Hello dear readers.
This post will be very short as I am working on a post about Oprah's speeches this weekend, but as this happened today I felt compelled to comment.
Free Michael Vick!
23 months for financing dogfighting? Do those who get caught financing or training cocks to fight get the same treatment? Or was there something else going on here because he was a famous football player?
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2 comments:
I tend to think Michael Vick’s sports celebrity worked in his favor in the sentencing – many people like and support him. But who knows what the sentencing judge was considering. You make a good point: Often people like to see a “big man” brought down, and more often if he’s a black man.
Last August Gary Francione, professor of law and philosophy at Rutgers, identified other disparities in the Vick case, what he calls moral schizophrenia. http://tinyurl.com/3933l6
I also thought that the Michael Vick sentence sounded a little extreme (I was sort of expecting a suspended sentence; or maybe six months, with credit for time served, and a long probation), but one thing I've learned about the press and the justice system is that the former rarely captures much of the nuanced deliberations that go into verdicts and sentencing.
I'm not saying Michael Vick did or did not get what he deserved; I just think that, as a society, we often project both our own guilt and outrage regarding widespread social evils on to high profile, celebrity African American scapegoats: OJ for domestic violence, Michael Jackson for pedophilia, Kobe Bryant for rape...and whether their celebrity really works more for or against them can be difficult to sort out.
Meanwhile, people still get beaten up (and murdered) by their partners, children are still abused by people they trust, and people are still forced into sexual activity against their will...every day....and lots of young African American men go to jail because they can't AFFORD to defend themselves, and don't want to take the risk of a "fair" trial....
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