A Black Thang

Paraphrasing Bernie Mac, I'm only going to say what you were thinking.

In fact, because of some long-overdue rethinking the whole skin color thingy, I'm going to say some things that some of you can't say without getting called a racist.

If my skin is my sin, then that same pigment is also my privilege.

Michael Vick is guilty as hell, and anyone who supports him is a damn fool.

I don't want to hear anything about due process or "innocent until proven guilty," because I'm not in a courtroom. I'm not an officer of the court. I'm not an attorney. I'm not a juror.

I'm just a man who can read. In fact, I could and did read all 83 paragraphs in the 18-page federal indictment against Michael Vick.

I'm sorry...wait a minute, no, as a matter of fact, I'm not: given what we already know to be irrefutably true of Michael Vick, why is it that I could read that indictment and be truly, utterly horrified...but not surprised?

Not in the least?

Maybe it was the water bottle incident. You remember, the one where he was carrying a water bottle with a secret compartment. See, the whole point of SECRET compartments is that they are not meant to be found, because they are HIDING something.

If your skin is the same color as mine, I don't want to hear a damn thing about "all them rich dudes got secret stuff, why they pickin' on my mans?" It doesn't matter if Donald Trump smokes more chronic than Snoop Dogg at Freaknik, what he's NOT going to do is carry it with him in a secret comparment in his water bottle.

See, this is what those of us who were raised better would call "ghetto thinking"...if we're being polite. If we aren't being polite, we'd rightly call it "stupid as hell," which, ironically, characterizes most "ghetto thinking."

Yes, Michael Vick was rich. Richer than any of us will ever hope to be. And still, he chose to "keep it real" and do some ghetto-a** stuff with his millions. Like carry a water bottle with a secret compartment.

Like sneak into different health clinics under the nom-de-plume "Ron Mexico," to get treatment for herpes (!!), the gift that keeps on giving, because he was hotter than a stereo at the swap meet and burning every woman he'd slept with.

Like flip off the hometown fans with both hands in a fit of pique reserved for most two-year-olds...and, amazingly enough, some of y'all are stupid enough to continue to support him.

The man makes millions of YOUR dollars, flips YOU off, and you are in front of the federal courthouse supporting him?

This is ghetto as hell.

Again, he is guilty. And you know it. Just like we all know O.J. did it.

To this day, I'm sick of hearing the following rationalization: "Well, he made the system work for him."

Did he?

What, exactly, has his acquittal gotten for him? Besides the scorn of the people shouting most vociferously for his freedom?

Tell me, my dusky-hued companion, what self-respecting black man would have O.J. to a barbecue?

We all know that the right thing was not done then.

The good news for the rest of us is that the Feds also know that the right thing wasn't done then. They are not going to make the same mistakes that the L.A. prosecution team made. They are going to nail Michael Vick's sorry hide to a barn door. And they should.

See, what "streets has spoken" doesn't realize is that the Feds SHOULD nail Michael Vick's sorry hide to a barn door. "Streets has spoken" thinks that the Feds are only going after Vick because he is black and rich.

Funny, Michael Jordan is at least as black as Michael Vick, and easily richer, but the Feds weren't hauling him into court on an indictment for dog-fighting.

Even funnier, Oprah Winfrey is at least as black as both Jordan and Vick, and easily richer than both of them combined, and she hasn't been repeatedly named in any 18-page federal indictments recently.

Call me crazy, call me a Tom, call me a sell-out white wannabe house nigger, call me whatever you want, but I'm guessing that the Feds are going after Michael Vick because they have reasonable cause to believe that he broke the law.

You might remember the law. It's that thing that protects things like little kids, old people, and dogs.

I mean, damn. A dog can't speak for itself. A dog can't say, "You know what? I really don't want to have sex with that other dog right now."

That's why Vick and his boys had rape stands...to help the unwilling female submit.

Seems to me that something like this might have happened before.

Oh. Wait. That's right.

It was during slavery, when black women were forced against their will to submit to whatever was asked of them.

Sometimes it was to have sex with a slave from another plantation. Sometimes it was with the master himself, or whomever he decided to give her to.

And you fools are supporting him because he hit the same genetic lottery that you hit.

And I will call you fools, because I've read opinions from black folk that actually believe that all of it, every piece of evidence, right down to the 54 dogs taken from his property and the 17 dog carcasses found on that same property, all of it was fabricated. Made up. That Good Ol' Herpes-Having Mike Vick with the Special Water Bottle and the Magical Flip-Off Hands was being framed by the Feds because they couldn't stand to see a black man rich and happy.

If it takes electrocuting, shooting, hanging, drowning, and slamming a dog's body into the ground to make a black man happy, count me among those signing up for whatever Michael Jackson had done to him.

If that's what it means to be black, to support an evil man only because his skin color is the same as yours and not to judge him by the content of his character (like Dr. King once said...you remember Dr. King; he's that fat-headed black man on the wall right next to Malcolm X and the Black Jesus), then I'd rather be anything else.

I'll have no truck with anyone who supports Michael Vick, even if he gets acquitted.

Like my father, a black man before me, once said, "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."