

I also recognize that this is a society where boxing is an acceptable, popular, profitable, and legal sport.  But this is also a society where sportsmanship often takes a backseat to violence. Fights among opposing teams at athletic events have become expected in some sports. The violence has invaded the little league venues as well.  Parents yell, curse and smack each other while attending their children's athletic activities.  In a truly sad case a few years ago, one parent beat another parent to death as a result of his disagreement with the way the victim monitored a pick up hockey game. As a society, we often behave badly and engage in violent behavior.

We also mistreat animals in other contexts. Hogs, chickens, turkeys, etc. are raised under horrible conditions to supply us with meat on our tables. There is nothing humane  about slaughterhouses. So, I'm tired of folks acting as if Michael Vick is the second coming of Satan because of his involvement with dog fighting. I think that he is definitely ignorant and could have used a good mentor to help him understand that he was on a dangerous and self-destructive path. I think that he was engaged in an illegal activity and deserves some punishment. I find dog fighting reprehensible and cruel. I cannot comprehend how anyone would view it as entertainment, but conservative estimates are that there are 40,000 people involved in the business end of dog fighting--putting on fights, buying and selling dogs. The size of the viewing audience cannot be precisely determined but dog fighting prize purses may be as much as $100,000. It's a big and illegal industry.  However, I also know that Mr. Vick did not invent dog fighting and there are far scarier monsters walking among us than Michael Vick.

I can't stop myself from reading the comments on message boards about the Michael Vick case. Many advocate that Vick be executed for his cruelty to animals. There are also a shocking number of comments that seem to associate Mr. Vick's activities with his race. According to many posters, Mr. Vick is typical of violent black men. One poster keeps repeatedly adding his comment, "Send the Darky home." I'm not clear as to where home is. Mr. Vick was born in this country; he is home. In my home state of North Carolina, generally the sad looking individuals paraded on the evening news who have been arrested for dog fighting are white men and a few white women. I have never concluded that they somehow represent a predilection for violence in white people.

Over the years, I have rarely witnessed this much excitement about cruelty to human beings. The young black woman who was recently held and tortured in Tennessee by the rejects from "The Hills Have Eyes," hasn't garnered as much media attention or outpouring of caring as the abused dogs in Vick's case. Her story has barely caused a ripple in the media although she was held for more than a week by six people who repeatedly tortured, raped, and humiliated her. It happens that the six people were white and three of them were women, but it has never crossed my mind to conclude that white men and women are sadists based on the actions of these six people.

Even when we are convinced that someone's actions have resulted in a loss of life, society doesn't always extract the same penalty. The facts and circumstances are weighed along with the intent of the perpetrator and the  severity of the act. The woman who alleges that she forgot that her two year old was in her car for eight hours will not be charged with a crime in the child's death. The prosecutor says that the act was clearly an accident and doesn't rise to any level of criminal negligence on the part of the mother. The minister's wife who shot her husband in the back while he was in bed, received a three year sentence and served a total of seven months. My point is not to suggest that she deserved a longer sentence but merely to point out that even in murder cases, there may be reasons for the judicial system to show leniency.   People kill, torture, rape and otherwise abuse other people, and receive far less public condemnation than Michael Vick, and far lighter prison sentences than what he is facing.  I can't help but wonder what motivates us to maintain such fervor about Vick's bad behavior but placidly ignore so many other transgressions that surround us on a daily basis.

Now they have decided to save all of the fighting dogs except one. Quite frankly, I wouldn't want one of these dogs for a pet or even living in my neighborhood. However, saving the dogs makes people feel good about how caring and humane we all are. It's so much easier than taking care of the homeless, feeding the hungry , providing aid and support to victims of domestic violence and child abuse, making our prisons into places for rehabilitation, or just plain giving a damn.

Thanks to two journal land friends who in writing about this topic inspired me to examine my own thoughts on the matter, Barry and Spencer. Click their names to read their thoughts on this subject matter.

Tags: Michael Vick, dog fighting, violence, superficiality, casting stones