In worlds far, far away from the genius that lies within each aforementioned participant in that singular event are recurring, Bizarro world block parties: the tawdry scenes of visits by high school recruits to college campus; prostitution rings run by former NFL players, dog fighting pits in darkened corners of cities and towns. These activities are peopled by the high people in low places and low people on the come up.
In a Boulder, Colorado courtroom, Lisa Simpson continues to seek justice for being sexually assaulted at a University of Colorado recruit party in 2001. That's six years removed from today. Resident, turn a blind eye head football coach Gary Barnett is long departed. Even the recruits who did attend Colorado and play on those football teams have come and gone. The policemen who knew of these activities and only said, "Keep it down, will ya," still drive a beat in the city of Boulder.
Meanwhile Bob Buczkowski and his girlfriend's circle of multi-million dollar whores served the entire Pittsburgh metropolitan area. And we are to believe no city councilman, no cop, married or otherwise, no judge, no businessman put in a call to "Bob B's Head-Bobbin' Ho Shop?" Don't feel this can be true? Then explain his pat-on-the-ass, 90-day house arrest sentence.
Sure you're right.
And we are to believe that the abhorred in America activity of dog fighting didn't attract small town and big city mayors somewhere in this vast expanse of a country. We are to believe that Tidewater, Virginia black man Michael Vick is the "Don of Dog Fighting " in fully one-eighth of this United States without the silent yes of someone or some people who's wigs are big?
We have the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). We have People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
What we really need is PETAP and HSUS - People for the Ethical Treatment of All People and Human Society of the United States.
See, I'm still trying to figure out how Genarlow Wilson and the Jena 6 are receiving inhumane, unethical treatment, while Jonathan Babineaux can hammer his girlfriend's dog to death and play for Arthur Blank this Sunday. See, I'm still waiting - from his high school days - for a sincere apology by the community and the courts for the inhumane and unethical treatment of another, wrongly-accused Tidewater man, Allen Iverson.
I'm still waiting for the people at St, John's University responsible for the signs with monkeys that read, "Hey Pat, Can U Reed Dis, Nigger" to come forward and provide us with a mea culpa for their inhumane and unethical treatment of Pat Ewing when he attended Georgetown University.
The televised treatment of Ewing comprised some of my first real memories about the world of college basketball. Are you going to apologize to all the little black children like me who saw those signs? See, those images told little black children like me that white people are evil. Those same images told little white children that it was cool to think of black people as animals.
Why do you think I'm more afraid to face four members of the Duke Lacrosse Team on a street late at night than I am four black members of, say, Michigan State's basketball team at the same place and time?
Can I call my local chapter of PETAP and HSUS to address the psychic issues I and every other black child who saw those signs incurred?
I didn't think so.
We tend to lose our collective minds over cause celebre cases like that of Michael Vick and dog fighting. We do nonsensical things like compare the treatment of Vick to that of Paris Hilton. We make specious attributions of Vick's actions to "black culture," or "Southern culture." We even say that game hunting is somehow less of a vicious act than is dog fighting.
Say what you will (and I've mentioned this previously), but the fact that anyone can go on You Tube and watch Paris Hilton snort a mountain of cocaine and the police do not use this as cause to raid her home as they did with the Surry County Michael Vick-owned home is sickening.
Anyone who uses the excuse of "culture" relative to dog fighting is at least short-sighted and at most, racist. The fact that dog fighting is a misdemeanor in the states of Wyoming and Idaho explodes this myth of black and or, Southern culture.
Finally, taking anything from a high-powered rifle to a crossbow to kill an animal for "sport" is, short of committing murder, the most inhumane act in which a human can engage.
The high people in low places who overlook certain criminal activities in favor of others are more than likely themselves practitioners of criminal acts. Those who decry Vick's actions as the ultimate in inhumane treatment of animals have lost perspective of how inhumane we, as humans, can actually be. Ask yourself, was Vice President Dick Cheney's dinner at stake when, in the process of quail hunting, he sprayed a man's face with buckshot or was he hoping to revive a sense of his long-lost virility?
Did PETA and the HSUS demand that Cheney be held accountable for his frivolous hunting? Did they demand that he step down from his position due to his act? No.
Don't ever claim the Vick case is solely about celebrity.
And, by the way, who is going to return the innocence to all those children, black and white, who witnessed those racist anti-Pat Ewing signs? Who is going to return those lost years to Genarlow Wilson and to Allen Iverson? Who is going to restore Lisa Simpson's faith in men or the justice system? When will PETA and the HSUS protest Arthur Blank for his double-standards when it comes to players on his team killing dogs?
When will we learn that, by overstating the importance of certain incidents at the expense of others, we reveal more about the malicious side of our society and ourselves than we do our sense of justice?