Whoopi Goldberg’s defense of Michael Vick’s illegal dogfighting “This is part of his cultural upbringing...” leaves me nearly speechless. I often wonder what the rest of the world thinks goes on here down in the South. And how we can excuse bad, illegal (and unexcusably immoral) behavior as “cultural upbringing”? It’s like, “oh they’re from the South” so that excuses everything from slavery to dog fighting to sanctioned child abuse in state schools?

Is anyone else besides me offended by this? Is anyone born and raised in the South jumping up to object?

I’m disgusted that as a society we can so quickly find excuses for wrong behavior in the guise of cultural differences. To me, this is just as discriminatory as if we kept poor Michael from playing football because of his culture or race. Am I the crazy one here?

Now I realize that Whoopi is under pressure to be entertaining and maybe controversial, or at least edgy, because of her new gig on the View. But, does she truly believe what she said…that he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong?

She went on to say that had Vick been from New York, she would have felt differently. What does that mean? New Yorkers are smarter, more humane, less cultural?

What does this have to do with adoption? Well, not much directly, except to help prove Prairie Guy’s point even more clearly…that the public is more interested in dogs than in foster children. Or perhaps it gives further insight into why some of our children exhibit bad, illegal or immoral behaviors…because of the culture from which they were adopted?

Living in the South, though, I understand why Whoopi believes that we are culturally “different” and that difference is to blame we do things that are wrong…let’s face it, most of the rest of the country believes that we just don’t know any better. The rest of the country apparently knows it is wrong to torture animals. They know it is equally wrong to abuse children. It is morally irreprehensible to blame either of these actions on your culture. Yet (and perhaps this is a Southern thing), there is a razor’s edge of abusive behaviors that is hidden just under that Southern gentility. The words of the teacher who threatened my daughter on the playground help capture that dichotomy.

“We had a dialogue in which I informed LuLu that I would ‘be her mom.’ This statement was in no way meant to usurp your position at home. As an African American teacher, I meant it in a very loving and affectionate way.”

Sounds like her cultural upbringing is to blame!

Am I missing something here?

Sandra’s post about Prairie Guy

Where Does the Fixing Start - Child vs. Student

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