Vick and the bondage of culture and values

The younger brother was also on track to be a star quarterback and had an opportunity to escape the ghetto and contribute to breaking the chain of several generations of ignorance and poverty going back to slavery. After several incidents, he was finally expelled from a university after pulling a gun on some customers at a McDonald’s. He was and probably still is a prisoner of lower-class ghetto values.

When P-Funk and Q, the nicknames of Michael Vick’s friends and now co-defendants, ask for help starting a business, it probably never occurred to them to ask for money to go to school, the most important self investment one can make, or about getting a franchise like McDonald’s, which could have made them wealthy in a few years.

These kinds of ventures did not garner prestige in the hood like pit bulls do. What does it say when so many get their self-esteem from a violent dog?

According to the indictment, on one occasion, Michael paid off a $23,000 bet in cash, enough to start many legitimate businesses and more than enough to send P-Funk and Q to a junior college to get some real skills. Their values ruled out this option.

In America, we like to pretend there is no class and if there is, it does not matter. Culture, class and values matter much.

We rationalize poverty with the self-delusion that this is a nation of choices – the poor are poor because they choose to be or, more sinister and often subconsciously, they suffer a moral weakness.

But all the research shows that home and community values, which usually reflect socioeconomic class, are extremely strong in determining the choices we have and make, even when we know better and want to do better.

Some evolution scientists compare values to bacteria and germs that our immune system is not always strong enough to fight off; we need medical intervention. A change in values often requires intervention.

Without strong, timely intervention by an adult with different values, most young people make choices consistent with the values of family and community. Often, these choices are self defeating and destructive. They have the ability but not the will power, knowledge and certainly not the social and cultural capital to make different choices.

Research shows that many children fail in school because academic achievement seems like a betrayal of family and community values. Parents often pass these values on subconsciously. Many of our most powerful values that shape behavior are subconscious.

There is a universe of difference between the world of Michael Vick, despite all his money, and the world of the well-educated, upper middle-class white protesters outside the courthouse.

Michael’s income puts him in the upper class but his values are of the underclass from which he came. Michael’s wealth is in financial capital. The protesters’ wealth is in the kind of social and cultural capital and values that come with middle-class, white-skin privilege, and the kind of civilizing education they received that helped them understand that all sentient beings are a part of the web of life, that Homo sapiens really have no more right to a decent life than God’s other creatures and, more importantly, because of our big brain and abilities, we have a special obligation to serve as trustees of the universe.

I think Michael, P-Funk, and Q should be sentenced to work with the local Humane Society for a year. I believe they will be transformed by the experience; they may even become vegetarians. If you agree with my recommendation, write the federal court in Richmond, Va.

Van Caldwell, a lawyer, lives in Kettering. He can be e-mailed at wvcaldwell@comcast.net.