When Mike Vick was first arrested for dog fighting, I let him have it on my then talk show on 100.3 The Beat. I had this popular “end show” feature called: The News Ass of The Week and honey, I let him have it. Mostly for being so rich and so talented and so country and alas, so stupid for allowing himself to get caught with his no good country ass friends “cock”–I mean–dog fighting for money. I’ll admit, I was least concerned about the 8 dogs that were “executed”, mostly because I saw a bigger picture that too many tree huggers–I mean–outraged animal lovers refused to see at the time. You can’t sue me for saying so, although I hope if you plan to be mad at this post, you’ll at least wait to hear my point.
During the time that the Mike Vick fiasco was going on, we were also in the midst of trying to make headway with the whole gun lobby thing, particularly in Philadelphia. We were also watching nationally as the murder rates were rising, little kids being shot by other little kids, random gun violence in general. We also were dealing with the Jenna 6 and that little boy in Atlanta who was sentenced to a million years in prison for getting a “professional” from a girl who was a year younger than he was. During that time we had to deal with the ebbing pain of the varying “Sean Bell” occurrences that happened through out the country where police officers did a bit too much of their due diligence to protect their particular city from unarmed, non-violent Black men who had important events the next day–most didn’t make those events, of course. Their new coffin called them home first. Of course, we had a moronic president and we were glued to the tube to partake in the folly of the impending presidential what nots. That is the short list of the goings on while Michael Vick made comparable headlines.
I remember being even more vividly angry at all of us for allowing The Peta “pet group” to put more pressure on the NFL to “hang” Mike Vick for 8 dog lives than we ever did to put the varying governmental feet to the fire to handle everything else that has been wrong in this country that involves millions and millions and millions of actual people, a lot of them young and pigmented. A lot of those millions now dead.
I got an youtube link from my friend and poet Just Greg where he recited a poem he wrote for Michael Vick he titled the “Invisible Man”. In the poem Greg compares what Vick did with those 8 dogs with what millions of actual people from Africa and China and Native Indians went through during slave times and not but 50 or so years ago. The beatings, the abuse, the violence, the death. That was a time when human beings were no more than pets to the white folks who owned them, Meant to breed and work and if we didn’t turn out right we were killed or sold. So Greg’s poem begs the question how folk who value animal life so much and so small as a fly, can value human life so very little? He may not have said that exact thing in his poem, but that’s what I got out of it and what rung true with me two or three years ago when the Michael Vick uproar first reared it’s ugly hypocritical head.
Do you mind if I’m blunt? You don’t? Good, because I had intended to be anyway. I think we have our priorities screwed up. There are groups that spend millions of dollars in marketing to protect the welfare of animals, which is admirable, of course, and yet there are millions more children in this country alone who are literally starving from lack of food, inadequate clothing, shelter and piss poor educational systems. There are hundreds of thousands in a foster care system where some are abused on a daily basis. And there are kids who live with biological parents who abuse them daily. Inner city and rural areas get the worst of these travesties. The situation is dire, particularly with regard to education. Where is the lobby for those things? Where is ‘The Human Lobby’–besides the fundraising organization I already started being inspired by Michael Vick 2 years ago?
Sure there are groups that do their part here and there, but I don’t see or hear the same outrage for battered, bruised, abused, maltreated, uneducated, and sometimes dead people that happen everyday as I see for those 8 lost dog lives that happened 3 years ago. Does anyone else see how crazy that sounds? That 8 dogs lives are worth far more in our overall esteem than millions of human lives? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?(remember Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Okay, nevermind) Am I saying a dogs life is less important or any animal for that matter? No. But I am saying a human beings life should be at least AS important. Dang.
My point is, there are folks who are actually spending time, energy and breath to protest Michael Vick’s being reinstated to the NFL and outraged that The Eagles signed him for two years. Some of these people are eating a steak, wearing leather shoes and will rock a big fur-trimmed leather jacket while they heckle Vick at a winter Eagles game. Some will be wearing leather from head to toe while more than likely partaking in a fatal bar fight to defend their point of view on Vick’s monstrous behavior in heated, drunken form. Other human lives will no doubt be lost over Michael Vick being allowed to move on with his life and talent. Some will scatter bars in leather running shoes, made from abused cow hide, leaving their half eaten bacon cheese burgers behind.
If I were to make a point of all of the points I just made it would be that I think we all need to take a really super hard look at our lives and how we live them. We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of–some more than others. What sets us apart I hope, from our co-habitating animals is that we were given the ability to learn lessons from our mistakes. We can analyze situations–if we really wanted to– and do better next time if we so choose.
Because we are human, we are not infallible, but even that is not an excuse. We rally that we are animal lovers and we contribute to their abuse by buying products that use animals in varying violent ways. We rally that we want better for our kids and we still abuse the only Earth we have to live on. We heckle a dog “murderer” while we stand around and watch people murders every day and feel indifferent. We bicker over what is considered “American” and then stand by as millions of people, particularly children go without health care, and we seem not to care that millions more children get sub par educations. No wonder so much of the world hates us. We are supposed to be the most powerful country in the world and we haven’t even a clue what we stand for, what things to fight for, and what things to get people fired over. I’m just saying.
If I ever meet Michael Vick, I will tell him thank you for inspiring ‘The Human Lobby’ in me. I’ll also thank the NRA. I’ve decided to let the humanness of these (some of them crazy) people be my excuse to be a better human being.
In the meantime, let that man have his second chance. Most of us have already had our fair share of chances, I’m sure and we still ain’t doing nothing with them.
The moral of this story? I can’t call it. Just some food for thought. I thank you for reading this though. Peace and abundant (I don’t even like football) blessings.
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