"Animal Rights: White Privilege and Michael Vick"

Joel Araujo
February 28, 2010

Reading:

The excerpt “Stacking” from the book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About it, by Jon Entwine.
Many athletes and coaches believe that athletes are pushed into certain sports and away from others primarily because of their race. Sociologists call this the “anglocentric hypothesis,” which holds that the racial patterns in sports are the product of structural inequalities and discrimination against minorities. That theory has also been used to explain why minorities are over-represented at certain positions. In the world of academia, this pattern is referred to as stacking.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that African Americans are concentrated in sports and positions that demand speed and quickness, the “reactive” positions. Whites, on the other hand, are over-represented at so-called strategic positions were long thought to demand decision-making skills. In football, white defensive backs, receivers, and running backs are rare, yet whites dominate so-called central positions such as quarterback and center.

Academics who first studied these patterns in the early 70s assumed that they were a legacy of racial discrimination. They invented phrases soaked in pre-judgment such as “position discrimination” and “positional segregation” to describe these phenomena. After all, for years there had been no black quarterbacks – the leadership position in football. The prevailing racist belief was that blacks were not intelligent enough to command the respect of their mostly white teammates. The handful of graduating black college quarterbacks were either ignored altogether or when offered an opportunity, get one shot. If they didn’t become a star overnight, and quarterbacks rarely do, black or white, they were shuffled off to traditionally “black positions” such as running back, defensive back, or wide receiver, where their “natural athleticism” would presumably serve them better.

 Sermon:

In August 2007, Atlanta Falcons Quarterback, Michael Vick was suspended from the National Football League due to his involvement in the “Bad Newz Kennels”, a dog-fighting ranch he operated with his childhood friends in rural Virginia, which was also a felony offense in that state. Since then I’ve had a nagging mental itch that has transformed into a full-fledged hobby. I would like to thank Northern Hills Fellowship the opportunity to exorcise myself of these thoughts and tangents and allow my mind to return to some semblance of normalcy.

The first question that is raised is this: “Why even bother?” There are definitely better topics and tasks that I could occupy my mind with. The answer might be found with English sports historian David Goldblatt. His observation on why soccer hasn’t caught in America is that specifically American sports, namely baseball, basketball and football, in addition to being team athletic contests also have the distinct and unique quality of being able to convey a strong narrative. He cites Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech, Joe Namath’s guarantee of victory, and Willis Reed coming onto the court during the 1970 finals as examples of how American sports are methods of storytelling.

Our story begins with the main character. Michael Dwayne Vick was born on June 26, 1980 to Brenda Vick and Michael Boddie, unmarried teenagers at the time. They stayed together, however, and raised Mike in the low-income neighborhood of East End in Newport News, Virginia at the Ridley Circle Housing Projects. Childhood friends introduced Vick to dog fighting at the age of 8. He was taught that there was nothing wrong with it and that it was a part of his culture. Once a routine police patrol caught Vick and his friends in the act, and just passed on by. Around this Vick’s older cousin saw the athletic potential of Mike and his brother Marcus and enrolled both boys in the Boys and Girls Club of Newport News; a move, Vick said, that saved his life from being a statistic of the inner city streets. As childhood transitioned into High School Vick was courted by UV and Syracuse. However in 1998 Vick signed with Virginia Tech, and upon leaving the East End he was hailed as role model by the local paper.

Fast forward nine years later. Local, state, and Federal authorities search a 15-acre ranch property in Surrey County nicknamed the “Bad Newz Kennels”. What they find is a very they find various dog fighting paraphernalia, several fighting pits and over 70 dogs, most of them Pit Bull Terriers, and some showing signs of injuries, and there was evidence that Vick himself beat, shot, electrocuted and drown several dogs that were not producing in the ring. In the end Vick and four of his childhood friends from the East End were arrested on charges of Conspiracy of Interstate Commerce, unlawfully torturing and killing dogs and promoting dogfights.

What immediately struck me as I began to scratch the surface of this issue is that I had no idea just how prevalent dogfighting is in the United States. PETA’s media attention mostly centers on animal euthanasia and meat production. The Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry is mostly centered on ethical eating. Wayne Pecelli of the Humane Society of the U.S.A. states that there are 40,000 professional dogfighters in America, and an additional 100,000 street level fighters. Furthermore there are 250,000 dogs placed in fighting pits annually. According to Pecelli people are drawn to the gambling and the spectacle of violence. Dogfighting truly is the exploitation of animals for amusement at its horrific worst.

Then again, to be completely honest, I’ve also used animals for my amusement. I always looked forward to the circus when I was a kid and one of the first dates my wife and I went on was to the national rodeo. Faced with my complicity with animal exploitation I wanted to get more information on the animal rights debate.

Professor emeritus of philosophy at Auburn University, Tibor R. Machan, claims that animals have no natural rights because animals do not have the cognitive ability to be moral agents. As one example he points out when animals attack each other they’re reacting out of instinct not conscious volition. On the other end of the spectrum Ingrid Newkirk, Chairperson for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who says, “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy”, advocating that we should look to the entire animal kingdom as legal persons. Both of these approaches sound a bit extreme. I don’t believe that animals have the same level of sentience as human beings. However when I look into my dog’s eyes I do see a certain level of awareness. He might not be the moral agent that I am, but he is still part of the interdependent web of all existence of which I am a part. After all it was the famous Unitarian, Albert Schweitzer, who said, “Religious communities need to expand the circle of their compassion to include all living beings.”

Another aspect that slowly crept up on me was the racial aspect of the issue. One of the aspects of our denomination that I am very proud of is our anti-racism/anti-oppression work. Before his plea bargain and incarceration Michael Vick was the highest paid player in the league and pulled in the league, and pulled in tens of millions more in endorsements. He was shown to be the future of African-American athletes; finally being paid in accordance with their talent, and their sheer numbers, on the field. Blacks have outnumbered whites for years, but you wouldn’t assume it by what they were getting paid. It’s only been recently that pay equity has occurred, and it was a real disappointment to me that the media was having a field day, relishing really, with this story.

One of the concepts that has really hit home with me is the concept of White Privilege. For those of you who aren’t familiar white privilege is the institutional model that not only focuses on the advantages of whites and the disadvantages of minorities, but also the assumption by whites that their treatment and ideas are normal, and that minorities should be brought up to their level.

This tangent was first started during Michael Vick’s apology after his plea bargain was struck. He didn’t apologize to his parents who raised him at the Ridley Circle Housing Projects. He apologized to Roger Goddell, the commissioner of the NFL, who sees disruption caused by Vick offensive acts as a glitch in his league’s money machine. He didn’t apologize to his cousin that got him into the Boys and Girls clubs. He apologized to the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, who did not agree with his actions. It’s no coincidence that both of these men were white.

I saw this same meme being played out in other venues as well. When interviewed Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis and Tackle Chris Sawuls showed no hesitation as the defended Vick. Portis went as far as to say to the press that if they wanted to see some real dogfighting they should come to his hometown in southern Mississippi. In Duke’s student newspaper, ethicist Kathy Rudy proposed an outreach program to southern African-Americans to educate them and bring them up into the Animal Rights fold.

In time an idea that was simultaneously intriguing and scary came into my mind. Maybe White Privilege was coloring my entire approach to this issue. I was born UU and raised in a very politically liberal environment as you can imagine. After 29 years of being tolerant would I now point a finger and say your culture’s views on animal rights are flawed and you need to drop them to adopt mine? The prospect of that made me very uncomfortable. The principles of the interdependent web and the principle of world community were in conflict and I didn’t know how to resolve it.

I’d like to take a minute near the end here to state that there are many in the black community that have spoken out against Michael Vick. Sports journalist James Brown took Vick to task on 60 minutes and Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president of the NAACP has stated that Vick should be held accountable for his actions and that dogfighting was not a part of mainstream urban black culture.

I agree. However to those who do embrace dogfighting as an extension of culture I find that I must become that which I hate the most: A non-tolerant person. I must say to the dogfighters no matter their background that I find their practices are an abomination and that I will not abide it.

The only alternative is cultural relativism. The idea that every culture beliefs and practices should be understood within the terms of that culture and be accepted by those outside of it. To me this is even more dangerous. Should we also accept direct racism from isolated cultures? Should we accept misogyny and homophobia from very machismo cultures? I think that as a righteous and principled people we must say no. Even though it might be uncomfortable for us we must take a stand, even against those who are in the minority.

And the narrative hasn’t ended yet. Vick played this season with the Philidelphia Eagles and was basically a non-factor in their drive to the post-season. He’s working with the Humane Society to spread awareness and has hired a crack team of brand managers and public relation professionals to get his image back on track. As for my resolution to this…it’s a little less clear. While I’ve stated before my willingness to take a stand I still feel incredibly uncomfortable, dare I say even a little guilty because of it. Sports might provide us with narrative, but it rarely provides us with closure. After all there’s always the next game.