Thursday, August 30, 2007

Say What? Part II

Duke University has begun another academic year and that means the group of professors called the Duke 88 are back. It didn’t take long for one of them to cause controversy. No, not about the Duke Lacrosse Case. They were warned that their indemnification from lawsuits only would include any actions before the settlement date of June 2007. This time it was about the Michael Vick Dog-Fighting Case.

Duke Professor Mary Kathy Rudy is an associate professor of women's studies and she wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on August 28.

White culture's hypocrisy about Vick

Unable to withhold herself she had to introduce Race & Class issues in her column.

Yet, I find what's happening with Vick, who pleaded guilty Monday to a felony charge, 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.

Some might argue that the difference between dogfighting and these other forms of animal abuse is that dogfighting is illegal. That's true, but the fact that dogfighting is illegal while other institutions remain acceptable is because dogfighting no longer a sport of the middle and upper class.

Dogfighting (and cock fighting) used to be "sports" enjoyed by the upper classes in the United States and were, then, perfectly legal.

Thus despite the admission from Vick that he engaged in dog-fighting, gambling, and the killing of dogs over a six year period she somehow lays partial blame on the White Culture calling it Hypocrisy.

So what course is Professor Rudy teaching this fall?

GENDER AND EVERYDAY LIFE

A viewing of the synopsis finds this interesting question.

What is gender? And why does it matter? This course hopes to answer both of these questions by focusing on specific instances and settings in which our everyday lives are shaped by gender.

They're Back!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Race, Gender, and Class!

Everything is always seen through that prism by these folks. I guess Prof Rudy must have been pissed she couldn't work that in somehow.

Anonymous said...

Greyhound Rescue, Inc
http://www.greyrescue.com/

Colorado Horse Rescue
http://www.chr.org/

Just two organizations that rescue racing animals for adoption. This woman needs to STFU!

Anonymous said...

So let me understand this? Because in the decades past dog-fighting wasn't illegal, Vick is being unfairly treated because now it is illegal and the prosecutors are white.

This woman is a professor of ethics at Duke?

Anonymous said...

What is gender? And why does it matter?

I think you learn that pretty quick in life. Reading some of Rudy's book titles she might be teaching gender is a flexible concept and not reality.

It is an embarassment she is teaching at Duke. This is the same kind of twisted logic that Tara Levicy learned in her Women's Studies at Maine.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps I'm missing something, given what Vick was paid a year, I'd put him in the "upper class" category.

Anonymous said...

Check the AJC today for an editorial that asserts that anyone who makes generalization from behavor of the members to the group as a whole is a racist. Ms. Rudy is branded as a racist by her publisher.

Mandelbrot's Chaos said...

Damn, she would have fit right in with the ruling elite in the dystopian books Brave New World and 1984. Doublethink: It's what passes for ethics at Duke.

Mad Hatter said...

Righteous response 9:49 am. I am sick and tired of these people who willingly abuse animals and say that "we, as humans, are superior beings." The proof of our inferiority is in our obliviousness to the suffering of these sentient, loyal, die-hard companions. Vick doesn't care one bit about these noble creatures. If he did, he wouldn't have become so involved in dog-fighting. You think I'm kidding? Check out his c.v.

Anonymous said...

And isn't a criticism of Delta a criticism of the entire fraternity system?And by criticising the fraternity system,aren't you criticising college and higher education?And isn't this a great part of America?Well,I don't know about you,but I'm not going to sit here and just listen to someone critise America?
Source?
COrwin

Anonymous said...

Answer:

Of Course......ANIMAL HOUSE ! ! !

Anonymous said...

Now that is a defense - I killed the dogs but I did not bet on them.