I Wondered How Long It Would Take

Abusing Animals While Black

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, one Kathy Rudy, an associate professor of "women's studies" at Duke University, weighs in on, as the headline puts it, "White Culture's Hypocrisy About Vick." That would be Michael Vick, the erstwhile NFL player who pleaded guilty to conspiracy earlier this week in a case involving illegal dogfighting.

Ms. Rudy, who is also an "ethicist," describes herself as "a strong advocate of animal welfare." Nonetheless, she says, "I find what's happening with Vick . . . alarming":

"We need to face the fact that dog fighting is not the only "sport" that abuses animals. Cruelty also occurs in rodeos, horse and dog racing (all of which mistreat animals and often kill them when no longer useful). There are also millions of dogs and cats we put to death in "shelters" across the country because they lack a home, and billions of creatures we torture in factory farms for our food.

"Vick treated his dogs very cruelly; there is no question about that. But I see one important difference between these more socially acceptable mistreatments and the anger focused on Vick: Vick is black, and most of the folks in charge of the other activities are white.

Ms. Rudy then goes on to make the following distinction:

"While white middle and upper classes continue to watch horses run to the point of exhaustion and risk breaking their legs, they regard dogfighting as something that only low-class "thugs and drug dealers" find entertaining. Indeed, a reading of many of the Vick news stories indicts him and his friends as much for being involved in hip-hop subculture as for fighting dogs. . . .

"I am not saying dogfighting is acceptable, but rather that Vick should be publicly criticized for that activity, not for his participation in hip-hop subculture. Whether or not dogs are fought more by minorities than white people is actually unknown, but the media representations of the last several weeks make it appear that black culture and dogfighting are inextricably intertwined. We need to find ways to condemn dogfighting without denigrating black culture with it. "

Huh? Denigrate means "to blacken," so Rudy is opposed to the blackening of black culture. That's the kind of intellectual rigor we've come to expect from the women's studies department at Duke.

But wait. Assuming she meant something like "disparaging" instead of "blackening," isn't she the one who's guilty of that? Blacks have far worthier contributions to America than the "hip-hop subculture" with its "thugs and drug dealers." It is patronizing at best, racist at worst, to equate "black culture" with what Stanley Crouch has called "the most dehumanizing images of black people since the dawn of minstrelsy in the 19th century."

Ms. Rudy writes:

"I would like to believe that in 25 years we're going to look back on our current treatment of many animals as cruel and intolerable, and I do believe that the welfare of animals is coming into focus as the next great social movement in this country. Civil rights, feminism, gay and lesbian rights, and the Latino movement have transformed American life for the better. I think that can--and should--happen for animals. "

But if the "hip-hop subculture" is the apogee of "black culture," why should we expect that this transformational movement of animals will produce anything better than a dog-eat-dog world?