Benson was used as a bait dog for fighting; he was rescued in northern New Jersey. Video courtesy of the Humane Society of the United States.
COMMENTARY
Watching a clip at Breitbart.tv of Whoopi Goldberg talking on ‘The View’ yesterday, I saw geographic prejudice rear its ugly head. Goldberg meant well, I think. She said Michael Vick’s enthusiasm for dogfighting comes from his background—“this is not an unusual thing from the part of the country he comes from, the Deep South,” she declared. She later added that if the culprit had been someone from New York City, her feelings “would be different.”
She’s holding New York up as a bastion of animal enlightenment? New York is one of the few states where possessing dogs for fighting or being a spectator at a dogfight is a misdemeanor. Dogfighting itself is, as in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, illegal in New York. But dogfighting carries a misdemeanor charge in only two distinctly un-Southern states: Wyoming and Idaho.
I grew up in South Carolina. You don’t get more Deep South than the Palmetto State, first to secede from the Union. I grew up in a small town. I never once heard anything about dogfighting, and I know the culture inside out and most definitely from a multi-racial standpoint. That isn’t to say dogfighting didn’t exist, but it is certainly not a tenet of our culture.
Pet-Abuse.com maintains an animal abuse database, and I ran a search on alleged incidents of dogfighting during 2007. Incidents were listed from Southern states and many others as well, including Idaho, Kansas, New Mexico, Illinois, New Jersey, California, Indiana, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Washington, Michigan and the perpetually enlightened state of New York.
Justifying a practice as cruel and widely dispersed as dogfighting, with an assumption about geographic culture, is a fallacy.
NPR, in a story run July 20, says John Goodwin, an investigator with the Humane Society of the United States, “blames dogfighting’s latest vogue on pop culture icons, including pro-athletes like Vick and hip-hop artists like Jay-Z and DMX, who’ve made pit bulls a part of their rebel image.”
That’s a cultural assumption I’ll bet ‘The View’ won’t touch.
Falling into the same geographic prejudice that snagged women on 'The View,' NPR makes a statement that is incomplete, by noting that Vick’s case spotlights a “bloody industry that is thriving in urban areas and the rural South.” Which urban areas? If you were to say states in all four corners, you’d be right.
Although dogfighting is illegal, the most lenient laws, because they provide loopholes, involve possession of dogs for fighting and/or being a spectator at a dogfight. These practices are either legal or a misdemeanor in Idaho, Texas, Wyoming, West Virginia, Georgia and New York.
Meanwhile, in the state where I grew up, dogfighting, possession of dogs for fighting and being a spectator at a dogfight are all a felony. Same goes for Florida. Even Mississippi. Down here in select corners of the Deep South, we appear to be no less enlightened than that bastion of humaneness, New York.
It's my opinion that cruelty to or love for animals begins in the home regardless of geography, race or culture. I base that on personal experience raising children.
And in our modest little corner of the blogosphere, we like to check our facts before we offer an excuse for someone who isn't a child at all and certainly should know right from wrong.
OUR TAKE
Stories of Interest September 5, 2007
Central Florida eyes St. John's River to solve water woes (Florida Times-Union)
No charges for parents in alleged exorcism (Daytona Beach News Journal)
Wannabe sheriff's line up as Broward's ex-sheriff heads to court (Miami Herald)
Dem candidates do the waffle; campaigning in Florida back on again (Sarasota Herald Tribune)
Homeless camp residents (we know that's an oxymoron) to be relocated (Gainesville Sun) Sphere: Related Content
Posts
