Michael Vick and the Effects of the Game “Those People” Run
August 12, 2009 by dwil
Michael Vick stands before the press.
On August 7, Michael Vick was videotaped for 23 seconds in a parking lot in Bristow, Virginia hanging with rapper, Young Jeezy. As soon as you could say “Uh oh”, Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports popped up a link to the video on his Twitter page.
And as soon as you could say, “The Blond Ghost” Mike Florio was talking his special brand of vitriol on his NBC-cosigned rumor mill website, Pro Football Talk.
The good thing about this affair is that mainstream media sports news outlets have yet to dispatch their resident NFL expert to pick the brains of their “sources” from various NFL teams or called commissioner Roger Goodell for their thoughts on Vick’s actions. Hopefully, this little incident will be dealt with solely right here in the confines of the Internet – and only on independent sports-related websites (well, except for Florio’s NBC-affiliated rumor rag).
The video:
Twenty-three seconds folks. Twenty-three seconds of Michael Vick hanging out in a parking lot with a well-known rapper. And this is what Flroio has to say about the scene:
The specific venue of quarterback Mike Vick’s first post-prison interview has been the subject of much debate.
Some, like our friend Rich Eisen of NFL Network, thought that Vick’s first sit-down should occur while sitting down on the couch of Oprah. (What could go wrong there?)
Others, like us, thought that Vick should submit to something a little more hard hitting, which would give him a chance to acknowledge the monstrous nature of his crimes — and which might even make him appear to be sympathetic (e.g., Jim Gray and Pete Rose).
Instead, America’s first chance to both see and hear a supposedly transformed Mike Vick comes courtesy of YouTube, and the rappers Young Jeezy and Young Floss….
Even though Vick’s not saying or doing anything inappropriate (that said, some might be a bit alarmed by his use of the “n” word), we doubt that the video will persuade many people that Vick is all that different than he was before his lifestyle of gambling and dogfighting and killing dogs deemed unfit to fight was exposed.
Moreover, and while there’s no evidence from the video to suggest Vick was doing anything to violate the terms of his probation or conditional reinstatement, it doesn’t reflect the behavior of a guy who has taken completely to heart the warning for Commissioner Roger Goodell that “your margin for error is extremely limited” and that he should “dedicate [himself] to rebuilding [his] life and [his] career.”
(For Florio’s edification, Vick will talk with James Brown on 60 Minutes this Sunday.)
Does this video show Vick exhibiting behavior unbecoming of an urban Black man in his 20s hanging out with rich and famous rap stars?
Some Black people will be angry with Vick. They will jump on the verbal bandwagon constructed by White, male-dominated Western society and played out by Florio, and condemn the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback for being seen with a rapper and tell anyone who will listen that Vick “set Black people back 50 years” with his action.
But those Black people do not speak for anyone but themselves and their cohorts – as if there is some sort of monotheistic “cultured” way to be.
Now, I am not one to say “that’s my nigga,” or anything remotely close to it, but, though I do not agree with using the word “nigger” in any form, I understand why younger people of whatever race feel it’s cool to do so. But what I fail to understand is how someone like Mike Florio and those of his ilk, such as many of the people who left the nearly 90 comments after his Vick editorial, can be upset over the use of the word “nigga.” To urban and suburban youth alike, “my nigga” is the social equivalent of the milquetoast, “my man” or “my buddy.”
But Florio feigns offense at Vick using the word in an urban-colloquial setting of which Florio has no experience nor knowledge nor care to attempt to understand.
It is ultimately revealing of motive and feeling about race when a White person with a history of race baiting (do a search on PFT for Michael Vick articles posted during the time Vick was being investigated for dog fighting) becomes suddenly sensitive about a Black person using the phrase, “my nigga” when referring to a friend.
Young Jeezy is a high-profile rapper and Atlanta native who claims to have only attended football games in which Michael Vick quarterbacked; the two men know each other well. You see, Vick appearing at the same in which Young Jeezy is performing is not at all an accident, or Vick deciding, on a whim, to attend a rap show. Additionally, the quarterback’s appearance with the rapper is part of the rapper’s public relations efforts to hype his summer America’s Most Wanted Tour. Just the day before in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio Jeezy’s guest was ——————– LeBron James:
And you know what? Nobody said, “Boo!”
No White NBA bloggers shot out a post about how James was further damaging his image after admitting in a book that he smoked marijuana; that appearing with Jeezy would hamper his future with whatever team he chooses to play with after this season; that NBA owners might shun James, despite his prodigious gifts as a basketball player – the same gifts Michael Vick brings to a football field.
Beyond Vick appearing with Jeezy is the specter of collusion against by NFL owners. When Roger Goodell handed Vick a six-game suspension on top of the suspension Goodell already meted out to the former Falcons quarterback, the commissioner was roundly praised by people like Florio. The PFT blog owner wrote an loose commentary defending Goodell’s further suspension. The headline Florio gave his piece was, “Is a further suspension of Vick justified?
When I read the blog post, I was compelled to run through a long list of articles I had saved from the day Vick was accused of dog fighting to the time of his sentencing. Because so much news was written during that time, when reading the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article I was looking for, I realized some extremely important issues I failed to discuss at the time of the writing of the article.
A wave of sadness came over me. The full implication of Florio’s – and America’s – statement to Black people – and at some point in the distance – to each other dawned on me.
But with this sadness came a sense of freedom ———— and understanding.
This pillorying of selected athletes is a wicked game.
The Worldwide Leader is in on it, Florio is in it, the “fronters” at The Big Lead are in it, “Will’s Leitches” at Deadspin-Gawker are in it, that blogger at Stampede Blue – “While I’m sure (and hopeful) that Vick has rehabilitated himself, the fact is he hasn’t played football in over two years, and when he did play he was known as a dumb player. Dumb as in “not very intelligent” when throwing the football. And contrary to popular belief, you must have brains to play quarterback in the NFL” - is in it, and so is everyone else who made hay off of the Vick-dog fighting case, off Barry Bonds, Kelly Tilghman, Erin Andrews, C. Vivian Stringer and Don Imus, Sean Taylor, Tim Hardaway and John Amaechi and any other “controversial” sports issue concocted by mainstream sports media and the Internet sloth they picked to be their rightful lackeys.
Why am I broadbrush, carpet-bombing all these folks? Well for one, they deserve it because they put themselves out as “alternatives” to mainstream media when they are nothing more than the Internet extensions of mainstream media and two because they propagate the lie that the Internet is the 21st century version of “community.” But the truth is they are more elitist, less equipped to handle diversity in worldview, and less willing to speak truth to power than are some journalists who work within the confines of mainstream sports media.
And THAT is how to run game on a world of people in which the overwhelming preponderance of whom will never see you, never know where you live, and might never even know your real name.
Yet through that distance it makes the racism, the xenpohobia, the misogyny, and the inability of people – some well-meaning – to take the step through the veil of image is reality and into the moon-lit night of reality all the clearer in a virtual space where the cloak of anonymity should tear all those walls asunder.
But I digress – almost. Here’s the rub. Here is where Michael Vick ties into the insanity of today’s America.
This is Florio’s reasoning for an added suspension for Vick:
As all indications point toward a conditional reinstatement of quarterback Mike Vick and a four-game suspension to start the regular season, Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star makes the case for no further punishment at all.
“It feels like double jeopardy,” Whitlock writes regarding the probability that Vick won’t be allowed back onto the field immediately.
We’ve actually seen that term used a couple of times recently in connection with the likelihood that Vick’s federal prison term will be followed by a separate suspension by the NFL.
It strikes a chord with the average non-lawyer, but it has no real application here.
Vick isn’t being tried twice for the same conduct, which is what the term double jeopardy means. Instead, his employer is determining the appropriate penalty for the conduct in which he admittedly engaged.
In this regard, it’s important not to presume that doing his time equates to squaring himself with the NFL. The league needs to fashion a final decision based on his full range of actions, so let’s consider what he did.
Vick pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges relating to interstate gambling and dogfighting. Both are felonies.
He also pleaded guilty to dogfighting under Virginia law, another felony. Prosecutor Gerald Poindexter, whom we and many others believed lacked appropriate zeal when investigating Vick in 2007, argeed to allow Vick to plead guilty to that charge without tacking additional time onto Vick’s federal sentence.
Then there’s the issue of Vick’s admitted killing of dogs, in various grotesque, bizarre, and arguably psychopathic ways. Drowning. Slamming to the ground. Hanging. Electrocution via the attachment of electrodes to testicles.
Vick admitted to involvement in those killings as part of his federal plea. He then tried to lie about it while strapped to a polygraph, presumably because he realized that even Poindexter might not be able to bungle a prosecution for multiple felonies counts of killing dogs, given a crystal clear admission of the crime from Vick.
But bungle it Poindexter did, failing to get even an indictment on charges that could have sent Vick away for a lot longer than 21 months.
And let’s not forget the fact that Vick lied to Goodell regarding his involvement in dogfighting.
Florio confused the chronological order of events with Vick and the courts versus Vick talking with Goodell. Despite Florio’s efforts at obfuscation and despite him taking a wholly uninformed and racist pot-shot at Surry County Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter among other transgressions, the simple fact of the matter is Roger Goodell suspendeded Michael Vick long after Vick lied to him – he had to in order to suspend him concurrently with his pending prison sentence. so any lie the quarterback was taken into account when the first suspension by Goodell was meted out.
So, for Goodell to “rein-suspen-date” Vick until the sixth week of the the upcoming season does act as a double sentence – or a colloquial form of “double-jeopardy” as Whitlock termed it.
But Florio is has always acted as a de facto Internet “protector of the shield” when it comes to Goodell and when it comes to perceived or real negative acts by Black NFL players.
From the AJC article written by Bill Rankin and C. Orlando Ledbetter:
After pleading guilty in August, Vick continued to contend that others, not he, killed pit bulls that did not test well as fighting dogs. But in October, after being grilled by an FBI agent for five hours, Vick finally spilled the truth that he “hung” a dog.
During that interview an FBI polygrapher found Vick was being deceptive in denying he killed dogs. After Vick’s lawyer, Billy Martin, was told this, he asked Vick about the failed test. At that moment, Martin told Hudson, Vick broke down.
“I did it all,” Vick said, Martin related. “I did everything. If you need me to say more, I’ll say more.”
Additionally, the judge found that Vick lied about testing positive for marijuana in September.
At the close of the 45-minute sentencing hearing, Vick apologized to Hudson, his own family and his children.
But Hudson quickly interjected, “You need to apologize to the millions of young people who looked up to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Vick answered contritely. “I’m willing to deal with the consequences and accept responsibility for my actions.”
But Hudson found that Vick had not fully accepted responsibility for all he had done as part of Bad Newz Kennels, the dogfighting organization that was run with three co-defendants, out of property Vick owned in Surry County, Virginia. Vick also played a major role by “promoting, funding and facilitating this cruel and inhumane sporting activity,” the judge said.
It was after this article that Florio and Rankin and Ledbetter and their roles in “the game” came clear.
A read of the process by which the FBI extracted an admission of guilt from Vick is nothing short of psychological – at least – torture. Transpose the description of this extraction of guilt to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Military and a Middle Eastern detainee and what would their tactics and the resultant words from Vick be called?
TORTURE, plain and simple.
The polygraph test – the results of which are inadmissible in a court of law – revealed deception by Vick. Why he was subjected to such a test and why the results were leaked at all are two shady acts. And even then, they did not render a lie from Vick but “deception.” Let’s play the game of semantics played by Rankin and Ledbetter and remove that very loaded word and substitute it with the more balanced, “doubt.”
You see “deception” cannot be an accurate description of how the testor viewed Vick’s answer to whether or not he killed dogs. The primary definition of the word deception is, “misrepresentation: a misleading falsehood.” By providing a “misleading falsehood” Vick, then, had to —– lie.
But “lie” cannot be the word used by the person who spoke with Rankin and Ledbetter. And if they used “deception” the AJC pair failed miserably in their duty as journalists to ask for a clarification of the word. Just as likely, the two were more than happy to cast Vick as a liar to their bloodthirsty editorial masters and an audience equally blood-lusting for the story of the fall of the previously untouchable Michael Vick.
However, if “doubt” was the word chosen instead of deception, guess what happens? It can easily be conjectured that Vick knew that dogs were killed viciously by his cousin Davon Boddie and cohorts, but probably did not partake in the killing.
Why Michael Vick, knowing his guilt, was able to withstand five hours (that we know of) of psychological torture is an open question.
But.
That he apparently broke down so far and so suddenly, to the point where he would say, “I did it all,” Vick said, Martin related. “I did everything. If you need me to say more, I’ll say more,” actually acts to close the question.
Vick’s statement sounds much like the classic answer given by extraordinary rendition prisoners who can no longer face the torture given and are willing to say anything to stop the heinous proceedings.
“If you need me to say more, I’ll say more,” does not at all scream guilt. If anything it loudly announces that something very wrong occurred during those five hours. Vick’s alleged buddies had already told investigators Vick was the main man behind the dog fighting operation, Vick already said “I did it. I did everything.”
What “more” is there to say?
In this context, Vick’s exhortation sounds much more like a plea to stop the psychological abuse heaped his way than it does an admission of guilt.
And in the midst of seeing through the veil of Kelly Naqi’s infamous “investigative” report that yielded little more than an interview with an unsavory, shadowed, voice-altered character, who was as interested in telling a tale about how his dog defeated Vick’s in a fight, the incessant negative reporting that could point to nothing other than Vick’s guilt, the noxious commentaries from mainstream columnists like Terrence Moore, Jemele Hill’s ‘letter to her brother’, slovenly, rumor-filed reporting from Internet sloth like Florio, the abject silence for nine days from all these characters and more people like then when Crhris Mortensen reported that Vick would not be indicted, and then the all-too sudden news that Vick would be charged with crimes that were certain to land him in federal prison ——– another incident with other circumstances that were at the very least as disgusting as any act Vick was said to perfom with dogs came to mind.
Remember, Davon Boddie lived in Surry County, some distance across a bay (the Chesapeake?) from Michael Vick’s hometown of Newport News, Virginia. There is one bridge in Hampton, the city south of Newport News, that crosses into Isle of Wight, which is also south of Surry. Boddie is a cousin of Vick’s, but unlike Vick’s other close relatives, did not live in Newport News.
I wondered if Boddie was “that” relative; the one you separate from the rest of the family because they are a fool. Whatever the reason, Boddie was given a home built for him by Vick. Later facilities, including a birthing building, were set up to sell pit bulls on the land for what became “Bad Newz Kennels.” The carpeted and darkened building was later infamously misidentified as some sort of dog fighting or dog punishment facility because some blood was found on the building’s carpet covering the floor. It is important here to note that during much of the Vick investigation I communicated with a well-known Western States pit bull breeder who, in one of our communications, explained the nature and importance of such a building, that it fit every description of a birthing building and a place to separate and keep safe newly-born puppies from male pit bulls that would, otherwise, seek to kill the puppies to preserve their status with females.
This was a home Vick visited sparingly; it was far from a regular landing spot for the quarterback when he travelled from Atlanta to Newport News. Was Vick ever informed of the happenings at the Kennels? Surely he was. Did he participate in the unsavory acts that allegedly occurred on the land? Though we will never truly know for sure, the speed with which Boddie’s “friends” flipped their stories to blame Vick, leads to the act of saving one’s ass so investigators can nail the person with the biggest name, regardless of the guilt or innocence of any of the parties said to be involved in a crime or crimes.
With this backdrop, I thought of former Atlanta Falcons defensive end Patrick Kerney. and I remembered that Kerney and some of his friends went to a bar and picked up some women, one of whom was a friend of his. The men, with Kerney, took the women back to Kerney’s Buckhead, Georgia (a tony suburb of Atlanta) home.
Kerney’s friend was raped that night in Kerney’s home. Initially, Kerney was named in the rape. Quickly, though, Kerney was said to have been asleep at the time of the rape. When police were set to investigate Kerney, the woman suddenly came forward and claimed that Kerney had nothing to do with her rape. However, it was surmised that the woman and her female friends were in the presence of – then – current and former Atlanta Falcons football players, so someone tied in some way with the team raped this woman. And the incident was being reported at the same time the Vick reporting was beginning to snowball.
I performed a search for “Patrick Kerney – rape” at Pro Football Talk.
Mike Florio’s blog returned no results. This from a rumor mill blog that reports NFL players getting into meaningless altercations at nightclubs, that reports players arriving late for meetings and getting fined. Yet there were no results for “Patrick Kerney – rape.”
The news created a mild firestorm in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and then Kerney was traded to the Seattle Seahawks. The news died down and despite the police’s contention that they were continuing to investigate the case, nothing much more came from the press – or the police.
Now, here we have a woman who was raped - a physically and psychologically violent act that seriously damages a woman (human being for god’s sake!) for the remainder of her life – inside a Falcons player’s home, almost assuredly with other current and former Falcons players and other women somewhere in the house, the Kerney, the home owner, in the house ——————- and Kerney never underwent any of the scrutiny Michael Vick faced and continues to face.
It was never important enough for Terrence Moore to commit a slew of commentaries to the subject. It was never important enough for Jemele Hill to write an open letter to her brother about how to treat women to her brother on EPSN.com. It was not important enough to Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic to discuss every day ad nauseum on their morning talk show. It was never important enough to have the National Organization of Women to so much as comment on the incident or on violence toward women by NFL players.
In fact, the heinous incident never warranted a mention in the most well-know NFL rumor blog on the Internet; a blog so well- known that NBC thought enough of Pro Football Talk to affiliate itself with the blog and its owner. The network obviously has no problem attaching itself to a racist and misogynist lawyer, who would openly skew news reports to fit his sick perceptions of black men and of women (see Florio’s twisting of every report relative to Andrea McNulty’s sexual assault charges against Ben Roethilsberger).
And just this this morning Mike Greenberg said Roger Goodell’s handling of Vick’s “indefinite suspension” (the rein-suspend-ate after Vick’s release from federal prison) was “exemplary” because of the commissioner’s swift actions regarding his “verdict” after meeting with the quarterback and because Goodell said Vick deserves a chance to play again.
Wow.
Once upon a time I thought the press was America’s salvation and the sporting press was its guiding beacon. Now, I can no longer imagine a sports media, mainstream or otherwise, that allows – not embraces, just allows – or even tolerates true diversity of thought or worldview that result in presenting an alternative view that is equally plausible but does not fit a generally-held perception of a sports or sports-related event.
Wow.
Tell me this shit is nothing but game – people running game and keeping the game going in a direction that fits an agenda that seeks to keep athletes sated and nothing more than well-heeled slaves who would do anything including kill themselves to continue to perform on professional sports’ grandest stages.
It’s game, baby ————- GAME!
And it is wicked.
————————————–
Addendum:
And I didn’t even bother delving into Florio’s post on Wiliam Rhoden’s recent column or the 94 sickening comments accompanying the post.
Some Black people will be angry with Vick. They will jump on the verbal bandwagon constructed by White, male-dominated Western society and played out by Florio, and condemn the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback for being seen with a rapper and tell anyone who will listen that Vick “set Black people back 50 years” with his action.
I hate these black people as much as I hate the white folks who encourage them to think that way.
Man, I didn’t even finish your piece Dwil. Once I read Florio’s comments I had to stop or I would have had to break something. I’ll try to finish later.
Ok
I was able to compose myself and finish. Good post.
You’re right, it is a game. They think playing with people’s lives is a game. They hid behind objectivity when they need to, then cast aside any sort of journalistic ethics when that’s what needs to happen. Hypocritical parasites.
Thanks, man. There needs to be a huge boxing glove on an industrial spring that comes from nowhere and punches dudes like Florio in the face whenever he begins writing or talking the shit we see on his blog (and this goes for some other people, too).
Have you heard about these allegations against Rick Pitino?
The woman is saying he raped her, he’s saying they had consensual sex and he gave her money for an abortion. I saw it on Hoops Hype. And its from the Courier News Journal.
Honestly I think what is so “upsetting” to folks like Florio is that Mike Vick’s spirit is SO not broken. That young man is not balled up in a corner in the fetal position, he’s not downtrodden and he’s not walking around with his head down. He’s simply not spiritually/mentally nor physically beaten and its killing these numbnuts. What they want is for him to holler “my name is Toby, and i’ll be a pocket passer”…and it aint happening.
I have to take issue with your claiming that a 4 or 5 hour interrogation equates to torture similar to what we’ve subjected rendition subjects or Guantanamo prisoners to. Let’s not water down that term because there are important distinctions. Mike Vick had an attorney. He likely could have stopped the interrogation at any time by insisting that his attorney be present. In fact, he had no real obligation to talk to the questioners at all about his role. In normal criminal procedures you don’t have to implicate yourself.
Let’s contrast that with what Guantanamo prisoners, thousands of miles from home, have been subjected to. Often snatched off the streets, shipped to this place where they have no connection to the outside world, forced into stress positions and possibly deprived of sleep. Some subjected to drowning experiences and then snatched back from the abyss, all in an effort to “soften them up” for questioning.
What Vick experienced sounds like a criminal interrogation. It’s not friendly or nice, but it’s hardly torture. Yes the police will question you for hours in an effort to break you down, but it’s not in the same stratosphere. And keep in mind that I’m saying this as a person who thinks that this whole prosecution of Vick was wildly out of control considering the crimes he committed. I have a hard time mustering too much sympathy, however, when I think about more egregious miscarriages of justice. Genarlow Wilson comes to mind…..
Whose bright idea of a “party” was this?
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/20090812_TARGETS_OF_CRITICISM.html?page=3&c=y
cdg-
If you know anything about our “just us” system you shouldn’t take issue at all with what I wrote. You said it yourself: “In normal criminal procedures… does subjecting Vick to a five-hour intense interrogation where, at some point a lie detector test is given and what I must believe was “doubt” suddenly becomes “deception” and Vick is so broken that he is willing to say anything his interrogators wanted totally abnormal.
The police will poke fingers in your chest, walk behind you, suddenly grab your chair and pull it to the point where you’re about to fall, “brush” up on the back of your head, talk softly, then bang the shit out of the table with their fist repeatedly just in front of your face as soon as they see you relax because their voice softened, handcuff you as tightly and awkwardly as possible, offer you something to eat, get it for you then smack it right the fuck off the table a minute later — and much much more —— and that’s before they lay hands on you.
Don’t tell me about “not nice” and “normal” or any of that shit unless you’ve been there (excuse my being adamant about this shit but I was there twice when 5-0 “mistook” me for someone who committed a robbery – when I had a fucking bag of groceries in my hand walking home from the store and again when I got jacked during a contentious protest situation, plus that I know an author who talks with special forces cats and I know more than a bunch of people about how they do shit at Guantanamo and some of the other locales around the world).
With all that said, I didn’t say they waterboarded him, punched him, slapped him or told dude to stand so they could smack dude in his penis with a stick or any extreme shit, but almost all “interrogation” begins the same way. It’s the end game of interrogation that differs wildly.
And the feds are much, much more ruthless than normal 5-0; they often train with special forces crews and know how to fuck somebody up psychologically.
Big Man-
I’ll wait a minute on Pitino – it’s another deep topic-incident but for me, it’s for another day.
Miranda-
For real…..
……and on the Steelers link. Damn, I know news is happening quickly but I’d like to set up a way where comments in a post can be about article or commentary and not go off elsewhere. Maybe when anyone – including me because I do it, too – finds something of interest like that, we should tell each other to check Meebo and put the brand new news or something that we just ran across that is of interest on the live chat and we can do both at once. Because, on the real, it can peeve me when I take two days to write something and am up all night finishing it and it’s over 3K words, like this piece, and I know there’s much to discuss, but the discussion gets pulled off course.
Is that cool with everybody? (and thanks for the news)
….”A read of the process by which the FBI extracted an admission of guilt from Vick is nothing short of psychological – at least – torture. Transpose the description of this extraction of guilt to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Military and a Middle Eastern detainee and what would their tactics and the resultant words from Vick be called?
TORTURE, plain and simple….”
I think dwil’s analogy is correct. If I can add, there were some stories floating around that the Feds wanted to drag Vick’s brother (Marcus) into this also other NFL players around the league including former teammate DeAngelo Hall.
The Feds was throwing spaghetti against the wall and was trying to see what stuck. The Feds knew the media was on their side and the constant 24-hour cycle by ESPN implying Vick was a dog-killer and the new Black Al Capone despite not having a criminal record or even being arrested prior to these dogfighting allegations.
Keep in mind the ‘jumping of the gun’ by the media and the Falcons organization in regards to the Miami-TSA (marijuana in the bottle) incident. It turned out that Vick was innocent and the tests came back NEGATIVE, but before the tests cme back, Saturday Night Live was already doing libelous skits about Vick contributing to the unconfirmed reports that he had something illegal in a water bottle. And Mr. Blank and former GM Rich McKay were publicly throwing out suggestions that Vick will be suspended for the first four games of 2007. This story started on a Wednesday and in early 2007 and it literally blew up!
With this dogfighting case, it prompted Poindexter to question the Bush Justice Department and now-former U.S. Attorney Charles Rosenberg who started this Vick investigation…
Poindexter said this to USA Today July 7, 2007:
“This is an unheard-of marriage of forces,” Poindexter said. “I’m sort of amazed, to be quite honest.
“I’m almost looking for President George W. Bush to come in on a helicopter.”
“This comes as a shocker to me,” Poindexter said. “That’s the thing that’s so strange, that they’ve taken such an interest in this. Michael Vick is so big, I guess they want in, too. They want some of this limelight. It’s like someone wants to make their bones (reputation) on this case.”
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said “it does seem strange” for federal authorities to “sweep in” on this case. “Usually they’re pretty good about working with local prosecutors,” he said.
There were a lot of inconsistencies in this case. NOBODY talks about the original search warrants when police entered the house in Surry County. Apparently, they were faulty warrants, but the press never covered it at all. Even TMZ didn’t have a copy of the first wrrants.
….”A read of the process by which the FBI extracted an admission of guilt from Vick is nothing short of psychological – at least – torture. Transpose the description of this extraction of guilt to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Military and a Middle Eastern detainee and what would their tactics and the resultant words from Vick be called?
TORTURE, plain and simple….”
I think dwil’s analogy is correct. If I can add, there were some stories floating around that the Feds wanted to drag Vick’s brother (Marcus) and other Vick family members into this also other NFL players around the league including former teammate DeAngelo Hall.
The Feds was throwing spaghetti against the wall and was trying to see what stuck. The Feds knew the media was on their side and the constant 24-hour cycle by ESPN implying Vick was a dog-killer and the new Black Al Capone despite not having a criminal record or even being arrested prior to these dogfighting allegations.
Keep in mind the ‘jumping of the gun’ by the media and the Falcons organization in regards to the Miami-TSA (marijuana in the bottle) incident. It turned out that Vick was innocent and the tests came back NEGATIVE, but before the tests cme back, Saturday Night Live was already doing libelous skits about Vick contributing to the unconfirmed reports that he had something illegal in a water bottle. And Mr. Blank and former GM Rich McKay were publicly throwing out suggestions that Vick will be suspended for the first four games of 2007. This story started on a Wednesday and in early 2007 and it literally blew up!
With this dogfighting case, it prompted Poindexter to question the Bush Justice Department and now-former U.S. Attorney Charles Rosenberg who started this Vick investigation…
Poindexter said this to USA Today July 7, 2007:
“This is an unheard-of marriage of forces,” Poindexter said. “I’m sort of amazed, to be quite honest.
“I’m almost looking for President George W. Bush to come in on a helicopter.”
“This comes as a shocker to me,” Poindexter said. “That’s the thing that’s so strange, that they’ve taken such an interest in this. Michael Vick is so big, I guess they want in, too. They want some of this limelight. It’s like someone wants to make their bones (reputation) on this case.”
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, said “it does seem strange” for federal authorities to “sweep in” on this case. “Usually they’re pretty good about working with local prosecutors,” he said.
There were a lot of inconsistencies in this case. NOBODY talks about the original search warrants when police entered the house in Surry County. Apparently, they were faulty warrants, but the press never covered it at all. Even TMZ didn’t have a copy of the first wrrants.
Patrick-
If I’m not mistaken, the only good early news came from the News & Observer and here. In the beginning as events developed, I was talking often with one of the reporters from that paper and I got good descriptions of what went down when the police came onto the property, what they searched for originally, and how it spread to the kennels, then what went on from there.
dwil,
You didn’t say he was beaten or waterboarded, but you equated his interrogation with torture our government has perpetrated in the war on terror, so you didn’t have to explicitly say it. It was implied. His interrogation was likely a very unpleasant and scary experience, but let’s be real, this was a millionaire suspect with million dollar lawyers. He could have walked away from it at any time and likely knew he had that right. Police (local or feds) can’t detain you unless you’re actually under arrest. Maybe the feds had the evidence to make an arrest at that point or maybe they didn’t. I don’t really know. Either way, Vick and his lawyers surely knew he was under no obligation to answer their questions.
Keep in mind that I agree with much of your post, and I think Goodell and much of the NFL’s white fanbase is nuts on this case. I also think that 2+ years for dogfighting is batshit crazy. But I feel strongly about what’s been done in our name in this “war on terror” and can’t square with that bit of hyperbole.
One of the more unfortunate practices that came from my era was pitbull fighting. I used to train dogs to attack upon command. Sheps, pits, Doberman’s and many other breeds. The unfortunate thing about Vick is he was trying to fit into that ghetto hoodrat culture New York City hoodrats made so popular from the 80′s and the primary dog was the Pitbull terrier. My pits were always around kids so they were trained appropriately NOT to be vicious.
What’s sad here is Vick assuming he needed to “fit in” to the culture so dramatized by the media for all these non-New Yorkers to emulate. Why would he risk a football career with something so petty. You aren’t making that much money in dogfighting to blow 40-60 million in football paychecks like Vick has.
The Vick story is depressing to read. Like I have stated for the better part of 2 decades, Americans LOVE the “bad guy” and most will do anything to play/be that bad guy in one form or another. Sad indeed that accomplished guys like Vick need to reduce themselves to that level.
Completely understand Dwil….and yes, the more comments I read and have heard on various talk shows about MV’s “lack of remorse”, the more I’m convinced that this is nothing more than another example of the arrogant innate sense of entitlement coming from the “Angry White Man” club. “He’s not sorry!!”….LOL! “He only cares that he lost millions!”…..LOL! I laugh to keep from crying at these idiots. They SO want Mike Vick to be this meek, sorrowful, woeful negro that begs for the mercy of Mistah Charlie and never looks another person in the eye. whatevah.
Jimmy when I watched the segment they did on Real Sports regarding dogfighting, there was no mention of any “ghetto New York culture”. They talked about the history and interviewed men who were career dogfighters. These were middle-aged white men that lived in the midwest. It has no boundaries, so why make some up?
dwil, all I can say it’s just a shame that Vick didn’t lie Americans into a war, and use that lie to justify murdering a million Iraqis. He would have received glowing praise from ESPN & would have gotten a medal from Roger Goodell (who’s wife works for or worked for Fox News – see the connection)!
In America, it is understood that the media, especially the ultra-conservative sports media (conservatives dominate sport media as they do the talk radio airwaves), have carte blanche to attack African-Americans, especially black men – without consequences. Just like police know that to shoot white men carries negative consequences, and to shoot unarmed black men first/ask-questions-later have NO consequences (the DA will cover up for them everytime). How ESPN can let conservatives post their hate unabated as “article comment” is utterly amazing!
I see myself as being as much Liberal as I am African-American. Malcolm X said nearly 45 years ago that CLASS, not race, would be the basis of the struggle of the future. But one can always count on, as Mike Malloy would say, these “brain-dead conservatives” to act against their best interests.
To paraphrase William Blum, there are three things that can be used to describe Americans the last 50 years: conservatism, intelligence & decency.
If one is intelligent & conservative, he can’t be decent.
If one is decent & conservative, he can’t be intelligent.
If one is decent & intelligent, he can’t be a conservative.
Conservatives, even so-called “black” conservatives, hate black people. They can try to dress it up (as they try to do on ESPN), but it can’t be disguised (look at the town hall meetings & their attempts to use everything to try to say they can’t accept a moderate black man as the Chief Executive – “I want my county back”). But I know that Malcolm was right, and the struggle IS about class…
DWIL
Top shelf work as always my brother. Check out this cat named Floyd Boudreaux and see how the justice system treats a good ole’ boy accused of fighting dogs. Also, I love how Mike’s not groveling and how he’s giving his first interview to 60 Minutes.
http://lovinpitts.blogspot.com/2008/10/louisiana-v-floyd-boudreaux-who-are.html
Miranda & Victor Kermit
Co-sign
mactown-
Thank you (and sent you an email)…. yeah, no Big Subliminal for Mike.
victor-
That’s a helluva point. He’d be Michael Powell – oh wait! There’s already one of those who lies his ass off!
Miranda-
Thanks for understanding…. and yeee-up they want MV on the serious grovel (I mean that dude from Stampede Blue calling him “stupid…” These passive-aggressive _itches.
cdg-
I know you agree with most of the piece – it’s cool. I am adamant, though, that torture comes in many forms other than just the one provided by the U.S. Govt. (i.e. the White guys in the CIA and Pentagon). I mean the ish black people are dealing with today and have since we got touched down here isn’t a form of psychological torture? The Tralis of Tears weren’t forms of torture? Being forced to live life on a rez – after this country was all theirs – isn’t torture?
I most definitely want to redefine “torture” so people know that when there is a segment of the population that has a life expectancy more in line with NFL players than with the rest of America, that the reason those people are dying early is because they are being tortured all their lives; that torture comes in many, many forms.
Got it D!! Thats whats up!
By the way, dwil…great work (AS ALWAYS)! I turn on more people to your site – one day at a time…
…” the more comments I read and have heard on various talk shows about MV’s “lack of remorse”, the more I’m convinced that this is nothing more than another example of the arrogant innate sense of entitlement coming from the “Angry White Man” club. “He’s not sorry!!”….LOL! “He only cares that he lost millions!”…..LOL! I laugh to keep from crying at these idiots. They SO want Mike Vick to be this meek, sorrowful, woeful negro that begs for the mercy of Mistah Charlie and never looks another person in the eye. whatevah….”
Miranda:
It has really never been about the dogs. The mainstream sports media wants Vick’s style as a dual-threat QB to be streamlined, restricted from the NFL… The traditionalists want Vick to apologize for the way he wins games. People in the media are still pissed off he went to Green Bay and beat Favre in 2002.
Vick won’t apologize for the way he plays the game, and this is more of the sticking point among ‘haters’ among the national fanbase and the mainstream sports media. When we hear talk about trying to use Vick as a ‘specialist’ or a Slash-like player is really an insult. Vick is a three-time Pro Bowl player who had been to a NFC Championship game before his 25th birthday.
And another fear among sports reporters is that the dual-threat QBs currently in college such as Robert Griffin at Baylor or Terrell Pryor may look to Vick as a role model in the sense that Vick’s dual-threat style of play can be successful in the NFL, and he doesn’t have to totally change and be a reformed Donovan McNabb who throws 40 passes a game to prove that he is a real QB.
…”Kerney’s friend was raped that night in Kerney’s home. Initially, Kerney was named in the rape. Quickly, though, Kerney was said to have been asleep at the time of the rape. When police were set to investigate Kerney, the woman suddenly came forward and claimed that Kerney had nothing to do with her rape. However, it was surmised that the woman and her female friends were in the presence of – then – current and former Atlanta Falcons football players, so someone tied in some way with the team raped this woman. And the incident was being reported at the same time the Vick reporting was beginning to snowball….”
Whatever happened to the woman who filed this rape report at Kerney’s house? She just disappeared.
Excellent commentary Patrick. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
“It has really never been about the dogs. The mainstream sports media wants Vick’s style as a dual-threat QB to be streamlined, restricted from the NFL… The traditionalists want Vick to apologize for the way he wins games. People in the media are still pissed off he went to Green Bay and beat Favre in 2002.”
That statement pretty much sums it all up.
I’ve been saying for years that Dual Threat QBs are on the verge of eliminating the traditional pocket passing QBs on every level in the sport (High School, College & Professional). If you look back throughout the history of the sport, the skilled positions that were once dominated by white players (RB, WR, DB, etc. )were eventually supplanted by black players who (and let’s just be honest here)were better athletes.
The QB position has been threatened for years because of the Randall Cunninghams and Michael Vicks of the sport. It’s the last position on the field where the white athlete has dominated in regards to play, priviledge, accessibility, status and trend. It is seen as the most intelligent and most important position on the field. Those two characteristics alone are enough to influence the black athlete to “know your place” when it comes to this position.
Fortunately the ‘up and coming’ Randall Cunninghams and Michael Vicks of the sport aint trying to hear that nonsense. As defensive linemen, linebackers are becoming much stronger and faster than ever and defensive schemes become more sophisticated and abstract, the ‘dual-threat QB ‘will become a necessity. In the next 20 years the traditional pocket passer will become obselete. It’s only a matter of time.
Victor-
Thanks, man.
Patrick-
They all disappear when the status quo must be maintained.
Patrick what are you talking about? There was no rape at Patrick Kerney’s house. There was no woman…none of that happened…all a figment of our imaginations.
Vick is a SAINT compared to this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HtNXlShAvU
This person was to be thr RNC’S VP? How in the Hell is this possible?