Although it seems to have mushroomed in the rhetoric since it first achieved mention in this space, the racial component in the perception of Michael Vick’s role in the dog-fighting conspiracy to which he recently pled guilty has taken on a life of its own. How could it be otherwise?
To be sure, we humans are a prejudiced lot and this includes both fans of dogs and of the Atlanta Falcons quarterback. And columnists, for that matter. We also are predisposed by race. Let me count the ways! One event in particular, however, set the stage for the many prejudgments that were to follow.
The memory of what transpired in Birmingham, Alabama, during the first week of May, 1963, had a lot to do with a specific form of narrow-mindedness that would soon consume my heart and soul. the end of the week, I had become a bigot.
There was something about helmeted cops bringing to bear fire hoses and German shepherds upon sidewalks full of kids quietly marching and singing to the beat of a different drummer that not even brick-throwing mobs could top.
A soon-to-be unemployed commissioner of Public Safety by the name of Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor orchestrated the festivities and, in doing so, left an imprint so indelible that I would never be able to trust white people again.
Actually, Bull and his thugs shouldn’t get all the credit. There were to follow a long litany of white-men-in-power who, if Connor hadn’t already beaten them to the punch, could have achieved similar results.
L.A. County Sheriff Pete Pitchess certainly did his part during the late 1960s and, once again, political demonstrators were most often the target of choice. It was a time when tear gas and epithet lay upon the land.
It would be on August 29, 1970, during the Chicano Moratorium march that, some distance away from the heart of the main activities, a Pitchess deputy would launch a tear-gas canister into the Silver Spur Café on Whittier Boulevard. Like a truth-seeking missile, it would strike L.A. Times columnist Ruben Salazar in the head, leaving him dead. Quite comfortable in my bigotry, I’ve never even tried to forgive them.
If the racially motivated antics of Bull Connor had first put me into white-boy denial, no doubt it was Sheriff Pete Pitchess and his Nixonian bunch that caused me to “come out” as a Mexican. I’d probably been in the closet since my first chili relleno, but, with this latest shame to my gringo heritage, there was no use hiding it any longer. Raza Si! Guerra No!
We Irish are quite malleable when it comes to cultural orientation. I know my brother McGee became black not long after hearing Lightning Hopkins for the first time. Later, a scratchy album by Robert Johnson would seal the deal. In recent years he has added Hawaiian to the gumbo. He’s slowly morphing into Jellyroll Kahanamoku.
An even stranger example of cross-pollination would have to be O. J. Simpson. I’m not actually sure of the precise moment he became white — epiphanies aren’t always accompanied with a “born on” date like a Budweiser can — but it must have been sometime around his first three-touchdown game for USC.
The true miracle of it all is that he was able to pull it off without changing the color of his skin. For quite a while, especially after catching an interview or two, I was convinced that the whole thing was a hoax — that it was really Troy Donahue doing trauma-rehab following a Coppertone malfunction. To this day, I remain secure in that assessment.
How he’s been able to carry on this particular charade for so long is beyond me. He’d be much more at peace with himself if he just followed my example and “came out.” We know you’re in there, O. J., and we know you’re white — and much, much more. To borrow a phrase from Emile Zola, “J’accuse!”
The Michael Vick saga is somewhat more complex. I find it almost impossible to distinguish between the dog-fighting mentality and that of Bull Connor and his lynch mob. Within their hearts of hearts, they are brothers in arms. They both believe they are doing nothing more than having sport with those lower on the evolutionary ladder than themselves.
Don’t you see, Michael? Dog fighting is a white mentality — just ask Sitting Bull or Manuelito or Robert Marshall, the black coal miner they lynched down in Price back in 1925 for having been seen near the scene where a white man was murdered.
One thousand people watched but — and this should impress your friends, Michael — no one snitched. It was the “Man Rule.” They had credibility among their own — or “street cred,” as they now call it. They think it may have been the last lynching of a black man in the American west. But, whether it was or not, they strung him up like a dog, Michael! Ya dig?
According to his statement to the press anyway, Michael Vick has set about becoming “redeemed” and we can only wish him well. Maybe I ought to take a drink from that very same well and possibly get a better handle on my ever burgeoning (I like that word) racial bias against white folks.
They’re just like me, I know. At least that’s what everyone tells me. And, to be honest, some of my best friends are white. It’s not their fault they dance funny. There I go again! Another stereotype! Maybe I should stop allowing Bull Connor and Pete Pitchess to color my perceptions and begin seeing whites as individuals. Nah! I’d lose my street cred.