I have been watching with great interest two very public witch hunts that have gone on over the past several months - particularly Barry Bonds and Michael Vick.  They not only share the fact that they both happen to be African American, but they both are at or near the top of their respective fields.  Bonds has been the best hitter in baseball for the last two decades, most of which he has played with the San Fransisco Giants, while Vick is an extremely talented passer and runner - starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.  Bonds has been mired in the Major League Baseball steroids scandal for the better part of the last 3 years , and Vick has been suspended by the National Football League for his part in a dog fighting ring that was supposedly finaced by him and was housed on his property.  He has been vilified in the press, suspended from his team and seems poised to lose the $100 million cotract he signed a few years ago. I have read blogs, watched protests and even recieved e-mails in my role in the National Action Network - all calling for Vick's Suspension from the NFL and to have him jailed for the crime of dog-fighting.  While I do condemn the practice of dog-fighting as a life long dog lover, I cannot for the life of me understand how this country can react so strongly to dogfighting when hundreds of thousands of children are treated worse than the average family pet each day.  Scores of young men and women are treatred as collateral damage in  the education, foster care and juvenile justice system each day, and there are no protests, no 24 hour news coverage and no-one calling for anyone's head.  Why?  Because dogs are much more sympathetic in  the eyes of the American public than Black and Brown Children, which make up the Lions' Share of the foster care and juvenile justice systems.  Because it is easier to target a rich, Black Athlete than it is to target the politicians that we elected to protect the public interest and serve the people for their good.  And therein, as they say, lies the rub.  The public is much more interested in Michael Vick going to jail and  having an asterisk placed next to Barry Bonds' name in the record books than they are in changing our flawed and failing educational system.  I'm not mad at Oprah for buliding a school in Africa -- if she built it in Chicago, it would probably be mismanaged and run into the ground in a few years.

The American public has also been spending an inordinate amount of time trying to turn Barry Bonds into some sort of miscreant.  Whether he took steroids or not (he has been found guilty of nothing and has no positive drug tests on his record), nothing bought from Balco gives you the ability to hit a baseball.  I could pump myself up with steroids to live ling day and at 43 - the same age as Barry Bonds - would not be able to hit a major league fastball if I was coached by Reggie Jackson, Willie Mays and Pete Rose.  Steroids may help you to heal faster, but they give you no undue edge in the moment to moment facets of the game. 

Why, then does America hate Barry Bonds so?  Because he is a brother who did not like the media.  He was never "quotable" like Muhammad Ali, Reggie Jackson or Shaquille O'Neal.  He talked when he wanted to and did not coon or buckdance for the media as many of todays' athletes do. Mark McGwire, who all but admitted that he took steroids in a senate hearing was never vilified the way Bonds is.  Is the difference that McGwire is white and that he played the "media game" during his career?  Is the difference that he got out before the scandal hit?  I cannot say for sure, but here is what I know for sure:  if we would use half the energy that we use on Bonds, Vick, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears on straightening out our education system, fixing the foter care system and improving life in general for our citizens, we would be a lot closer to solving those problems than we will ever be to knowing if Michael Vick or Barry Bonds did "it".   As a matter of fact, I say let them play.  If there is any woringdoing, then punish them appropriately, but, let them play and then vilify the press for covering the wrong story.  I would much rather find out about what is being done to catch the murderer of those three young people in Newark than I am in finding out about the dog pens on Vick's Property or the actual contents of the creams that Barry Bonds rubbed on his sore joints after games.  Amen.