Michael Vick and his co-defendants are scum. Plain and simple. I’m glad the NFL suspended him indefinitely, and it’s appropriate that he’s going to go to jail.

But let’s get something straight — this isn’t a race thing. If it’s some sort of culture thing, that doesn’t make it right. Regardless of what Jamie Foxx says, it doesn’t take someone sitting you down and telling you that dogfighting is wrong for you to know it’s wrong. (And while we’re at it, here’s a side note — cockfighting is wrong as well. Pass it on. If you don’t understand why, you should seek help. Seriously.)

The color of Michael Vick’s skin doesn’t matter one iota. I don’t care if you’re African-American, Caucasian, Asian, Native American, or Xenu of the Galactic Confederacy. You don’t run dogfighting rings, plain and simple. It’s a horrible thing to be engaged in. The NAACP in Atlanta has urged the NFL to let Vick back in once he’s served his time. In theory, I’d tend to agree with this stand, assuming he doesn’t get some slap on the wrist sentence. But what the NAACP fails to realize is that the NFL is a business, and the players are their most visible spokesmen. The reason they command such high dollar endorsement deals is because the athlete is idolized in this country, and it’s always good to have someone’s hero promoting your product. Whether that product is the NFL itself, NFL jerseys, sports drinks, shoes, toothpaste for sensitive teeth, or any other of the myriad products that use these players as spokesmen, what is evident is that the person promoting them has to be in some way a role model.

And the day this news broke, Vick stopped being a role model to a lot of people. I’m sure he’s still a great role model for the upstanding folks who enjoy a good dogfight, but I imagine that to be something of a niche market. So while he may be allowed back into the NFL, my hope is that no team would take him. That’s why I used the “in theory” qualifier up there — I fully suspect he would end up playing for the Cowboys or Raiders as soon as he was able to re-enter the league. (As a side note, that’s pretty sad. It’s not like Vick is as good as he was supposed to be. If anything, he’s a running back or a receiver with a decent arm. But the shrines have been built, and Vick shall be held up as the Second Coming of The Quarterback. Oh, and as for his fragility, I suspect he’ll probably blow out an ACL or MCL on his way to the courtroom on Monday.)

So I’ll reserve my ever-so-important judgment on whether Vick should be allowed back in the NFL after we see what his actual punishment for torturing dogs is. It’s important to note that Vick will plead guilty to every aspect of this crime except the actual gambling bit, since a conviction for gambling would solidify a lifetime ban from the NFL. “Oh, yeah, I killed those dogs, your honor, but I really need to put the kibosh on all these gambling rumors!”

But why are we so up in arms about this? The Atlanta head of the NAACP, R. L. White, summed it up pretty well:

“Michael Vick has received more negative press than if he had killed a human being. [...] His crime is, it was a dog.”

This would seem to be true. I bet if this was a cockfighting ring, it wouldn’t be getting near this amount of press. Roosters aren’t as cute as dogs. I’m the type of person who gets very bent out of shape about animal issues. I’m not a PETA person, and I’m not a vegetarian, so I know I’m something of a hypocrite in this regard. But I don’t view it as an all or nothing thing — I can be opposed to blatant cruelty and animal testing without becoming a vegan. I don’t know where I draw the line, to be honest, but this is a digression from the point. That point is that, as a society, we can get awfully up in arms about a specific events that somehow touch the right strings, yet be completely blasé about something horrible and ongoing, as long as those horrible things are happening a lot farther away.

I recently came across this comic which illustrates it pretty well. In the reddit comments for that story, was a link to this gem.

Now let’s all sit back and think about how Michael Vick’s going to jail for dogfighting, but Ray Lewis gets to be Super Bowl MVP after obstructing justice on a murder investigation.