Open letter to the Atlanta NAACP protests the chapter president's support of Michael Vick.
When Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was arrested and indicted on federal charges relating to his involvement with staged dogfights (to which he later pled guilty) in August 2007, he potentially stood to lose not only his freedom (to a prison sentence), but also his career (if the NFL should choose to permanently bar him over the issue) and up to $100 million in salary, bonuses, and endorsements. Some of Vick's supporters maintained that he was being scrutinized too closely and judged too quickly and too harshly, and that the public was condemning a 'young black man for sins that would be more easily forgiven - or at least, less stridently covered and condemned - in a white person.'One such supporter was Dr. R.L. White, president of the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who told Newsweek:'I think [the scrutiny of Vick is] racially influenced as well. Obviously celebrities are scrutinized, but he has attracted scrutiny prior to this case for no other reason than because of his 'thuggish' image. That persona may have turned some people off, and when people see that they assume you've done something wrong. He's definitely getting attention because of his celebrity, but in terms of people's judgment of his guilt, that's essentially racial profiling. He's been completely vilified.'Dr. White also proclaimed to the press that:'In some instances, I believe Michael Vick has received more negative press than if he would've killed a human being,' White said. 'The way he is being persecuted, he wouldn't have been persecuted that much had he killed somebody.' White also said he didn't understand the uproar over dogfighting, when hunting deer and other animals is perfectly acceptable. He urged the National Football League, the Atlanta Falcons and Vick's commercial sponsors not to dump the troubled athlete. 'We feel that whatever the courts demand as a punishment for what he has done, once he has paid his debt to society, then he should be treated like any other person in the NFL,' White said.(At the national level, however, NAACP interim president and CEO Dennis Courtland Hayes stated that the organization 'did not have an official position on the case' and that he 'didn't want to speculate about whether Vick was being treated differently because he is black').Trying to assign any kind of truth status to the 'Open Letter to the Atlanta Chapter of the NAACP' reproduced above is a rather pointless exercise. Obviously someone wrote it (or we wouldn't be reading it), but the author isn't specifically identified in the letter, and the text has been circulated in versions featuring different given names (e.g., 'Larry,' 'Mike') and ages (e.g., 27, 63, 70+) in the opening sentences. (This blogger has claimed credit for writing it.) The fact that it's an 'Open Letter' (i.e., intended as something for general readership rather than personal communication) also means it wasn't sent to either Dr. White or the Atlanta NAACP. And while the letter was penned in response to statements genuinely made by Dr. White, it is nonetheless purely an expression of opinion.
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