Pride, In The Name of Love (a.k.a. My Michael Vick Dilemma)

OK, so anyone that has been reading this blog for a while knows that two of my passions in life are animal rights and the Philadelphia Eagles.

So, you may just be wondering how does an animal lover such as myself deal with the fact that the Philadelphia Eagles have just signed on Michael Vick. Does one just stop rooting for the Eagles or does one forsake the entire animal abuse crime and just get over it?

Well, I can’t speak for all the animal lovers out there or all the Eagles fans out there. All I can tell you is that I, like the NFL and the Eagles, am willing to give him a second chance.  But believe me, this wasn’t easy for me and I had to work hard to get here, so you will have to forgive me for this very long and involved post.

Am I happy that Michael Vick is now a member of the Philadelphia team? NO! If it were up to me, I would never want to see his face again after knowing how he tortured those dogs for fun and profit. But I find it befitting that of all the teams in the NFL, he ends up on my favorite team, the one that represents my city, the one I am proud to support. Why? Because it is the universe throwing me a curve ball (my apologies for the baseball reference).  Had the Cowboys picked him up, I probably would have gone on in life calling him an asshole while perched on my high horse instead of being forced to be a better person myself and tested to see if I can truly practice what I preach. 

I have always been passionate about animal rights and speak out often against animal cruelty, not because I think animal rights or animal cruelty are more important than anybody else’s rights or any other kind of injustice.  I am against cruelty of any kind, but feel animals don’t have a voice of their own and need us to be their voice and fight for their rights.

Gandhi once said, “You can judge a nation by the way they treat their woman and their animals.”  And I believe that is true, that a nation can be judged by how it treats those beings it deems to be the least valued members of society, be that their women, their children, their poor, their uneducated, their minorities or their animals. Or their criminals. A nation can be judged by how the privileged treat those that are not.

But a nation is, after all, just a collection of its citizens and its inhabitants.  So who gets judged? Who represents the voice of America when it comes to how we treat our animals? Of course, me being a complete nobody and average citizen, my voice is not going to be heard. No one is going to come into my home and monitor how I treat my cat and have that judgement recorded in history, representing my nation as a whole. I am just a nobody, a woman at best.

Instead, it is the privileged few that get to be the voice for the masses. People like Michael Vick get to represent people like me and my nation. And now my city, Philadelphia as an Eagle. I am not saying that he hasn’t earned that right. His proven talent and hard work is was what put him in the spotlight to begin with. All I am saying is he is privileged. And I hope he truly understands and appreciates this privilege he has in our society, just as much as he takes pride and ownership in the fact that he has earned it.

Many people have argued that he has served his time in jail for his crime. That is not what concerns me and that is not what matters to me. What is more important to me is how has that time in jail served him?

I believe in rehabilitation. But it is yet to be seen if Mr. Vick has indeed come to grips with what he has done, it he feels remorse for the pain and suffering he has caused and not just for good PR sake. I am sure he knows he was punished for a crime against animals (which thankfully is a crime). But does he understands that he has committed a crime against his own humanity?  To me, there is something vital lacking in this man. Namely, compassion & empathy. But those are things that are taught and nurtured in a human being.  And just as they can be lacking, they can also be found.

I have been accused many times in the past of having an “Anne Frank Syndrome”. I do believe that people can change. I do believe that people make mistakes. I do believe that people who knowingly hurt other people and other living creatures do so because they, themselves hurt inside and not because they are just evil. Not that I think this is a valid excuse for such abuse or justifies their wrong actions in any way. It is just what I have to believe in order to survive in a world that can be cruel in ways beyond any understanding I can wrap my head around.

And by the way, I thank God every day that I can’t wrap my head around it. I thank the heavens above that I truly don’t understand how someone can treat another living being in such a horrible way. For if I could understand it, even in the smallest sense, I would have to wonder what is lacking in my heart and my soul.

What matters to me is compasion, justice and equality. For the animals, yes.  But also for Michael Vick.  He too deserves to be treated with the same compassion, justice and equality as we demanded of him, as we punished him for not giving to those dogs.  And I can find pride in the fact that this is how our country works.  That we have a justice system that enables people a second chance to grow and better themselves.

So I would be a hypocrite to sit here and say that I would no longer cheer for the Philadelphia Eagles just because one of their team members did wrong. If I were that closed minded and that close hearted, I wouldn’t be proud to be an American.

America has made mistakes. All you have to do is read the Texas Declaration of Clauses of Secession which was written before our civil war.  This is what a few privileged white men once said, speaking as the voices for all of Texas and its inhabitants:

“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”

You can read the whole thing here, if you can stomach it.

But thankfully, there were enough voices out there to speak for those who could not be heard. There were many more more citizens who believed in equality enough to fight against such injustices.  And now today we have a man who is of the African race leading this country and for that I can say I am proud to be an American. 

And thanks to this cosmic curve ball thrown at me, I can’t just call Michael Vick an asshole and walk away.  I have to now examine what it is I really speak out for and examine what really is the ultimate goal.  Compassion, justice and equality.  I don’t want to see Michael Vick fail.  I don’t want to see him suffer. And in the end, I don’t want him to just go away.  What I want ultimately is for him to change and be a better voice for America, bringing honor to that privilege. 

I hope his time in jail has made him a better person with a stronger conscious. I hope he now truly and deeply understands how wrong he was. Not because others, like me, think he did wrong. But because he, himself no longer thinks its acceptable to abuse and hurt other beings because they are deemed ”inferior and dependent”.  Because he, himself no longer believes that it is acceptable to exploit other beings because “only then could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial and tolerable”.  In other words, I hope he no longer hurts in a way that would want him to hurt others.

I will be there every Sunday for the next 17 weeks (hopefully longer!) rooting for the Eagles, even Michael Vick because he is now part of the team. He will probably never hear my voice, but I hope he can appreciate and realize how privileged he is to have a nobody such as myself give him a second chance.  But most of all, I hope some time in the future I can cheer for him because has become a better person who promotes compassion and empathy just as I do.  I hope some day I can be proud of the fact that he represents my team, my city, my country and my race. The human race.