White Michael Vick

...to me, Vick seems to have a deeply African-American approach to the game. I'm not saying that a black QB who stands in the pocket ain't playing black. I'm saying Vick's style is so badass, so artistic, so fluid, so flamboyant, so relentless -- so representative of black athletic style -- that if there were a stat for swagger points, Vick would be the No. 1 quarterback in the league by far.

A decade after he became the first black QB to be drafted No. 1 overall, about one in five of the league's passers is African-American, compared with two-thirds of all players. But after his arrest for dogfighting, so many people asked: Would a white football player have gotten nearly two years in prison for what Vick did to dogs?

I don't know what it's like to be a black man.  I suspect it's like the proverbial monkey on your back... Always feeling as if you have to prove your character is above all the old stereotypes... laziness, dullness of wit... feeling as if you enter every arena of life painted with doubt and suspicion.

But articles, like this one in ESPN Magazine, that trumpet an unlevel playing field and that instill anger... and worse, discouragement...  They simply offer another excuse for failure and sub par behavior.

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