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Old 12-29-2010, 01:27 PM   #1
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Originally Posted by dreadgeek View Post
Certainly, that is freedom of expression but your expression, in this instance, actually demonstrates my point. I don't think that the uproar is about Mr. Vick being back in the NFL, I think it is Mr. Vick being *employed* full stop! I think that the only *possible* job that Mr. Vick could take that would not generate howls of protest is if he were to have to walk across a mine field and find--and detonate by stepping on one--buried mines. PERHAPS that might not generate a hue and cry but anything short of a job where his death was certain, I doubt would be acceptable.

I am, as I've said before, not defending Mr. Vick because I don't defend criminals who have been convicted. I am, however, interested in this situation as a cultural situation because--and I was talking with my nephew about this yesterday--I think that if it were a white man, the general societal consensus would be 'he did the crime, he did the time, let the man get his life back'. I think that part of why so many people are just SO intense that he shouldn't be able to lead something remotely resembling a normal life is the *same* social psychology that says that if a black man breaks into a home and kills a white family his life is forfeit and the only question is whether he is electrocuted or shot up with drugs while if a white man breaks into a home and kills a black family he's looking at the life behind bars with a possibility of parole in 15 or 20 years. I am NOT saying that this is your motivation nor am I saying that anyone here is consciously working off that idea. However, there is a psychology behind the legal reality I just described and that psychology is pre-existing to ANY courtroom experience of a lawyer, judge or juror.

It is simply the case that in the United States of America, the general gestalt is to view the actions of a black man more harshly than the actions of a white man. If, for instance, Mr. Obama were a white man people would be making comparisons with Washington at this point but he's not and so he's been written off as a failed President while Mr. Bush--who was, in fact, actually a real and true disaster for this nation--will be rehabilitated into an Eisenhower-esque figure long before I die of old age.

Cheers
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I can only speak to what I would do. Michael Vick isn't just employed - he's an American hero. I'm not a sports fan, nor am I an American, so I don't get that whole sports hero thing. But *I* would certainly not support him: and here's why - I've already said it, but I'll say it again. I do not think the man has "gotten" that animals have the right to NOT be abused. He's coming out with the right words to try and polish his image. HELL! He's got millions of dollars riding on him buffing up his tarnished image! But I have not yet heard anything indicating anything other than the man got caught and is now having to placate the masses. I know not everyone will agree with this, but when you are a celebrity in the U.S. you have a lot of influence. I think that WITH that influence comes a GREAT responsibility to be a good role model. IMO Vick accepted the responsibilty when he took on the role of professional athelete.
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:32 PM   #2
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It is our jobs as parents, mentors, aunts, uncles etc. To BECOME the role models and heros. Vick is NOT my hero nor my kids, high prilofile folks should not be who we EXPECT to be this. That's on us.
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:34 PM   #3
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It is our jobs as parents, mentors, aunts, uncles etc. To BECOME the role models and heros. Vick is NOT my hero nor my kids, high prilofile folks should not be who we EXPECT to be this. That's on us.
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:44 PM   #4
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It is our jobs as parents, mentors, aunts, uncles etc. To BECOME the role models and heros. Vick is NOT my hero nor my kids, high prilofile folks should not be who we EXPECT to be this. That's on us.
While I applaud your belief system Snowy, I just don't think it's the reality for a lot of kids. They get a lot of clues as to how to behave from the media. We all know that. Vick being front and centre again gives a message. We can argue nuances, but all a football-crazy teen sees is Vick back in the spotlight. Presidential candidates lose their only chance at office because of a long-past extra marital affair. And Vick's in the spotlight again? Sorry. I just don't get it.
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:40 PM   #5
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AJ brings up a great point.

The average black man's life is much more automatically expendable than the average white man's in lots of (if not all) scenarios.

Bernie Madoff comes to mind. Here is a man who bilked a crapload of people out of Billions of dollars - He's in prison. Although his crime wasn't necessarily a violent one, I think of all the people who were close to suicide because of what he did.

How about Dick Cheney, who shot his friend during a hunting "accident". Was he ever punished for that?

What about Phil Spector? How many people did he kill before his butt was finally sent to prison?

Don't even get me started on the war crimes of George W. Bush.
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:50 PM   #6
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I can only speak to what I would do. Michael Vick isn't just employed - he's an American hero. I'm not a sports fan, nor am I an American, so I don't get that whole sports hero thing. But *I* would certainly not support him: and here's why - I've already said it, but I'll say it again. I do not think the man has "gotten" that animals have the right to NOT be abused. He's coming out with the right words to try and polish his image. HELL! He's got millions of dollars riding on him buffing up his tarnished image! But I have not yet heard anything indicating anything other than the man got caught and is now having to placate the masses. I know not everyone will agree with this, but when you are a celebrity in the U.S. you have a lot of influence. I think that WITH that influence comes a GREAT responsibility to be a good role model. IMO Vick accepted the responsibilty when he took on the role of professional athelete.
See, I don't get that he's a hero. A hero, to me, is someone TRULY extraordinary. All of the players of the NFL are talented, lucky and wealthy but that does not make him a hero. A hero is, to my way of thinking, someone who either does something so singularly superlative as to inspire awe or someone who is able to keep their head and perform their function under extreme circumstances. For the former, I think of a figure like Einstein or, even more poignantly, Rosalind Franklin or Alan Turing.* For the latter think of the airline pilot, Capt. Sullenberger. His plane has lost its engines, he's over a major metropolitan area, there are 150 some other people whose lives are, quite literally, in his hands, he can see an alternate airport in Jersey. A lesser pilot might have tried to make it to Jersey, do a one-take approach and probably would have crashed. Capt. Sullenberger calmly (and the zen-like calm is what I admired) tells the area ATC that he's going to put the plane down in the Hudson River and does so. THAT is a hero. People who run into burning buildings when everyone is running the other way are heroes. Most pilots aren't heroes in the same way that most scientists aren't heroes.

To me sports figures aren't heroes, they are people who are paid truly obscene amounts of money to play sports. That's it. So to me, Mr. Vick returning to the NFL is the same as him returning to, say, some cubical farm as a system admin.

I think that we, as a culture, would be well-served thinking about what a hero is, what a role model is and what qualities we think are worthy of emulation. Most of my heroes or role models were deeply flawed people who managed to obtain a level of virtuosity in their chosen field and I admire them because of their commitment to excellence in that field and the power of their intellect. So that might explain why I am rather ho-hum on the prospect of Mr. Vick returning to the NFL--I don't see him as a hero or a role-model. He's a guy who has a job where he makes riches beyond the dreams of avarice and not much more.


*Franklin was an X-ray crystallographer whose work was what Watson and Crick used in their work on the structure of DNA, Turing was a mathematician and brilliant cryptographer who broke the German ENIGMA code which was crucial for helping the Allies win WW II and particularly helped Britain in surviving the Blitz. Franklin died of, I believe, breast cancer the year *before* Watson and Crick won the Nobel and Turing killed himself after the War as he languished in prison on charges of homosexuality).
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:59 PM   #7
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I agree with you Aj about what constitutes a hero, but I venture to guess that suebee is right...and that most teenagers in the US know who Vick is, but have no clue about those you named.

I cringe that the "celebrities" I see teens emulating are (to my thinking) overpaid, arrogant, narcissists who contribute nothing of real value to our society.
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Old 12-29-2010, 02:07 PM   #8
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To me Terry Fox was a hero. Maybe this is a totally Canadian reference, but many of you will know who I'm talking about. I don't get this sports hero or celebrity hero thing either, UNLESS they show extraordinary character in other areas of their lives. But it's a reality in our culture.
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Old 12-29-2010, 02:14 PM   #9
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To me Terry Fox was a hero. Maybe this is a totally Canadian reference, but many of you will know who I'm talking about. I don't get this sports hero or celebrity hero thing either, UNLESS they show extraordinary character in other areas of their lives. But it's a reality in our culture.
I'm familiar with Terry Fox. I'm not sure I'd say hero there either, in the classi sense of the word. Extraordinary human? Certainly. Humanitarian? You bet. But I'm not sure that he did anything "heroic".

Then again I have a short list of "personal heroes" which includes Aimee Mullins because of the work that she's done to change the assumption that being differently abled means that you give up on beauty. If you haven't seen her TED talks, I encourage you to do so. They are amazing, as is she. So I think "hero" means different things to different people.

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Old 12-29-2010, 02:54 PM   #10
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I agree with you Aj about what constitutes a hero, but I venture to guess that suebee is right...and that most teenagers in the US know who Vick is, but have no clue about those you named.

I cringe that the "celebrities" I see teens emulating are (to my thinking) overpaid, arrogant, narcissists who contribute nothing of real value to our society.
To be honest, I doubt that most American *adults* know who any of those people are except Einstein (who is the one scientist everyone knows). I would be shocked if most American women know who Franklin was or if most American queers know about Turing. I think that we, as parents, have to do a better job at teaching our children what traits are worthy of honor and emulation and what are not.

So let's say that Mr. Vick--not by NFL dictate but by public pressure--were never allowed to play football again. What then? Is there anyone here who doubts that no matter WHAT job he obtained someone would say "they hired Michael Vick, I'm never shopping/eating/patronizing that company ever again"? I am entirely unconvinced--based solely on what I have been reading here and on news sites--that there is any job that Mr. Vick could hold that would not result in a hue and cry. Notwithstanding some job that was so dangerous that to take it was to make one's death a certainty--clearing minefields with a sledgehammer, cleaning out the inside of hot nuclear reactors without the benefit of a suit, testing for gas fumes with a Zippo lighter--I doubt there's any kind or class of job for which people would say that Mr. Vick's crimes were not prima facie evidence of his unfitness.

Cheers
Aj
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