Bleacher Report's 'Vick'

Growing up as an African American athlete there are certain professional athletes that you love, then there are athletes that you want to be. Jordan and Jerry Rice were the athletes you loved, because they were incredible competitors and they were winners, but at the end of the day you would trade everything for a chance to be Allen Iverson or Michael Vick. They were black super heroes. They were just so unapologetically black and true to themselves. They walked the way they wanted to, they spoke the way they wanted to, they wore their hair the way they wanted to, and they played they wanted to. It seemed like no one could stop them from doing what they wanted to do on or off the field, and for a lot of black kids it was exciting and encouraging to finally see someone who is actually like them succeed, and see people embrace them for being themselves. Which is why it broke our hearts to see Mike Vick go to prison and have so many people assassinate his character, and continue to assassinate his character. What he did was wrong, but America did what it always does to black people, when they came after Vick: Condemned our culture without fully understanding us. One of the interesting points they make about the act of dog fighting, as despicable as it may be, is that it's common in in black communities in the south. It's not that these are cruel people, or unloving people, it has to do with the way we see dogs. Aaron Brooks, a former NFL quarterback and second cousin to Mike Vick, even said, during the documentary, "We view dogs as just dogs... We don't treat them like people."  White people, in general, treat there pets like they would humans, and sometimes it seems they view the life of an animal to be more sacred than the life of a black human (prime example: The gorilla that was shot after the kid fell into his cage). I'm not saying they're wrong for treating dogs like humans, and I'm not saying black people are wrong for treating dogs like "dogs," but it is wrong when white see themselves and their morality as superior and choose to condemn us and our character, without fully understanding us, and that's where I feel a lot of the animosity towards Vick came from. Throughout the entire event of Vick being arrested and tried, people are calling him a monster and assassinating his character, but no one ever really looked into his story or asked why, which is what I was so happy to see Bleacher Report's documentary. In the moment you only get to see the story that the media lets you see, and all we saw was a very wealthy black man abusing animals. There weren't any excuses made for him, and he didn't make any for himself. He accepted his punishment like a man and never tried to run. And when he got out he worked his hardest to rectify his mistakes. The reason why a lot of idolize Jordan, but want to be Mike Vick, is because he was never afraid of being himself on and off the field, and took risks by doing so. He isn't perfect and never claimed to be. In a lot of ways he's a near perfect representation of a lot of us. And for people to try and tell me that one of the few black super heroes is actually a villain I couldn't believe it and won't believe it. His meteoric fall from grace and his triumphant return, to me, only solidifies his status as a hero.