I agree with everything David Zirin said in his column about racism in American sports. But I wanted to add something about animal cruelty. I grew up on a horse farm. One of the saddest, and at the same time most cherished, memories I have is watching my mother's first horse die on a snowy day in Maine with his head in her arms at the ripe old age of 34. They had known each other for over thirty years.

Humans can develop the most extraordinary relationships with domesticated animals that should enrich and deepen our understanding and appreciation for all of nature as well as our fellow human beings. It is a terrible commentary on the brutality in our society that some people transfer what is done to them onto their pets, and that some people even organize "sports" around that brutality.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of people who work to rescue animals do so for the noblest of reasons. My mother worked for years in animal rescue and shelter, and if there's one thing you can say for sure it's that most of the animals that need rescuing come from homes where the people need rescuing themselves. It tends to be the poorest, most ill-treated and least-appreciated people who have felt physical and emotional abuse first hand. In America, honest people must include racism as one of the pillars of the abuse that is piled on. Of course, dogfighting is despicable.

But it is at least hypocritical to single out Michael Vick as the poster child of animal abuse while ignoring the much larger, and more lucrative, world of thoroughbred horse racing. As sports writer Dayn Perry pointed out in the February 6, 2007, issue of The Chicago Sports Review:

While the level of carnage Arlington experienced last year is somewhat aberrant, the routine deaths of racehorses are an incontrovertible phenomenon: it's estimated that each year roughly 800 North American thoroughbreds die from or are put to death as a result of injuries sustained while racing. Even those that survive their racing days don't often meet with the idyllic ends we imagine for them (idly chewing oats in the shade of some verdant Kentucky farm). In fact, Ferdinand, winner of the 1986 Kentucky Derby, is believed to have been destroyed in a Japanese slaughterhouse.

And this brings us back to Barbaro. If Barbaro hadn't won the Derby, it's likely the incentive to keep him alive for so long-his value as a stud-wouldn't be such a factor. Considering Barbaro's bona fides on the racetrack, his stud fee would've been somewhere in the vicinity of $250,000.

If he'd enjoyed a normal equine lifespan, then that would've been at least $25 million in lifetime stud value. Lucrative, to say the least. As well, the practice of artificial insemination is banned when breeding thoroughbreds, which means, obviously,there are no stud fees to be harvested from a dead horse. So there's yet another incentive for Barbaro's owners to keep him alive. It's not just track winnings that make these horses, more often than not, more valuable than human athletes.

It's impossible to say whether Barbaro's owners, Roy and Gretchen Jackson, acted selfishly in keeping Barbaro alive for so long, but they certainly had reasons to do just that. Barbaro's eight-month battle may indeed have been a good, noble thing, but it may also have been a painful exercise in craven self-interest. We'll probably never know.

Needless to say, Barbaro's owners are not facing potential bans for life from their sport nor are they facing criminal charges. And for those who want to avoid the charge of singling out black athletes for condemnation as they throw stones at Michael Vick, perhaps they should make sure they've tossed some at the Jackson's estate first. For the record, I don't think they should. And, unlike dogfighting, horse racing isn't intrinsically deplorable, but all too much of it has become deplorable.

Rather than focus on media-driven individual instances of animal abuse and figuring out who we can scapegoat, I think it's time that we ask ourselves how to get at the root of the causes of mankind's inhumanity towards itself and the natural world. I don’t believe piling on Michael Vick helps us do that.

Todd Chretien

Oakland, CA

Katha Pollitt and the Black Athlete
by Dave Zirin

Ms. Pollitt should know that if she chooses to debate a sports writer, we believe very strongly in the concept of "last licks." That means since she replied to my reply, I am swinging for the fences with my last ups.

Is Ms. Pollitt out of her depth in turning her laser pen onto sports? Sadly, the answer is yes.

For example she writes, "Whatever Vick's origins it's hard to see as a peon someone who is making $13 million dollars a year."

Clearly Ms. Pollitt took the well-publicized $130 million Vick is supposed to be making and divided it by the ten-year length of his contract. Of course, as even an ESPN channel surfer can tell you, that's not how it works. Vick was slated to make $6 million this year, and NFL contracts are not guaranteed. Players can be cut at any time and not see another dime. This scandal, whether he is found to be innocent or guilty, will cost Vick and his family millions.

Then she writes, "Maybe one day a white star will be accused of animal torture and we can compare the public response. But it doesn't describe me, or the many Nation readers who've written in to express their outrage."

But this ducks a basic question that far transcends the world of sports: Would a white player ever be targeted for such an investigation? And even if so, would a white player be scrutinized as severely as Vick, while being held up as an example of everything that is wrong in sports? This is the central point about this entire situation that Ms. Pollitt either willfully ignores--or about which she is simply ignorant: the very real racism faced by professional black athletes. Have you ever wondered why we never hear about white athletes breaking the law? Are we really willing to believe that white athletes just drink a big yummy glass of vitamin D milk before every at bat? That they don't drink and drive, don't smoke weed or don't hit their loved ones?

Arguably, if suspended NFL player Tank Johnson were white, would he still be a member of the Chicago Bears, because the police never would have pulled him over in Arizona at 3 in the morning driving through a white neighborhood? When white athletes are pulled over, are their SUVs searched for drugs or guns--or are they asked for an autograph?

When St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Josh Hancock, who was white, tragically died in a drunk-driving accident in the spring with marijuana found on his person, it wasn't then used to have a hand wringing discussion about "the state of the white athlete" or "hip hop prison culture." This happens every time there is any kind of arrest of white athletes. Here today in the news, gone tomorrow.

Moreover, the hypocrisy on the question of violence and NFL cannot be shouted loudly enough. Professional football is not only a violent sport but it practically celebrates the violence--as does the media that cover it. This is evident from worshipping the big hits (ESPN's "You just got Jacked!") to rolling out the Blue Angels and the military ads every Super Bowl. For their opening training camp festivities, the Chicago Bears invited Army recruiters to table. I don't recall hearing any hue and cry from the mass media about the NFL glorification of war and the thousands of soldiers and Iraq civilians being maimed and murdered.

Of course Ms. Pollitt understands this all too well. She is an important voice against war and oppression. But Ms. Pollitt sounds like Dick Cheney at a solar energy convention when trying to explain racism and the professional athlete. Not so much out of her depth as out of her element.

David Zirin
edgeofsports.com

Washington, DC, DC

Some of Dave Zirin's critics seem to find it hard to believe that the hatred currently being directed at Michael Vick has a significant racial component. Hey, if your righteous anger at Vick is driven only by your revulsion at the abuse of animals (and, of course, your infallible knowledge that he is guilty), why, that must surely be true of everyone else too, mustn't it? After all, it's not as if the US has a history of racial bigotry and violence.

Two days ago, Yahoo sports commentator Dan Wetzel described the scene outside the Richmond courthouse, where Vick made an appearance to plead not guilty to the charges against him. A large crowd of Vick opponents "screamed for the Atlanta Falcons quarterback to 'burn in hell' and held signs advocating his murder, torture and neutering." Wetzel notes that the anti-Vick group was "overwhelmingly white." He goes on:

Certainly not every animal rights supporter was screaming for Vick to die. Many were just there to support the cause of caring for animals, ending the barbaric practice of dog fighting and using the massive media presence to benefit good.

But a significant number were focused on Vick. When he emerged from a black SUV and made a slow walk up a ramp and into the courthouse, they pushed toward police barriers and let loose.

"Burn in hell you [expletive, expletive]," repeatedly screamed one woman.

"Die like those dogs," shouted another.

Nearby, another group held up signs supporting due process and the legal presumption of innocence. What a surprise, this group--advocating basic rights that one might think the average Nation reader would support--was overwhelmingly black.

"Not long after Vick got inside the courthouse," continues Wetzel, "and in a scene that was repeated when he left less than two hours later--the two sides clashed in shouted voices and dueling signs.

White people screaming for justice; black people asking if they still remember everything justice entails.

That a case involving dog fighting can break so quickly along racial lines is a testament to how it bubbles below just about everything in this country. We all wish it wasn't so, including both sides here. No one wanted this. Almost no one even wanted to acknowledge it. But it was there, plain as day in black and white.

"I wouldn't say it's a racial thing," said David Williams, an African American, in a hopeful tone. "It's not racial. But for these animal rights people to take one person and crucify him isn't fair."

The thing is, the "animal rights people" here were an estimated 90 percent white. The pro-Vick/due process crowd was probably 95 percent black.

Obviously, both animal rights advocates and due process proponents come in all colors. And certainly a circus show like this, revved up by a massive media presence, isn't representative of America.

But, then again, I also know what I saw and what I heard.

Thank goodness, though, that there are Nation readers who can fearlessly point out that Zirin is a "monomaniac," who foolishly thinks "race poisons everything." Get real, Dave. Whatever could have given you that idea?

Phil Gasper

Madison, WI

Here's a summary by ESPN's sports legal expert Lester Munson on the utterly brutal acts for which Michael Vick is being charged: "The government's case includes evidence that Vick and his cohorts 'tested' pit bulls for ferocity. If the dogs failed the test, the indictment charges, they were executed by hanging or drowning. In one case, with Vick present, the document says a dog was slammed to the ground until it was dead. In another incident, a dog was soaked with a hose and then electrocuted. Those aren't the sort of transgressions that lead to probation and community service. It's the kind of behavior that results in punishment, and the punishment will be jail time."

Now where did I get this quotation? From the same column that's being vilified here, Dave Zirin's "Who Let the Dogs Out on Michael Vick?"

If you are writing in to say that Zirin doesn't get the brutality of dogfighting, you need to take a breath and read the column again, slowly. If you're writing in to say that Zirin's exonerating Vick because he's black or because of racism, again, then please explain to me why the most brutal aspects of the allegations are included in the piece.

I honestly doubt whether this applies to you, but I listen to sports radio, I'm a sports fan, and I'm a person of color. Let me tell you, Zirin's column is a true breath of fresh air!

His main argument here is mainly about the sports media, its persistent racism and its hypocritical moralism regarding dogfighting when it could care less about violence against women by male athletes, about nationalistic orgies at sporting events when Iraqis and Americans are being slaughtered in an illegal occupation, or about the exploitation of sweatshop workers to make athletic gear. Nike and Reebok get talked about as saints for cutting their links to Vick, but not a peep is heard for their refusal to change the daily violence of their factories.

Let's put an end to dogfighting and sweatshops and domestic violence. We don't need to counterpose them.

But let's not shy away from the kinds of cultural analysis that Zirin opens up regarding both our sports culture and political culture: Why does our violent society pick and choose about what it regards as "too much" violence, and how do those choices get made? Why do we have coordinated organizing and picketing around Vick but very little when yet another person of color and/or poor person is executed by cruel and unusual punishment in the US? Why are there more animal shleters than domestic violence shleters in the US? Are people who are so vitriolic about Vick and his alleged participation in the horrible eletrocution of dogs also getting boiling mad about hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq or the torture and waterboarding of (Arab and Muslim) "terror" suspects--on our tax dollars and in our name?

Pranav Jani

Columbus, OH

Dave Zirin has a terrible torch to carry--racism in America. Through the lens of sport, he hopes to train a spotlight on racism as it exists in our sports-mad culture. Surely it does, but because that's the premise and end that he brings to every subject, his articles often amount to nothing more than the special pleadings of a monomaniac. Whatever the facts may be, he can be counted on to craft his stories to achieve his singular synthesis: revealing how racism poisons everything.

He couches the Barry Bonds tale in an imaginary America frothing with fanatical racists anxious to attack a man about to etch his African-American name into the history books. Likewise, his approach to the Michael Vick saga is to give short shrift to the indictment and the horrid abuse of animals and instead cast his eagle eye on a society that supposedly transformed Vick into a helpless victim of a bloodthirsty culture bent on ultraviolent entertainment.

In his religious zeal to unearth racist intent, Zirin here misses the issues at hand: that Bonds is a known cheat who will soon shatter the most hallowed record in American sport, and that Vick is likely the entreprenuer behind a brutal bloodsport designed to entertain--and profit --not only himself but his morally perverse group of cousins and acquaintances.

The Nation should be above publishing this kind of blinkered faux journalism, smuggled through under the guise of progressive thought.

Jason Hirthler

Atlanta, GA

ZIRIN REPLIES

First and foremost I want to thank Katha Pollitt and all of the Nation web-heads for responding to my piece, "Who Let the Dogs Out on Michael Vick?"

I'm particularly grateful that Ms. Pollitt, who likes sports about as much as George W. Bush enjoys Russian novels, chose to enter the fray. But my gratitude is tempered by being rather puzzled with her and all who believe that I am somehow "excusing" dogfighting in my column. I do nothing of the sort. I actually wrote, "Fighting dogs is an ugly, brutal business, and none of [what I write] is to excuse anything that may or may not have happened." Seems pretty clear.

But that didn't stop Ms. Pollitt, who remained "appalled" by what she believed to be my "attempt to shift focus away from Vick to the self-righteousness of the media." I understand that Katha Pollitt doesn't read a lot of what passes for sports journalism or spend her spare time listening to sports radio; this probably speaks well for her. But if she did even a cursory swim in these unfamiliar waters before writing her piece, she might have found my words less appalling.

To hear the panting sentinels of sports radio wax sanctimonious about the charges against Mr. Vick, and then in the next sentence call to "hang him high" or "lock him in a cage with a pit bull," is disgusting, especially in advance of a verdict. To hear these same people inveigh against the violence of dogfighting while celebrating violence in sport--the bloodier the better--is just rank hypocrisy.

But my critique of the media is not all that appalls Ms. Pollitt. She also writes, "At least the the players were volunteers, richly rewarded for the risks they took. Nobody asked the dogs if they wanted to have their throats ripped out."

There's probably a sense in which Michael Vick is a victim. But it's the same sense in which everyone, from Alberto Gonzales to Paris Hilton, is shaped by social forces outside their control. In other words, pro athletes possess more free will than dogs. Stop the presses.

But to compare a Michael Vick or a broken-down Earl Campbell, or an Andre Waters dead at 45 with the brain of an 85-year-old because of Alzheimers--as Pollitt does--to Paris Hilton or Scooter Libby reveals a basic ignorance about the "athletic industrial complex" in this country. Joe DiMaggio said fifty years ago, "A ball player's got to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family ever made the big leagues." Vick and others are free not to play professional football. They are also free to work in McDonalds, or go to a public school that treats them like prisoners.

Major League Baseball invests millions in player development in the Dominican Republic, a country with a poverty line over 60 percent, where young kids drop out of school at age 10 or 11 with big league dreams. As one player said to me, "The options in the [Dominican Republic] are jail, the army, the factory or baseball."

The purpose is not to excuse but to explain. It's a fact that we live in a profoundly violent society. We are carrying out two military occupations, spend $500 billion on "defense" and have over 300 million guns in circulation. It shouldn't surprise us that violent sports, from the NFL to Ultimate Fighting, find a wide audience. It also shouldn't surprise us that players in these sports engage in past times that one would deem anti-social.

If Vick is guilty, he's guilty. But given the violence in our world, I can't help think of the quote by Eugene Debs who said, "There is something wrong in this country, the judicial nets are so adjusted as to catch the minnows and let the whales slip through."

With her latest essay I hope Ms. Pollitt, who normally tackles the whales with brilliance and flair, enjoyed her brief rhetorical exercise in minnow hunting.

Dave Zirin

Washington, DC

This article is ridiculous! The media, sports and movies are not to blame here. Vick and his cohorts are to blame. I am trying to figure out how Zirin takes the blame away from Vick.

The fact that he has drawn so much attention to himself is because of his own idiotic behavior. I am a school teacher who teaches children who look (looked) up to this man. He is pitiful and pathetic in the fact that this is what he does with his free time. With so many children in need of role models, how can Zirin dismiss his behavior? Do you know how hard it was to explain what Vick was accused of? Even if he didn't do those crimes, he is still involved somehow. He was either doing it himself or hanging around with morons who were doing it. What does it teach my children in class? I am glad the media are reacting the way they are. It shows we are still a caring, humane society. Zirin's kind of reaction worries me.

This is not acceptable behavior and should not be taken lightly. What kind of people treat animals this way? You make millons of dollars and this is your hobby? He deserves far more then what he's going to get!

Sara Venizio

Staten Island, NY

While I agree with Dave Zirin's overall argument that the media frenzy about Michael Vick is partially about racism and also that the 24-hour "news" market has made the concept of "presumed innocent" almost nonexistent, I have to disagree on his analogy of our lust for violent sport and the case at hand.

The fact is that the bloodsports that some people enjoycfootball, rugby, hockey, boxing, extreme wrestling, whatever--are engaged in by willing participants. Consenting adults who choose to have their opponents beat them to a pulp for money and fame.

Animal fighting lacks this very important ingredient of free choice. It is not the same for that very reason. These animals are forced"by starving, beating, and other abusive tactics"to fight for their lives. That is a very important and crucial difference that cannot be forgotten.

Laura Kehoe

Chicago, IL

I have rarely read such an offensive yet bunk-filled opinion piece, especially in a left-leaning journal.

The author writes: "Let's ask why some of these fans can decry the treatment of dogs but barely acknowledge the pain of Earl Campbell." Mr. Limbau--er--I mean, Zirin, hail a clue taxi. Comparing how fans react to the "pain of Earl Campbell" to torturing dogs in a ring is absolute nonsense. You might want to take a refresher course on logic.

First, you have no reliable method of gaging what fans feel or don't feel about injured players, but for a sport that is peddled for its controlled violence, it is nonsense to judge fans' lack of outrage about injuries, since injury and pain is sold as part of the game's questionable "appeal."

Second, Mr. Campbell and everyone in the NFL voluntarily played a violent sport--and were actually paid for it--but are not playing this sport in order to kill another player in a bloodbath. And as far as I know, NFL players who don't perform well are not subjected to starvation and electrocutions until they die in agony. Dogs in a fighting ring have no choice about their fate. Dogfighting is illegal, football is not. Torturing dogs is also illegal, in a ring or outside of it.

Zirin's other hollow argument is the same one the unenlightened have always use against those of us who fight for humane treatment of animals--that we somehow place dog rights above people's rights, when they are not at all mutually exclusive. This is akin to the right wing asking how we could possibly want troops out of Iraq, when we should have outrage about 9/11.

Even worse than Zirin's article here were his comments on WNYC's Brian Lehrer show, where he said because some "aging, arthritic football players can't grip properly in old age, it makes sense that young players are attracted to dangerous hobbies" (like torturing dogs in a fighting ring). Only a male sportswriter could come up with this twisted logic. Men are forever excusing male violence with endless external pressures rather than owning up to it as their responsibility to reflect, evolve and simply stop.

Women are beaten every three minutes in this country. Why aren't those women turned into bloodsport addicts? And have you seen the number of times soccer player Mia Hamm has been knocked to the ground, without any protection, including a helmet? Small wonder she isn't at home clubbing someone with a tire iron!

And what about male and female soldiers, coal miners, police officers; what about their hazardous careers, shortened lifespans, on the job injuries and such? In fact, I can think of hundreds of more dangerous and unpleasant activities than being an NFL quarterback.

I know of no studies that demonstrate that football players live in such abject misery and trauma that their sense of right and wrong, good and bad are altered. Much more likely that they were originally attracted to football for its violence, and that their current excessive, over the top wealth and hero-worship status creates a whole lotta decadence, whether or not they limp away from it.

Dogfighting is a sadistic, illegal, sleazy, gruesome practice that has no place in any society, and there is no excuse in the world that can ever justify what attracts people to it.

Jenny Lazar

Brooklyn, NY

I have a difficult time believing that The Nation would publish such a slice of disgust, as written by Dave Zirin. This issue, of Vick and his absolute insensitive stupidity, has nothing to do with race or culture---it has everything to do with the stuff that many let pass as acceptable in the world we live in.

The action of Vick, even if he is only guilty of ignorance, should not be tolerated, anywhere in our "Nation." I do not care a fig, that Vick may have been worked too hard, abused by his culture or his chosen sport. I was abused by others, and I did not grow up to do the same, nor do I make millions by doing it to other life beings.

I am sickened by what many of this nation let pass as culture.

Get a clue, get a life, get a soul! Get real!

Valerie J. Knobel

Crete, NE

Clearly, due process is an important cornerstone of the American legal system. However, I think the author has written this piece based on opinion at the cost of the underlying facts of the case. In my experience, federal and state prosecutors will not spend months investigating charges that have no "teeth" to them, so to speak. After all, if none of the statements they are making about Mr. Vick's case are true, they would find themselves much in the same position as the unfortunate Mr. Nifong down in the Carolinas--vulnerable to a wide range of lawsuits (slander, libel, malicious prosecution) and subsequent disbarment.

The charges in this case are not motivated by racism, despite the author's attempt to trump the board with his playing of the race card; the implication seems to be that the prosecution and media are treating Mr. Vick in such a way because he is black, an allegation which is not supported by any facts in the story. Since a large majority of NFL players are black, it is dubious reasoning to imply, as the author does, that Mr. Vick is being singled out for harsh media and judicial treatment because he is a black athlete. The charges stem from abuse of animals, as it is not currently in this country a crime to be a black athlete.

While Mr. Vick allegedly deserves the "benefit of the doubt" in this case, and most certainly is owed the right to a fair trial amongst his peers, it is a mark against him that his name has even been brought up in association with this sort of cruel sport; and if the League is truly concerned about presenting its athletes as role models, this sort of egregious off-the-field criminal activity will be dealt with by a suspension or eviction. If Mr. Vick were as innocent as the author thinks, surely he wouldn't be brought up in association with dogfighting; much less, the subject of an indictment!

Finally, I am not sure what end the author would serve by bringing up Earl Campbell and other NFL greats from the past; the tone of the story suggests that you cannot both support the ongoing investigation of Mr. Vick and the critical issues of veterans' health--two separate issues. What proof or evidence can the author provide that someone who wants to see Mr. Vick punished "doesn't care" about Campbell, Unitas et al.? In the language of the NFL, that, sir, would be a fifteen-yard flag for "unsportsmanlike conduct."

Adam Barber

Arlington, TX

Notwithstanding the hypocrisy of the sports press, which is as American as apple pie, the essential line of demarcation in this debate is very clear.

Earl Campbell--the embodiment of all NFL vets who took colossal punishment during their playing days, and now live life at levels of incapacity ranging from a limp all the way to wheelchair dependency--knew what he was getting into when he left the high school and college playing fields for the big time NFL stage. Andre Waters, however tragic his suicide at such an early age, knew what he was doing when he went back into games after receiving a concussion, over and over again.

Campbell may have wanted to sit out an injury, but he wanted to play more, so he played hurt, probably more times over more years than he can remember. When his bell was rung once too many times, Waters and others like him may have wanted to sit down with the support of the coach, but instead went back in to the game to protect their job and their commitment to the macho warrior creed of professional football that they developed all the way back in high school, or even before. "No pain, no gain."

If there is such a thing as individual responsibility and accountability for one's own actions and behavior, in the NFL and in society at large, these players and all the others before or since who played injured, and later in life paid the physical price, knew what they were doing. Of course, the rich-as-Croesus NFL should help them deal with their medical issues, and not to do so is frankly immoral, not to mention unconscionable.

However, for Zirin to compare their collective circumstances to the rush to judgment about Michael Vick is a classic case of apples and oranges. What Vick is accused of is barbaric depravity, pure and simple. Dogs, no matter how they may have been brutally conditioned through unspeakable abuse to fight and kill other dogs, are essentially benign, usually loving and loyal creatures. We all instinctively know this, which is why so many millions of us love them as pets, and they love us back.

I had a beautiful, sweet, rambunctious briard-terrier mutt for seven years, adopted from a kennel and loved by our whole family until she died. She was high-strung by breeding, and hysterical in the car (until she got her head out the window, where she could feel the wind in her face, and suddenly turned docile), but at home she was a joy. When she passed, we all wept for a member of our family. To read the alleged charges against Vick, to allow that he deserves due process, but that an indictment indicates the charges might be supported by evidence, that they might be true, is enough to at once enrage and disgust me.

For Dave Zirin to focus his piece on the "rush to judgment" of the press is simply missing the point. If Vick did these things, it says volumes about not only his own cruelty, amorality, stupidity and boundless arrogance, not to mention a self-destructiveness bordering on the pathological, but also about the underbelly of the NFL. Given its undisputed position as one of the reigning American obsessions, the stark contrast between the throne Michael Vick occupies as an NFL quarterback--with all that entails in terms of wealth and celebrity--and the cesspool of his alleged behavior in the clandestine practice of dog fighting, is stunning in the extreme.

Not only does it beg the obvious question about whether his teammates, let alone the coaches and executives of the Atlanta Falcons, had any prior knowledge of this behavior which they chose to keep secret, but also the larger question of whether anyone in the NFL management structure was aware of Vick's alleged activities, and failed to take action? To lay all of this at the feet of the press, their generalized hypocrisy on other issues notwithstanding, is to fail to recognize the onerous gravity of these charges against defenseless animals, merely to satisfy the blood lust and gambling appetites of men already richer than 95 percent of the rest of us.

"Due process" got O.J. acquitted. Let's hope the same thing is avoided in this case.

Stewart Braunstein

Port Washington , NY

Who let the dogs out on Michael Vick??!! Someone should let his dogs out on him. What a freeking sob story, Zerin! These are big boys, some of them with brains. They decide to play the game because they love it, love the money, babes and fame. They have a choice and know the risks and take them, 'cuz in their hearts, they're all tougher than everyone else and can ride out the pain. I dated a nine-year veteran NFL player of the year and winner of two Super Bowls. He was the nicest guy in the world, and didn't even like the game, but he did it because he had talent and wanted the goodies. Now he's a paraplegic. Why? Because when he retired, he made the decision to continue to play other high-risk sports, like Chris Reeves. Nobody forced him. Yeah, our society's got its bad fetishes, but don't blame it--or the game--on Vick's behavior. Any profiler of psychos will give you a different story--and will tell you a psycho's dog will end up killing kids if it ever gets loose. By the way, our pitbull gives us an ear-to-ear grin every morning so that her eyes close and one tooth peeks out. She sleeps with our pet rabbit. But she's now illegal in most cities thanks to what scum like Vick have done to the breed. Hey, Mike, kill her! What a man!

Katherine Grotegut

Plattsburg , MO

Mr. Zirin stretches the premise for his story so outrageously thin that one has to think he was far too attached to the catchy title and desperate to come up with an angle to support it. This is certainly an example of the dog headline wagging the story. I can think of no other reason why the race card is so flimsily drawn. Mr. Zirin throws a bone that a few whackos used the N-word on an AOL blog and wants us to fetch the idea that this constitutes evidence of wholesale racism in the South. Can Mr. Zirin really believe that the disgust over this incident being voiced in the media is an example of the “precarious position of the African-American athlete”? You can’t be serious.

Since that bone had no meat on it, the next stupid pet trick is to get us to believe that violence in sports has somehow led to this act of animal cruelty and that any football fan who criticizes the barbarity demonstrated by those involved in the dog-fighting operation is a hypocrite for condoning the human violence taking place on any given Sunday in the fall. Are you feeling the hypocrisy? We care about these dogs, but apparently we don’t give a hoot about Earl Campbell’s knees. We’re part of the insatiate masses and celebrity-hunting media taking out our inner bloodthirstiness on Michael Vick in a racist frenzy. Please.

The large majority of sports injuries have always come from the athletes pushing themselves to the limit, not because we fans demand it. Tennis star Andre Agassi fought through severe back pain to complete one more US Open last year. Scores of mountain climbers die each year while pushing the limits of endurance on the likes of Mount Everest with nary a fan in sight. Countless gymnasts sustain career-ending injuries. Over recent years, pro football has instituted many new rules to protect players from injury. Mr. Zirin is barking up the wrong tree if he thinks pro football stands out as some kind of slippery slope to fight-to-the-death dog-fighting.

Mr. Zirin is dead wrong. This story is not about celebrity, racism, nor the South and the precarious position of the African-American athlete. If the perpetrator was a cop, the story wouldn’t be about police brutality. If the perpetrator was a junky, the story wouldn’t be about the effects of drugs. It’s a story about cruelty to animals. Why is that so hard to believe?

Malcolm Broderick

Dedham, MA

This is undoubtedly one of the most appalling articles I have ever read in The Nation and it may very well drive me from ever reading this publication again.

Vick is a victim? The author should have read the sickening indictment against Vick before he decided to use the tired and intellectually dishonest tactic of deflecting the blame.

There is a point where people have simply to be seen as fully responsible for their brutal, vicious, and inhumane actions.

But they're just dogs, right? Good God, I have had it. When I think of what he did to those wretched animals, I simply cannot bear this casual attitude toward Vick's actions.

To The Nation's editors--how could you publish this? How could you?

David Gilmore

West Lafayette, IN

As a person who rescues pitbulls and other animals in the throes of misery, I am certainly supportive of the attention this story has received and hope that somehow it will reduce suffering endured by this breed. Pitbulls always garner media attention--pitbulls sell papers and attract viewers--and they've been sorely victimized as a result of their "draw." Time the dispassionate media gave back to this breed that has been such a lucrative subject.

But more pertinent to the subject of this article is this. Though I am sensitive to the position Dave Zirin has taken in that we somehow as a society fail to be equally as disgusted by the other components of football's destructions and "side effects," or its perfection as a metaphor for the larger atrocities committed by this society and its government I guess that I feel this: A tiny drop of compassion is a baby step and if compassion can generate interest... well, perhaps it has a chance of survival in the media and in the culture. Maybe it will get another chance.

There are families where everyone is somehow at war and yet, those very families--if they're lucky--have a beloved pet that provides each member with a sense of unity as well as an opportunity to love safely. If families work that way, perhaps a society can as well.

I do not often express "hopeful" thoughts about the conditions in this society--and so, I do my work with animals--yet I simply must believe that if a negative relationship is drawn, animal violence to human violence, then isn't there a remote possibility that it could work in the opposite direction? Compassion for animals--compassion for humans? I'm a mother of a soldier--and God, I hope so.

Linda Dann
Its A Rott N Pity Animal Rescue

Philadelphia, PA

Mr. Zirin seems to be equating the prosecution of a grotesque case of animal cruelty associated with dogfighting to some sort of unfair public lynching based on gossip. Dogfighting, which Mr. Zirin variously describes as "a dogfighting operation" and "a pastime in which players make the journey from controlled to controller," is a felony offense in all fifty US states. The facts related to this case can and will be fully disclosed in criminal court. Mr. Vick will be prosecuted on the basis of the facts related to this felony.

Mr. Zirin further states that football is a dangerous sport subjecting obscenely well-compensated NFL players to work-related disablity, thus excusing their participation in felony animal cruelty. He then speciously claims that football players should be exempt from prosecution for animal cruelty because football fans are not sympathetic enough to the work-related injuries experienced by the athletes. Football is, without a doubt, a dangerous sport. I have never been a fan (it bores me silly), but it is a legal pastime and the athletes are willing participants. Equating participation in or support of football with de facto support of dogfighting is an outrageous concept.

Mr. Zirin also suggests that prosecuting Michael Vick for this felony is some form of hip-hop-backlash racism. Dogfighting, which has traditionally been a white, redneck crime, has apparently embraced racial diversity. This does not imply that only traditional, white knuckle-draggers can be prosecuted for dogfighting. All knuckle-draggers who participate in dogfighting regardless of race, creed etc. can and should be prosecuted. This case is not about placing dogs, or any other animal, above human beings (as Mr. Zirin implies). It is about prosecuting a grisly felony and has nothing whatsoever to do with football or race.

Peggy Rinehart

Shelbyville, KY

You make a valid point about the rush to judgment but this sort of thing has been standard practice for a long time now: high profile people, black, white or otherwise are almost always going to be considered "guilty until proven innocent." Does that make it right? No. But to blame the media, the NFL, and society in general for Michael Vick's alleged actions is going way too far.

If these allegations are indeed true, are we to believe that it was the NFL, or our "culture of violence" that caused Michael Vick to engage in the ruthlessly brutal, savage and inhumane tactics that directly led to the senseless killing and injury of scores of dogs? Do you honestly believe that the game of football itself and our "celebration" of its violence caused Michael Vick--a man with one of the richest contracts in NFL history, who makes millions more in endorsements, one of the league's biggest and most exciting stars who has everything to lose--to engage in these deplorable actions?

It's too large of a leap for me. Michael Vick himself made the sad decision to be directly involved in this cruel and illicit activity, and if these allegations are true than the finger of blame needs to be pointed squarely at Michael Vick. Perhaps he should use the middle finger that he pointed at Atlanta Falcon fans last season.

Greg Houle

New York, NY

The facts against Michael Vick are damning. No one disputes that a house owned by Mr. Vick was an arena for gladiatoral combat involving dogs (Vick's defense was that he didn't know what was going on in the house, not that the events didn't take place). Unlike NFL players, these dogs did not have a choice whether to perform or not. Unlike NFL players, these dogs were executed if they didn't perform up to standards--hanged, electrocuted, beaten or shot. The allegations include evidence that Mr. Vick participated in the killings. Under these circumstances, is it any wonder that people find Mr. Vick to be a heinous individual? That if, say, Peyton Manning was charged with the same acts he would be vilified as well? If you have ever had the privilege of owning a dog who gave you unconditional love, you would understand why some of us think Michael Vick is the scum of the earth, regardless of his race. Does my hatred of a dog-torturer mean that I am a racist, or does your defense of Michael Vick mean that you are an apologist for sadistic creeps?

RIck Rodstrom

Los Angeles, CA