We can’t just talk about racism when we have impeccable examples of character. You didn’t need the exemplary reputation of Jackie Robinson to deserve to play baseball. You didn’t need the innocence of a six-year-old to deserve to walk into a goddamn school. We can’t only talk about racism when you have glaring victims like the Central Park Five. You are allowed to sell cigarettes without a license and not expect to be killed. You can even cause harm, horrible harm, and it is still not the right time to be silent. Regardless of the crime, racism is not a just punishment.
We can’t concern ourselves with racism only when the victims are clearly innocent. We need to look at racism towards the guilty as well. We need to examine cases where laws are broken and ethical boundaries are crossed. We need to look at who gets beaten for a traffic violation and who gets to grab a burger after a mass killing. We need to consider who sits in cages at our borders as our government steals their children. We need to look at the inequality in how laws are made and how they are enforced. And then, yes, we need to look at ourselves. At how we react. At what we say. At what we think.
Because of how vile Michael Vick’s actions were, and how universally we abhor violence towards the particular animals in question, it offers us a chance to examine how hatred can intensify and magnify. How, as a nation, our unwillingness to forgive black men is a problem. It gives us a chance to examine both a court system and a system of public opinion that is unjust in how it hands out punishments, and whether even after those punishments are served, we ever allow a chance for redemption.
I shared the Medium.com article, “It’s Time We Talk About America’s Inability to Forgive Black Men,” and the overwhelming commenter response was, “No, it isn’t!”
“He got away with murder,” I was told. Millions of Americans “get away with murder” at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We just fail to offer those animals protection.
“But he enjoyed it!” they continued. People don’t enjoy bacon double cheeseburgers?
“But meat eaters aren’t killing the animals themselves,” as if keeping our hands clean and our eyes closed excuses our harm. Yes, many meat eaters wouldn’t be able to personally kill the animals they eat. Many can’t even watch someone else do it. Yet, they pay for someone to do what they consider too awful to watch.
We gladly take our pig, cow, and chicken pain drenched in ketchup, but hurting a dog is a completely different story in America.
Do we honestly think Michael Vick invented dogfighting? That no one showed him this was acceptable? That no cultural influences shaped his actions? That he wasn’t taught to undervalue or ignore the feelings of animals in a society that teaches us to thoughtlessly kill animals every time our stomach growls?
In the past, I harmed animals repeatedly, meal after meal. My unwillingness to look did not change that reality. We are taught to do things that cause harm, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
We have laws with punishments for crimes, and they do a shit job at protecting those with fur, wings, or gills. And we do a shit job at handing out punishments evenly and consistently.
Vick’s horrendous crimes were twelve years ago. Since then he has done nothing to earn our wrath. We just feel he hasn’t changed, couldn’t change. Despite eighteen months of prison. Despite losing millions.Despite filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy and eventually paying back all his debts (instead of Chapter 7 allowing him to be free of debt). He openly apologized. He vowed to improve and make himself a better person. He now advocates for those he was harming. We don’t care.
I don’t know how much he has changed. I don’t know what his intentions are. I don’t know what he feels. What I do know is that we are the ones who can’t move on.
I’m open to change and redemption. Racism is learned. Speciesism is learned. Dogfighting is learned. We can unlearn.
If anything someone does after they serve their punishment is seen as dishonest, even if the actions are exactly what we would hope for in someone changing their ways, we have a punishment system that is not only extremely racially unjust but offers no chance of escape even after you leave the bars behind. If we don’t allow people a chance to make amends, to serve the punishments courts disproportionately dish out and then move on, we offer no chance of redemption.
Vick did vile things. Damn vile things. Appalling. It is easy to hate him. NO ONE is defending what Vick did.
I’m not a Michael Vick fan. I’m not a football fan. But the hatred is intense. When I hear people of color call out the racism involved, even in this instance of a man who committed unimaginable cruelty towards animals, my job is to listen, then process and examine. And yeah, I see it.
Our opposition to racism can’t be qualified based on the character of the individual. You can deserve consequences and you can deserve punishment, but no one deserves racism. Selective compassion is what got us into this mess in the first place.
As Robin DiAngelo explains so well in her book, White Fragility, racism isn’t easily divided into two contrasting groups: those who hate black people and those who don’t. Sure there are awful, intentional racists. But racism exits in subtleties, it exists where it isn’t wanted. We have been a racist society from the very beginning of this country and yes, we have made progress, but considering where we started, that isn’t saying a whole lot. There is so damn far still to go and equality is nowhere in sight.
We grew in this system. We currently function in this system. If we look at racism as either we are a good, non-racist person or a bad, racist person, then we will never understand how racism is ingrained and taught in ways we cannot discover and correct if we are not willing to challenge uncomfortable truths, even within ourselves. And then work to improve.
No one on my thread was intentionally being racist. I am not intentionally racist. But we don’t rid ourselves of racism by pretending it doesn’t exist, pretending it doesn’t impact anything, pretending there aren’t unexamined possibilities that have shaped how we view things. If we don’t allow the discussion to include how race impacts America’s view and our idea of just punishment and the chance for redemption, and instead dismiss the discussion because “we aren’t racists,” we will never fix what we won’t allow ourselves to address.
It isn’t about whether or not you like him. It isn’t about whether or not you forgive him. It isn’t about whether you are a fan. It is about how loud and brutal our hatred is for a black man, even after his punishment is served. And whether, as a country, we can even acknowledge that race plays into that.
If a woman posted about something she found sexist and all the males jumped on with “Nope! That’s not sexist,” we would fault the men for thoughtlessly justifying their actions, for not being willing to listen or reflect.
Saying, and even believing, “I’m not sexist” or “I’m not racist” is not a valid solution. Racism and sexism aren’t all or nothing and they often aren’t even intentional. And they surely aren’t avoided by saying “nuh-uh” every time the subject is brought up. We all admit racism is a deeply ingrained problem. It is just hard for anyone to admit we are personally susceptible to it influencing our own thoughts. We have to listen, we have to examine, we have to work to be better. Those who want to be racist aren’t going to make the change. It is exactly the very people who don’t want to be racist that need to do the work of listening and finding our flaws, even when we didn’t want them to exist. Without examination, we have already failed.
I honestly don’t care whether Michael Vick is an honorary captain at the Pro Bowl or not. It is an honorary title of extremely limited significance, similar to me to throwing out the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. I have no idea who did it last year. I’ll have no idea who does it next year. People at the game are allowed to boo when the introduction is made (like people did to the Commander-in-Tweet at a World Series game). You’re allowed to not like someone. But I’m asking that we examine why. Why are we so adamantly opposed individually, and even after we answer that question, why are we so adamantly opposed collectively. Even if we can get beyond the first question, can we still get beyond the second?
Are we also speaking out against George Zimmerman, who is now suing Trayvon Martin’s parents? Actively putting himself back in the news. Actively causing additional, painful harm to the parents of the child he took from them, from this world. Not leading his life in a way that shows change. Not showing any signs of regret or redemption. Not working to advocate for those he harmed. Still actively engaged in harming them. Are we showing up at his work to demand he receive no recognition? Or that he shouldn’t be allowed to work there? How many petitions against him have we signed?
If the only time we speak out about people of color is when we don’t like their actions, never in their defense, that is racism. And it is happening. Whether it influences your personal thoughts is up to your own introspection. Whether it is influencing America’s thoughts is not.
As hard as some of us are willing to fight against Michael Vick, make sure we are fighting equally hard against a police officer who clearly showed abuse of power towards people of color when the officer does not receive the punishment we think they deserve. When they are found not guilty. When they are allowed to stay on the force. Make sure our voices are heard at those times too. If this officer was given any special recognition twelve years later for performance on the job, would we loudly object in unison, as we did with Vick? Racism doesn’t just exist because we would have disliked both people. It is in whom we actively fight for, whom we leave alone, and whom we actively fight against.
A commenter concluded that she would then only be allowed to express her disgust for violence or criminal activity if she stuck to whites only. “That is not equality,” she argued. If we want to prove that racism has nothing to do with it, we might not want to gripe about the hardships of inequality we face when attacking someone of color. We may not be able to spew hatred towards a black man without having racism being discussed. Given our history, I think that is pretty fair.
Stopping to reflect and examine and question is not a bad thing. Just like whether something is or isn’t sexist doesn’t get to be determined by the males. Whether something is or isn’t racist, doesn’t get to be determined by white people in America. If that is inequality we face, it is only because we have dished out hundreds of years of inequality to others and our judgment has long been tainted.
If our punishment as white people is that we occasionally have to pause and consider how our words or actions might unintentionally be perpetuating problems in America with how we handle race, it is an extremely minor punishment for crimes more hideous than the ones Michael Vick committed.
12 Dec 2019
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