Michael Vick, Racial History and Animal Rights

[Better Believe It]

Michael Vick, Racial History and Animal Rights
By Melissa Harris-Perry
December 30, 2010

Recall that North American slavery of the 17th and 18th century is distinguished by its "chattel" element. New World slavery did not consider enslaved Africans to be conquered persons, but to be chattel, beast of burden, fully subhuman and therefore not requiring the basic rights of humans. By defining slaves as animals and then abusing them horribly the American slave system degraded both black people and animals. By equating black people to animals it both asserted the superiority of humans to animals, arrayed some humans (black people) as closer to animals and therefore less human, and implied that all subjugated persons and all animals could be used and abused at the will of those who were more powerful. The effects were pernicious for both black people and for animals.

Given this history we might think that African Americans would be particulalry strident animal rights activists, seeing their interests as profoundly linked. But the relationship between race, rights, and animals is more complicated. Dogs, for example, were used by enslavers to catch, trap and return those who were trying to escape to freedom. Dogs were used to terrorize Civil Rights demonstrators. In short, animals have been weapons used against black bodies and black interests in ways that have deep historical resonace.

Not only have animals been used as weapons against black people, but many African Americans feel that the suffering of animals evokes more empathy and concern among whites than does the suffering of black people. For example, in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina dozens of people sent me a link to an image of pets being evacuated on an air conditioned bus. This image was a sickening juxtaposition to the conditions faced by tens of thousands of black residents trapped by the storm and it provoked great anger and pain for those who sent it to me.

I sensed that same outrage in the responses of many black people who heard Tucker Carlson call for Vick's execution as punishment for his crimes. It was a contrast made more raw by the recent decision to give relatively light sentences to the men responsible for the death of Oscar Grant. Despite agreeing that Vick's acts were horrendous, somehow Carlson's moral outrage seemed misplaced. It also seemed profoundly racialized. For example, Carlson did not call for the execution of BP executives despite their culpability in the devastation of Gulf wildlife. He did not denounce the Supreme Court for their decision in US v. Stevens (April 2010) which overturned a portion of the 1999 Act Punishing Depictions of Animal Cruelty. After all with this "crush" decision the Court seems to have validated a marketplace for exactly the kinds of crimes Vick was convicted of committing. For many observers, the decision to demonize Vick seems motivated by something more pernicious than concern for animal welfare. It seems to be about race.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/157372/michael-vick-racial-history-and-animal-rights

[Odin2005]

1. Interesting, thanks.

[northernlights]

2. for some people everything is about race

That doesn't make it true for anybody else. Only those who think in those terms. And they reveal themselves by trying to turn everything into a race issue, or by siding on every issue based on the races involved.

Those who clean up the messes created by evil sadistic thugs really don't really give a flying fuck what color the evil-doer is. Only about trying to mitigate and stop the damage, and making sure it never happens again.

I vividly remember seeing a little black girl have her little bichon frise torn from her arms and turned loose to starve, while she was hustled into a waiting bus, screaming and crying "Snowball! Snowball!" I remember that news clip to this day, and always wonder what happened to poor little Snowball.

So don't give me any fucking shit about dogs riding on air conditioned buses. Dogs and cats were left to fend for themselves or worse, were left by their owners tied to porches and decks so they couldn't escape drowning. Their owners escaped and left their dependent, helpless pets to drown or starve.

There should have been room on buses for all people and their animals. The animals and children had no options. The supposed adults did and they failed miserably, black and white.

[petronius]

3. Couple of things in there I disagree with:

In that first paragraph you quote, she claims that the effects of chattel slavery were pernicious for both people and animals, but I'd think that that particular view of animals existed completely independent of human slavery. The fact that slave-owners found a way to rationalize mistreating other humans didn't in any way alter how their animals were treated.

And then she follows with this:

"Given this history we might think that African Americans would be particularly strident animal rights activists, seeing their interests as profoundly linked."

but that line only makes sense if you accept the human/animal equivalency, or if you assume that African Americans are accepting it. I would assume it to be the exact opposite: African Americans would be more strongly aware of the human-animal dichotomy based on how it was used against them in the past, and therefore would not see the interests as profoundly linked. In fact, if AA people did feel this kinship with animals based on a shared history of oppression, they would not be as bothered by the Katrina bus, for example. Which, as the author points out, really is a disturbing juxtaposition and should raise an eyebrow at least...

[Howler]

4. BULLSHIT!!!!!

I love animals over ALL people everywhere all the time.
And I won't be silenced by a pathetic attempt to turn this into a racial issue.

[tularetom]

5. A thoughtful and well written article

However, I strongly disagree with the implication that any condemnation of the depraved acts committed by Mr Vick is racially motivated.

There is a definite racial component to the discussion about Vick, that is true. I don't care if every African American in the world defends him, what he did was deserving of a lot more punishment than he received. And that isn't a statement based on Vick's race. I would say the same thing if NASCAR driver Billy Bob Redneck had committed those atrocities.

[Better Believe It]

21. Some, not all, condemnation of Vick is in fact racist and has little or nothing to do with animals

[Better Believe It]

24. All racists condemn Vick under the political cover of concern for animals.

All people who condemn Vick's actions are not racists.

[dkf]

6. It has occurred to me that if Brett Favre had been charged with dog fighting would he have

Gone to jail?

I wonder.

[DonCoquixote]

7. Well, Brett Favre

Got caught showing his genitals to a woman over the phone, no talk of anything bad happening to him now :)

[DonCoquixote]

8. and before the apologists roll in

If Brett Favre was a Black man and not a White man, accused of harassing a white woman, he would be toast!

[dsc]

9. yeah just like Clarence Thomas was

[Howler]

12. LMAO!!!

:rofl:

[msanthrope]

23. Thread win. n/t

[DonCoquixote]

40. Thomas was saved

Only because he was a stooge to the rich white people, a step towards citizens united; believe me, if TPTB need to, they will call him that n word every chance they get; they have a way of disposing of toys: see Crist, Charlie.

[tularetom]

11. E mailing a picture of your weenie to some woman

is a hell of a lot different that hanging, drowining, and beating dogs to death.

Brett Favre deserves condemnation and ridicule for being a buffoon but Michael Vick should have spent a lot more time in jail than 2 years.

[Withywindle]

14. Agreed.

That's not to say I excuse sexual harrassment, but honestly - those comments I've seen trying to draw some equivalency are total bullshit.

Carlson is off the scale too, for that matter - I don't think Vick should be executed, that's ridiculous.

But I do think back to a case in the sports world long ago--the Pete Rose gambling scandal that completely destroyed his career and reputation. (Rose is white, by the way). Yes, what he did was directly related to baseball and his position of responsibility in it, and a severe violation of ethics within the game, which partly explains the harshness of public judgment, and yeah, he pretty much pissed on the public trust forever.

But was it as bad as torturing dogs to death for fun? Hell no, not even close. No thinking, feeling being died in excruciating pain and fear as a direct result of Rose's actions.

[DonCoquixote]

31. who said jail?

The whole dust up was about the NFL career. Do you want someone who mailed pictures of his junk to be the face of the NFL, or even an NFL team?

[tularetom]

36. I could not care less about the NFL

Bret Favre fucked up an outstanding career by acting like a sex crazed teenager. Too bad.. Sucks to be him, now he will be remembered as an object of ridicule rather than an outstanding quarterback. He's a buffoon no doubt.

But his career was over anyway. Now he won't get to play his silly little retirement drama every year.

[blondeatlast]

13. Because of course that's just as horrifying as deliberately starving

living creatures, beating them with chains, and using smaller, maimed animals as bait to create extreme aggression.

Got any more false equivalencies you'd like to share?

[madinmaryland]

38. Well, if Brett Favre had committed the same crime as Vick, would he have

faced the same penalty as Vick. I imagine he might have faced a suspended sentence with no jail time.

[flvegan]

10. Yes.

This isn't about race, regardless of what some would like folks to think.

[harvey007]

15. I agree

The outrage about Michael Vick had to do with the extraordinary viciousness and sadistic nature of his crimes. Drowning, electrocuting, hanging and beating dogs to death wasn't some ordinary case of animal abuse. Plus he was seen as a wealthy jock doing these heinous acts for profit.

He would have gotten the same prison time if he had been white. However, if he had been richer, he probably would have gotten away with his crimes, in the same way BP's Tony Hayward got away with his crimes.

People felt hatred for Vick in the same way they felt hatred for Tony Hayward.

Hayward should have been imprisoned or worse, but he wasn't, because of his CLASS. Members of the global elite are never held accountable for their crimes.

[Jamastiene]

16. I would imagine dogs who were being beaten, hanged, electrocuted,

or strapped to rape cages wouldn't really be concerned with the color of the guy's skin. Why should the rest of us be? It wasn't the color of his skin that abused the dogs. It was his actions.

From my interactions with black people, I have met some who were ardent animal rights activists and some who were afraid of animals in general, some who were afraid of certain types of animals, some who just loved animals and had pets, the gamut. Last I heard, black people are not some monolith. ALL black people don't think and feel the same about any issue. So, trying to turn this into some racial thing is really ridiculous.

1. The color of his skin didn't abuse the dogs. He did. His ACTIONS did.
2. All black people do not not share the exact same beliefs on any given issue. To think they do is to think the entire black community is some monolithic nonthinking society. I'd rather think better of black people than that, personally. I'll take meeting and getting to know individuals over forming some stereotypical preconceived monolithic notion any day. It's utterly ridiculous to try to say all black people think this or that. It's better to ask individual people what they think, regardless of race.

[snagglepuss]

17. The race card is quickly becoming meaningless, using it with regard to Vick is ludicrous.

The reality is that whereas once blacks forced into slavery were utterly the victims of man's inhumanity to man, those who now reside in the 1st world are implicated in the enslavement of people in the 3rd world and directly benefiting from it. There is no more apt symbol of this turn of events than Vick and his despicable willingless to cruelly exploit defenseless dogs for persoanl gain and oblivious to the suffering he inflicted. Vick is no better than slave owners in the Confederacy.

I understand the far reaching effects of slavery and never want African American history to be forgotten or glossed over. However lets look at what is happening today and ask how many people of every color refuse to buy clothing and other goods made by slaves in countries throughout the 3rd world? African Americans, as well as every other race in the developed world, are benefiting from slavery throughout the world.

The reality is that ALL races in the first world are either stretching their dollars buying slave-made clothing and household goods or directly exploiting labor in the 3rd world for profit. Where is the outcry? What black owned business has a policy not to exploit cheap labor? One would think given the history of slavery, African-American consumers wouldn't set foot in Walmart, Target, dollar stores etc to express solidarity with powerless slaves around the world, that they would refuse to save money at the expense of the powerless. But that is not happening because all people in the developed world are benefiting from this inhumane exploitation.

This reality is not going to be corrected or even adequately addressed until people of all classes and races in the developed world accept the fact that our standard of living is based on the gross exploitation of human labor elsewhere in the world.

[Catherina]

18. Thank you n/t

[Better Believe It]

20. Please list the nations that have abandoned wage labor capitalism and now have slavery.

I think we should boycott the goods produced in those nations that now have chattel slavery and the private ownership of humans as slaves.

[snagglepuss]

29. Are you being flip or are you utterly uninformed?

Child slavery rampant in the 3rd World
snip

Jan 2003. Contrary to most other societies in the world, in Mauritania traditional slavery is still in practice. A law abolishing slavery in 1981 has not been followed by any practical measures by the regime. Bilal, a sixteen-year-old slave, runs away from his master in order to find his mother, who left him when he was only two years old. According to tradition, the child of a slave woman belongs to her master

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLJqG_X6UGs

http://www.childtrafficking.com/Content/Library/?CID=335f5352088d7d9bf74191e006d8e24c%7C515c5c



The Guardian UK: We've got to stamp out modern slavery
snip

The re-emergence of slavery on ships off West Africa is profoundly shocking but it is not a surprise. Last week slavery its modern form came to light in cases of forced labour uncovered on trawlers fishing for the European market. In a haunting echo of the 18th century triangular trade, west African workers were found off the coast of Sierra Leone on board boats where they lived and worked in ships' holds with less than a metre of head height, sometimes for 18 hours a day for no pay, packed like sardines to sleep in spaces too small to stand up, with their documents taken from them and no means of escape.

snip

The human degradation off West Africa is replicated elsewhere. I first came across modern slavery when investigating the UK chicken supply chain in Thailand in 2002.

snip

In Brazil , investigating the explosion in soya production in the Amazon region for my book Eat Your Heart Out, I heard of the slaves found on farms being cleared in the rainforest. A Dominican priest, Xavier Plassat, who campaigns to free them told me how he had just returned with government swat squads from a farm 60km off the road where 200 workers were being kept in slavery, labouring without pay, deprived of freedom of movement and controlled by debt bondage. They had no clean water and little food and were living 30 to a room. Plassat believed slavery and agribusiness were inextricably linked.



LA Times: Slavery 20th Century Style
snip

People in the West are told in school that slavery was abolished long ago, but sadly there are more slaves now than ever before," said Alan Whittaker, a spokesman for Anti-Slavery International, a London-based group founded in 1839 to fight the traffic in slaves from Africa.

"Today's slaves are not made by iron chains, they are made by debt and exploitation," Whittaker said in a telephone interview.

These days, it is relatively rare to find old forms of slavery in which people are sold at auction. So the focus of current anti-slavery efforts is aimed at ending the practice of bonded labor, where a worker spends years struggling to repay a debt, and the exploitation of child labor at little or no wages.

Forced labor is prohibited by a United Nations convention, as is hazardous work for children under 18 and most other jobs for children under 15. Throughout the developing world, child laborers are prized for working cheap and raising few objections to their working conditions.

The worst examples of existing slavery are in India, where there are an estimated 5 million people working in bonded labor, mainly in agricultural jobs. Although the practice has been outlawed since 1976, the law is apparently rarely enforced.

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-06/news/wr-725_1_child-laborers/2


English Pravda: Slavery African Style Continues to Prosper
snip

On December 20, 2010 Interpol released 140 children in Africa's Gabon . The children were forced to work in markets and were virtually used there as slaves. Some of the children were not even six.

snip

In Niger , slavery was officially canceled in 1995. However, Timidria, an anti-slavery organization, said that over 870,000 people were enslaved in the country in 2003. The government of Niger denies the existence of slavery, but Timidria says that there are at least 43,000 slaves in the country nowadays. Many of them are known as "sadako" - female sex slaves. According to the UN and human rights organizations, the situation with slavery is also hard in Sudan, Somalia and Angola .

http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/22-12-2010/116313-slavery-0/



Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery in Pakistan

SUMMARY - Millions of workers in Pakistan are held in contemporary forms of slavery. Throughout the country employers forcibly extract labor from adults and children, restrict their freedom of movement, and deny them the right to negotiate the terms of their employment. Employers coerce such workers into servitude through physical abuse, forced confinement, and debt-bondage. The state offers these workers no effective protection from this exploitation. Although slavery is unconstitutional in Pakistan and violates various national and international laws, state practices support its existence. The state rarely prosecutes or punishes employers who hold workers in servitude. Moreover, workers who contest their exploitation are invariably confronted with police harassment, often leading to imprisonment under false charges.

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Pakistan.htm


Slavery in Sahelian Africa
snip

In the Sahel, we may be looking at some 300,000 people who live in conditions that fit the definition of human servitude used by Paul Lovejoy in his Transformations in Slavery: Slaves are property; they are outsiders by origin or denied their heritage through juridical or other sanctions; coercion can be used at will; their master can dispose of slaves’ labor power at will; they are denied the right to their own sexuality and to their own reproductive capacities; and their servitude is inherited.

But anecdotal or even hard data on human slavery in itself sheds little light on this ancient institution. In Sahelian Africa, the contours, character and historical development of slavery are little understood. The metamorphosis of slavery in the Sahel within the last century is even less understood.

snip

Defining Human Slavery
There are five tendencies in the African context: chattel slavery; household slavery; service-provider slavery; permanent indenture; and child slavery.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2008/1012/comm/brynn_slavery.html


The Polaris Project
snip

Human trafficking is the modern day practice of slavery. Also known as trafficking in persons, human trafficking comprises the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, based on the recruitment, harboring, and transportation of people solely for the purpose of exploitation. Every year traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits at the expense of victimizing millions of people around the world.

http://actioncenter.polarisproject.org/

[ProgressiveProfessor]

19. A subtle and well played race card but its still bullshit.

A colleague put it to me this way a while back...

"The black community is so paranoid that any attack on any high profile member is considered racist and an attack on all blacks, regardless of its validity."

[TBF]

22. Thoughtful article, but of course the unrec squad is targeting it

as anti-Obama.

[msanthrope]

25. Vick is just as much a victim of 'race politics' as OJ was. n/t

[Better Believe It]

26. Who here defends Tucker Carlson's attack on Michael Vick and believes it wasn't racially motivated?

Hands up please!

[bullwinkle428]

30. I think it's rather pathetic that the author is trying to conflate

the twisted and batshit views of someone like Fucker Carlson with every legitimate criticism of Vick's actions.

MHP...you kinda sorta jumped the shark with this one!

[aikoaiko]

27. weak opinion piece that really says nothing.

[SweetieD]

28. This article really makes me sick, and you probably don't even get it.

African americans should be strident animal activists because we once were considered animals? Really? That is why we should be activists for animals? We weren't animals, animals are animals. Us being considered animals by white folks has nothing to do with real animals.

[Better Believe It]

33. It probably makes you sick because you haven't read the entire article.

The writer was not making that point.

Please post a comment after you've read the article.

[Scruffy1]

42. Spot on

I have noticed over the years that my black friends seem to be more wary of animals then my white friends, but then I don't have a lot of white friends left. This is largely due to my age I think since most of my white friends have died off, and most of the friends I have made in the last twenty years are black, It probably has a lot to do with demographics, but its got to the point that I'm not usually comfortable around white people and find most of them to be brainwashed right wing radio listeners. Of course I don't really travel in the highly educated and affluent circles, but I've noticed that every time I had to go to a training session in Oklahoma I couldn't wait to get out of their and spend the evening at a jazz club in KC, where I feel at home. Strange for a sixty year old white guy.

While I'm rambling I have come to believe that the dog thing has deep roots in black culture and that the dog was often a symbol of repression. Conquering the dog and making it an object to dispose of it anyway you want to could be seen as a symbolic act. I don't think any of those involved in dog fighting have looked at this too closely, but consider the general powerless of the black community and the psychology of power. If you have no power over those above you, you can have power on those below you. Unfortunately, for many black men the only power they have is in the animal kingdom.

To me this whole dog thing is insane. Vick got more punishment for mistreating animals then any of our war mongers will ever get for killing, torturing and maiming thousands in all of our illegal wars. If we could only get them this angry about the MIC it would lead to change.

Yes, I am a dog owner and have trained and raised dozens. I know that they are not humans, even though I love them.

[madinmaryland]

32. The REAL point which has not been addressed either in this thread or the article is

do African Americans face the same justice and penalties as would a white American.

[MrScorpio]

34. A look at the numbers should answer that question quite clearly

And I don't think that the numbers are lying.

[madinmaryland]

37. Very true. The numbers do not lie.

[Catherina]

35. Sorry my friend. Bullshit argument. Unrec. n/t

[Puregonzo1188]

39. Has anybody here read an essay by Alice Walker could "Am I Blue?"

It deals with issues of race and animal rights.

[craigmatic]

41. I agree with the article. It also strikes me as specist (if that's a word)

that were care more about the health and safety of some animals while other species are suffering more. Look at how we treat chickens and cows which is a large scale business in comparison to the few dog fighting rings around the world. Does the ASPCA go to slaughterhouses? I don't think so.