What if Michael Vick was white? - ESPN reaches for new lows...

A couple more years in the slam and a 5-year NFL suspension (from his date of release) would have been good.

While we're sending the Repentant Thugs of America out to "Mentor The Youth," a real good message to send to "the youth" would be:

When you do some shit, you fuck up your life. For Good.

If you say you're really really sorry later, that's nice, but we don't give a fuck. So it would be a real good idea not to do that shit, like ever. Unless you want a Fucked-Up-For-Good Life.

 

He more than paid his debt. That doesn't mean we have to like him.

 

A better question would have been would people be as forgiving as they have been toward Vick if he didn't play as well?

 

Well, if he was white, he wouldn't have made all those ESPN highlight reels that got him noticed in the first place, he wouldn't have been drafted No. 1 -- or at all -- he wouldn't be a professional athlete, he would have been sent to prison for a much longer time and he would now be working at a factory making $8 an hour and living in a shitty apartment in an even shittier neighborhood wondering why the fuck someone who committed the same crime he did is on the cover of ESPN The Fucking Magazine.

 

Next up is Newsweek showing a white Obama.

 

If that one had gone any further, they'd have to show a movie ...

 

They would never do that to Black Jesus.

 

Sure, there are some lines in that story that are over the top, but for the most part I couldn't agree more. When Vick signed with the Eagles, I got so damn sick of hearing radio personalities and people calling in to their shows acting like this was a guy who would wander through your neighborhood, snatch up your dog and cut its throat.

He can't help that he came up in a culture in which dogfighting wasn't frowned upon but was glorified. He could, and should, have made better decisions. But far too many people ignore the fact that this isn't some guy who grew up with two great parents and two dogs at home and then turned into a demented killer who decided to torture dogs.

I love dogs and would fight anyone in a second if they tried to hurt mine, but some of the reaction to Vick's crimes just ignores reality.

 

Give me a fucking break. Killing animals is sociopathic behavior, not Saturday night fun. If you want to argue he's paid his debt, fine. We disagree on legal vs. moral judgments. But if you try to defend him on the grounds of "he didn't know any better," you're full of shit and as out of touch with humanity as any of the assholes in the media who glorify him.

 

A better question: What if people weren't so damned obsessed with race? I could not care less about a person's race. Stupidity is stupidity and has no color.

 

Isn't he just a hipster douchebag whose readership is fellow hipster douchebags? I think ESPN craves that market for "The Magazine."