Here is the story.
All the breathless debates about Michael Vick are missing the point. The
bigger issue has nothing to do with whether or not he deserves the right of
due process, or whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend him,
or whether Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank should enable him or give him
tough love. It's not even about whether or not Nike should be launching
another designer shoe with his name on it.
All of those are minor distractions from a much larger and far more
significant issue. Here's the real brainteaser that we need to get a handle
on:
How did someone like Michael Vick ever come to exist?
Are we really ready to have that conversation? Do we dare explore how a
young man of such unique athletic gifts and such obvious on-field marketing
appeal was allowed to turn into just another unfortunate mug shot and
potential ruined life? How did that remarkable athlete get a $100 million
contract with the Falcons, become Nike's poster boy, rake in endorsements
from airlines and cell phone companies, then find himself on the verge of
blowing it all because of an incredible tale that seems to come straight
out of some hardcore gangsta rap video?
We can save the "presumption of innocence" conversation for another time. As improbable as it might sound, technically, there's a possibility that Vick actually could own a house, rent it out to his relatives and be dumb or naive enough to not know that there was a dog-fighting enterprise going on in the back yard. The U.S. Constitution provides Vick with the right a n d opportunity to prove that preposterous possibility to a jury of his peers.
I am far more interested in how it all came apart for Vick and why it keeps
coming apart for too many black athletes in America. The ultimate symbols
of black athletes in our society used to be men of substance and positive
image. Men with social conscience and resolve such as Jackie Robinson, Curt
Flood, Jim Brown, Bill Russell and John Thompson used to be our heroes.
They carried a burden and deep-rooted responsibility to portray themselves
with a sense of dignity, pride and pur po se. Even the cool, counter-culture
rebels such as Muhammad Ali and Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood for
something more meaningful than a multimillion-dollar shoe deal.
But somewhere between Jackie Robinson and Michael Vick, things got all
fouled up. "Street cred" became the anthem of the modern black athlete,
this misguided notion that the only way to appeal to the young demographic
of the sneaker-buying public was to adopt the negative attitudes of the
thug life popularized by black hip-hop/gangster rappers. According to the
18-page federal indictment, Vick is accused of sponsoring the sort of
gruesome dogfighting enterprise that is readily identified as a part of the
dark side of that culture.
So that's how someone like Michael Vick came into existence. He got
hijacked, and we all let it happen. We let it happen by passively condoning
this mess. We did it when we turned Allen Iverson into a marketing icon and
rejected someone like Grant Hill because he lacked "street cred." We
allowed it to happen every time we gave Vick the benefit of the doubt when
he kept stumbling and offering weak alibis for his stupidity. We allowed it
to happen slowly, insidiously over the past 20 years. The problem is the
hijacking of African-American culture by the hip-hop generation that has
helped glorify every rotten, foul and disgusting racial stereotype it took
generations to eradicate.
The minstrels used to show up in black face, shuckin' and jivin' like Amos
and Andy or Stepin Fetchit. Now they come in baggy pants sagging over their
butts, glamorizing thug life and prison fashion, legitimizing derogatory
racial insults into the mainstream, and convincing an entire generation
that this is the measure of true blackness and anyone who bucks this system
is either a racist, hopelessly out of touch or a sad Uncle Tom.
Fortunately, not everyone is buying into this nonsense. We're at war, and
we have identified the enemy. "We have to start making sure folks
understand who the 'Toms' really are," says my man on the other side of the
state, Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock. "It's the gangsters on
the corner who are killing black folks. It's the idiots who are on TV
rapping about it and glorifying it. We have to make black people understand
those are the real sellouts, not the ones who refuse to accept it."
