Get a clue people. All the trouble in Michael Vicks’ life right now is just a racial conspiracy to do him and all black people in. I’m sure you thought it was the result of him being a street thug with money but without the ability to lose the ways of the ghetto. Oh yeah, and animal cruelty? Not so much. I repeat, this is all about racism.Why, you ask? Well, Juanita Abernathy says so. Why wouldn’t you believe this sweet looking lady?

So every time Juanita Abernathy walks into a room — which she’s doing right now, wearing a light purple jacket — she does so with credibility. Her opinions have weight behind them. She has been shot at with rubber bullets in Belfast, Northern Ireland, threatened by police in Jackson, Miss. With the other photos, she keeps a framed picture of her home that was bombed.

Apparently, according to the AP and author Wright Thompson, walking into a room wearing a light purple jacket, having been shot at with rubber bullets, threatened by police in Jackson, MS, and having your home bombed gives you credibility. Therefore, with none of this ever happening to me, aside from possibly wearing a light purple jacket, I must have no credibility.

She sits down and tries to explain why so many black people in Atlanta see racism behind the treatment of Vick. It has very little to do with Vick and everything to do with antennae sensitive — maybe even understandably oversensitive — to injustice. It’s based on years of bad experiences with the legal system and with federal agencies such as the FBI.

I can’t help but wonder why the FBI has chosen to pick on Vick? Poor guy.

“They have created all sorts of lies and fabricated all sorts of imaginary stories on the leadership of the civil rights movement,” she says. “And they even bugged my bedroom. In this house. “

It’s not all about Vick. It’s about Juanita. Is Vick involved with the civil rights movement? This has to be why they went after him!

She leans back in the chair and watches the television. Predictably, it’s all Vick, all the time. Montages of him playing. B-Roll of him walking into a courthouse. An e-mail from a viewer is posted on the screen. It’s Lisa in Kansas.

“It is not a black or white issue but an issue of animal cruelty,” she writes. “Black, white, Hispanic, it doesn’t matter. Breaking the law is breaking the law, and Vick shouldn’t get any special treatment because he is a football player. People need to stop using race as an excuse.”

Well, that emailer is from Kansas … what does she know? Does she wear a light purple jacket? Has she been shot at with rubber bullets? Threatened by police in Jackson, MS? Has she ever had her home bombed? I doubt it. That shoots her credibility in the butt.

Juanita Abernathy sits in her living room as those words cross her screen. Here’s what she wants the e-mailer to know. In Atlanta, where the Old South lingers just beneath a placid, integrated facade, everything is about race. Just walk a few feet away and look at her family photos. People’s opinions about every new situation are formed by the totality of their experiences. Animal rights activists think it’s about cruelty. Soured Falcons fans think it’s about tragedy in multiple ways. African-Americans in Atlanta, according to prominent black leaders, think it’s about Vick not getting due process because of the color of his skin.

I guess I missed how Vick was denied his due process? The prominent black leaders accuse, but offer no example of Vick’s due process being denied. Allrighty then.

Although it might not be about race to Lisa in Kansas, it is to Juanita in Georgia. Who’s right? Can they both be? Can an opinion formed by experience be wrong? Is it possible to separate your future from your past?

I’ve already ruled Lisa from Kansas out on being right. Remember, she has no credibility. Only Juanita does. Can an opinion formed by experience be wrong? Is Juanita involved in dog fights? Does she have experience with animal cruelty?

These have long been the questions that define Atlanta.

Sept. 22, 1906: Atlanta was thriving. A black middle class had formed, and the city trumpeted itself as a New South success story. In a single night, that changed. Local newspapers reported four alleged assaults on white women by African-Americans. The assaults might never have happened. That didn’t matter. A white vigilante mob roamed the city, attacking and killing black men and women, some by gunshots, others literally beaten to death. Some of the bodies were mutilated and publicly displayed. By official count, 25 African-Americans died, though others put the total higher. Hundreds more were wounded. The grandparents of the civil rights movement were scared children that night, wondering why strangers wanted them dead. Those memories would stick with them forever. They would tell their children and their children’s children, urging them to never forget.

It seems to me like this article is getting further and further away from the point. What does all this have to do with Vick and the charges against him? This was 1906 people! You’ve got to move on. Was it an atrocious night in Atlanta? Of course! Is it related to Michael Vick today? Not so much. The entire article is rich, but entirely too long to blog. I’m just going to paste some quotes from it and I’m sure you’ll continue to get the point:

But there are still two Atlantas. The past isn’t that distant here; on one street, there is an empty lot where a home was bombed to keep a neighborhood segregated in the ’60s. The I-20 corridor originally was built as a de facto moat that kept African-Americans out of traditionally white neighborhoods. A long and painful history lurks beneath the surface, needing only a polarizing event to resurface.

As quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, Vick once was the symbol for black Atlanta. Now he faces “an electronic lynching,” Kwame Abernathy says.

Continue reading ‘It’s all about race, civil rights, etc…’