- Feb 9, 2007
- 1,841
- 25
Inching Toward Insanity: Why Michael Vick is Not a Fascist
>By Dave Zirin
>http://www.edgeofsports.com/2007-08-23-279/index.html
>===================================================================
>The Vick Kick
>
>[col. writ. 8/21/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal
>
>NFL (National Football League) star, Michael Vick is the nation's
>latest bete noir (French: Black beast).
>
>The venom and hatred directed at him for his off-field dog fighting
>connections is nothing short of remarkable.
>
>Not since football great O. J. Simpson's murder trial, or perhaps
>Mike Tyson's rape trial, have we witnessed such an outpouring of
>outrage.
>
>If you think it's got nothing to do with who he is, rather than what
>he is alleged to have done, then you're trippin'!
>
>Vick signed a monster NFL contract several years ago that virtually
>guaranteed him a lifetime of wealth.
>
>All of that, not to mention other product endorsement deals, is up in
>smoke.
>
>Don't get it twisted. I'm not suggesting, in the least, that hurting
>animals is cool.
>
>As a MOVE supporter, I recall the late Frank Africa (MOVE's
>Naturalist Minister) telling me about seeing guys fighting pit bulls
>in West Philly's Cobbs Creek Park. Frank would challenge them to
>fight him instead of the dogs. (He didn't find a lot of takers).
>
>Frank was martyred by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and the
>United States of America) on May 13th, 1985, along with 10 other men,
>women and babies.
>
>While we hear the sports world and the talk show pundits bay for
>Vick's blood for dog fighting, it's important to remember that if
>Vicks serves one day in jail that'll be one day more than the
>bombers, snipers and baby-killers who massacred 11 people on Osage
>Avenue in Philadelphia (Oh, yeah -- come to think of it, several dogs
>were killed then, too!)
>
>Football is the nations' weekly ritual of violence, where big guys
>pummel other big guys, with the intent of crushing the opponent. it
>was not for naught that an American president (and general!), Dwight
>Eisenhower once said, "Sports are perfect for preparing young men for
>war."
>
>In the hyper-world of talk and sports radio, few things elicit more
>umbrage than the spectacle of a Black man, from an impoverished
>background, coming into great wealth.
>
>That athlete (or artist, for that matter) is expected to smile, never
>address politics, and generally, shut up (especially regarding issues
>of race!)
>
>Implicit in the sports contract is an unwritten agreement to be what
>one Black sportswriter called a 'million dollar slave.'
>
>Because many Black athletes come from poverty, and communities where
>life is cruel, brutish and short, they have acquired the tastes,
>modes and habits of their environs. In the South (and North as well),
>dog-fighting is not a rarity.
>
>If he were Mexican-American, he may have enjoyed ****-fighting, or,
>if or another ethnicity, perhaps bull-fighting.
>
>But, such sociological observations have no place in the hot house of
>media mouthpieces and hype artists.
>
>I've seen more heat around Vick's treatment of dogs than American
>soldiers treatment of Iraqis!
>
>For Michael Vicks, for now -- the game is over.
>
>--(c) '07 maj
>
>*[Source: Zirin, Dave, What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance
>in the United States. (Chi. Haymarket Books, 2005,), p.129.)
>By Dave Zirin
>http://www.edgeofsports.com/2007-08-23-279/index.html
>===================================================================
>The Vick Kick
>
>[col. writ. 8/21/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal
>
>NFL (National Football League) star, Michael Vick is the nation's
>latest bete noir (French: Black beast).
>
>The venom and hatred directed at him for his off-field dog fighting
>connections is nothing short of remarkable.
>
>Not since football great O. J. Simpson's murder trial, or perhaps
>Mike Tyson's rape trial, have we witnessed such an outpouring of
>outrage.
>
>If you think it's got nothing to do with who he is, rather than what
>he is alleged to have done, then you're trippin'!
>
>Vick signed a monster NFL contract several years ago that virtually
>guaranteed him a lifetime of wealth.
>
>All of that, not to mention other product endorsement deals, is up in
>smoke.
>
>Don't get it twisted. I'm not suggesting, in the least, that hurting
>animals is cool.
>
>As a MOVE supporter, I recall the late Frank Africa (MOVE's
>Naturalist Minister) telling me about seeing guys fighting pit bulls
>in West Philly's Cobbs Creek Park. Frank would challenge them to
>fight him instead of the dogs. (He didn't find a lot of takers).
>
>Frank was martyred by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and the
>United States of America) on May 13th, 1985, along with 10 other men,
>women and babies.
>
>While we hear the sports world and the talk show pundits bay for
>Vick's blood for dog fighting, it's important to remember that if
>Vicks serves one day in jail that'll be one day more than the
>bombers, snipers and baby-killers who massacred 11 people on Osage
>Avenue in Philadelphia (Oh, yeah -- come to think of it, several dogs
>were killed then, too!)
>
>Football is the nations' weekly ritual of violence, where big guys
>pummel other big guys, with the intent of crushing the opponent. it
>was not for naught that an American president (and general!), Dwight
>Eisenhower once said, "Sports are perfect for preparing young men for
>war."
>
>In the hyper-world of talk and sports radio, few things elicit more
>umbrage than the spectacle of a Black man, from an impoverished
>background, coming into great wealth.
>
>That athlete (or artist, for that matter) is expected to smile, never
>address politics, and generally, shut up (especially regarding issues
>of race!)
>
>Implicit in the sports contract is an unwritten agreement to be what
>one Black sportswriter called a 'million dollar slave.'
>
>Because many Black athletes come from poverty, and communities where
>life is cruel, brutish and short, they have acquired the tastes,
>modes and habits of their environs. In the South (and North as well),
>dog-fighting is not a rarity.
>
>If he were Mexican-American, he may have enjoyed ****-fighting, or,
>if or another ethnicity, perhaps bull-fighting.
>
>But, such sociological observations have no place in the hot house of
>media mouthpieces and hype artists.
>
>I've seen more heat around Vick's treatment of dogs than American
>soldiers treatment of Iraqis!
>
>For Michael Vicks, for now -- the game is over.
>
>--(c) '07 maj
>
>*[Source: Zirin, Dave, What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance
>in the United States. (Chi. Haymarket Books, 2005,), p.129.)
