By Andrew L. Jaffee

Dear Ms. Whoopi Goldberg, don’t tell me that torturing animals (dog-fighting) — “hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground” — is an integral part of Southerners’ “cultural upbringing.” I’ve lived in the Deep South for about 5 years, visited family there many times, and vacationed there more times than I can remember. My experiences? Good, decent people, and beautiful cities, countryside, and beaches. So how did this dog-fighting controversy get started?

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was busted red-handed running a chamber of horrors for canines. Not only was he fighting dogs, but torturing them too, presumably for his own pleasure. From the Smoking Gun, including the federal indictment against Vick:

…After a March 2003 loss by a female pit bull, codefendant Purnell Peace, “after consulting with Vick,” electrocuted the animal. In April, prosecutors allege, Vick, Peace, and Quanis Phillips, “executed approximately 8 dogs that did not perform well in ‘testing’ sessions.” These animals, the indictment claims, were killed “by various methods, including hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.”

From ESPN:

…”He’s a pit bull fighter,” the source said of Vick. “He’s one of the ones that they call ‘the big boys’: that’s who bets a large dollar. And they have the money to bet large money. As I’m talking about large money — $30,000 to $40,000 — even higher. He’s one of the heavyweights.”

On April 25, authorities raided a house in Surry County, Va., owned by Vick and reportedly found — among other things — 66 dogs (most of which were pit bulls), a dog-fighting pit, bloodstained carpets and equipment commonly associated with dogfighting. …

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Here’s Whoopi on Vick’s crimes, from ABC’s talk show The View:

“He’s from the South, from the Deep South … This is part of his cultural upbringing.”

At least:

…”View” co-host Joy Behar took immediate issue with Goldberg.

“What part of the country is this? … How about dog torturing and dog murdering?” she asked. …

So if you are a Black Southerner, you’re too dumb to be kind to animals? If Vick didn’t know any better, why was he hiding/denying his dog-fighting? He actually was “involved in dogfighting for more than 30 years.”

According to Whoopi, poor baby Vick can’t help being a “heavyweight” of dog-fighting, regularly killing “under-performing” dogs by “hanging, drowning, and slamming at least one dog’s body to the ground.” It is part of his “cultural heritage.” Would Whoopi excuse slavery in the Old South on the basis of “cultural heritage?” You know she wouldn’t. By the way, Goldberg was born in New York City.

Whoopi is in fact perpetuating the now-widespread culture of victimization, whereby certain special identity groups try to get out of trouble, whereby the fabric of our American culture is being devastated. She is part of the problem whereby hillbilly/redneck stereotypes (e.g., the Simpsons’ Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel) are warmly received in Hollywood, inner-city gangsta thugs are self-destructively hocked by BET, but we’ve yet to see a major movie about Islamist terrorism.

Should we think anything more of Whoopi? Speaking of the President in 2004, she:

…produced a few embarrassed grimaces with an unsubtle anatomical double-entendre enjoining voters to “keep Bush where it belongs and not in the White House.”

No, we cannot expect more from a person whose intelligence is limited to bathroom “humor” while arguing politics.

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Related: United States, Political Correctness, Hollywood, Animal Rights

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