Racial injustice blamed on NASCAR

The piece leaves me with a good feeling because now I know that no matter what I write over the remainder of 2007, it won't be the worst column to be published.

In short, he's probably the Ernie Irvan of writing -- swervin' all over the place, doing damage at seemingly every turn and reaching the finish line intact much to the dismay of his colleagues.

 

Wow, was that meant seriously. It felt almost like someone doing a spoof of scoop's worst work. As one example, can someone help explain this sentence:

"These redneck, racist, string 'em up, tar and feather, shoot, beat to death, hang pregnant women and slice their stomachs so the unborn baby falls on the ground-ass people were glorified! Glorified, damn it!"

Was that meant as a generalization of all nascar fans, its founding members, or just its drivers? Either way, it certainly is a fair one. That piece was just bizarre.

 

Here is a piece that Mr. Wilson wrote a little while ago:
http://chicagosportsreview.com/inthemeantime/contentview.asp?c=197638

Michael Vick will not be indicted in the dog fighting flap. That's bad news for the machine that invested so much time and money manipulating news to give the appearance that Vick is just a low-life nigger - oops, "thug" - who has a list of maleficent acts rivaling that of Adam Jones. You know who you are and you know you made that statement on national television.

Then, there are the bloggers, the independent writers without contracts demanding exclusivity. When the Vick story broke and then early on when the whitecaps were breaking harshly all around Vick's head, you were fighting to break any negative news you could find. You were so very proud to provide your redneck, racist readers with links to your prior stories so that they could walk in your shoes; so you could smirk along with the big boys, hoping that on Vick's back you might rub shoulders with the sports writing hoi polloi. But yesterday you wrote that curt little three-paragraph thing; one paragraph was a quote. And with your second written paragraph you're still on the Vick is guilty tip.

What happened to all the links with the damning evidence, blogger boy? All the links to prior writings and opinion pieces? Remember, you used Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports instead of Virginian -Pilot reports for your information. That's akin to choosing to believe the guy who "heard" that your girlfriend was screwing another guy when she told you she was going to the store because you're too much of a punk to confront your girlfriend yourself; you might find out an unwelcome truth.

There's no indictment forthcoming - there is no, "if it turns out to be true."

What's up with the columnist who, to this day, says Vick is guilty; just said it Friday on national television? You and your co-worker, you know, your buddy with the same name as a former NFL QB and Super Bowl head coach. Neither of you had the guts to quote from the Virginian-Pilot. You paraphrased quotes from the Commonwealth Attorney Gerald Poindexter just so you could manipulate his image to make him appear like a black man pandering to the black athlete - all for your white readership.

Every column you wrote condemned Vick and Falcons owner Arthur Blank for keeping Vick in Atlanta. Every column, you used your buddy's manipulated half-truths to position yourself one the side of white - I mean, right. But the whole time you pontificated on Vick's niggerness - damn, I did it again, I meant "thugness" - in your paper and when you guested on television, you were wrong - same with your half-truth writin' boy.

Who's burning in Rome now? Bojanglers.( I believe Mr. Wilson is calling out a SportsJournalists.com poster)

I know all you who wanted Vick to be guilty so much that you salivated at the thought of him standing before a judge and being sentenced. Now, all of you are using the O.J. excuse: Well Vick has enough money and powerful enough lawyers to get out of this.

What the f---?! Michael Vick isn't Scooter Libby! Do you really think Vick was somehow able to influence these people who so badly wanted him indicted?

Suddenly, to all you "let's hang Michael Vick" people, Surry County, Virginia, along with the entire Tidewater area of Virginia, is "Michael Vick country"... as if he's Boss Hogg and has the police and the prosecutors in his wallet pocket; like Vick came back and greased some palms.

Aren't you the same sorry-ass people who scream, "There couldn't be a conspiracy! Look at how many people would have to be involved for there to be a conspiracy!"

Let's use your own argument and see how it holds water in the case of Michael Vick: well, he'd have to pay off the Commonwealth attorney and his assistants, he'd have to pay off the judges, he'd have to pay off the police, he'd have to pay off the myriad USDA investigators who fit into a dozen cars, plus the person who drove the U-Haul.

What'd he do? Promise them all Atlanta Falcons season tickets? Did he go all Capitol Hill lobbyist on these good, God-fearing Americans and send them on vacation junkets on yachts? Do they suddenly have Swiss bank accounts?

Oh yeah, and where has the Humane Society been? They're quiet as church mice; same with that congressman from California praying for some bi-partisan love.

Fools.

Where is the infamous "Mr. Mumbles" of Outside the Lines lore? He was the man, the informant who was going to put Michael Vick in prison because Vick was a high-roller. Remember, he was the dude who said that, while in college, Vick dropped at least $5,000 on dog fights; brought his own dog, too. Remember, it takes about $5,000 to care for the dog. It also costs around $5,000 to buy a good fighting dog. That's a lot of dollars for a college student. Oh, but I forgot, Michael Vick was getting paid NFL dollars to play for Virginia Tech - right?

Where are those felons wallowing in the prison in South Carolina? You know exactly who I'm talking about. The two fellas who said they would testify against Vick because they knew he had fighting dogs - right?

I know I was one of the few people who consistently reported the facts of the case. And the facts did not add up to Vick being indicted for anything. The facts did not show Michael Vick knew about dog fighting on that property. The facts did not show that Vick participated in dog fighting anywhere.

This is not about your opinions. That means you: television talking heads, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution black race-baiters, the blogger without the guts to give the same treatment to Vick's innocence that you did when you were blissfully awash in the Vick-is-guilty public sentiment, and the guy with the whiny voice who said the Surry County prosecutor was "playing the race card" when questioning the USDA investigators' motives relative to their attempting to indict Vick.

We're talking about facts.

And you have the nerve to say this isn't about race.

When each and every one of you writes to me and apologizes for all the crap you wrote - and said - about Vick, then I'll consider that perhaps this isn't about race.

But you won't - and it is.

 

You are absolutely correct on that, Commodore.

 

I agree with IU90. It was so over the top that it reminded me of the Nation of Islam Sportsblog.
By the way, Jonathan Babineaux, the other Falcon alleged to have engaged in cruelty to animals, is also black. In pointing out the media's ignorance of the Babineaux situation, he seems to want to imply that the media is ignoring the issue because of race. Vick gets skewered and Babineaux is ignored, etc.

 

And based on the second column provided by 'Yab, it's probably best if no one uses this gentleman to point to legit racial and social injustices that really do exist.

 

Bingo.

This column was a trip on a runaway carousel: poorly written, illogical, hypocritical backtracking ("rice eaters?") that destroys his entire "premise" (which was so poorly articulated that I sometimes had a hard time seeing exactly where he was going) and an abysmal display of any element in the columnist's toolbox.

It's as if he couldn't decide if irony, sarcasm, preaching or simply swinging a sledgehammer would work best. So, he indulged in all of the above.

I'm with you, Alley. There may be a pony of truth to some of this, but he screwed the pooch in finding it.

 

A review of his prior writings indicates that the column originally linked in this thread is fairly representative of his style and substance. One wonders if a white writer would be afforded a similar public and professional forum to proclaim such hate and ignorance?

 

Is this a real pick it up at the newstand magazine? If so, it can't hire a columnist with a better resume than...

 

That's certainly something you could wonder, 'yab, but it's not very productive. Much more productive would efforts to try and legitimately counter this guy's arguments while recognizing there are still problems.

 

I wouldn't say he has a particularly great forum; the cover of that Chicago Sports Review had more exclamation points than a Gil Thorp strip. And his tagline (D.K. Wilson is a freelance sports writer. He is better known on the internet as "DWil," and writes for AOL, The Fanhouse and the sports blog writers collective, The Starting Five.) suggests a writer who's not in the mainstream media at all.

 

Perhaps not, but AOL isn't necessarily the Podunk Press, even if it isn't also the NYT. His kind of hatred can do damage, even in a smaller forum like the CSR or AOL.