Vick: A Tale of the Same 7 Cities
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When I was a kid, those weekends where a big sleepover was planned (or the unplanned begging routine worked) were the absolute best. Especially when I was in elementary school. We’d all leave school together, collected by whoever’s folks was managing us for the weekend. More likely than not, I was with Kendall and the twins, Jon & Josh, of course Dunman was there whenever he could grace us. Anyway, we’d get to whoever’s spot we were headed to and we’d turn on the PS2 and it’d always boil down to Madden ‘04. See, at the time I was a Cowboys fan, Ken was an Eagles fan, Josh was a Rams fan, and Jon was a Falcons fan. Every time we linked up, Jon wanted to prove to us that Michael Vick was the best QB in the league and Ken wanted to prove it was Donovan McNabb. So before anything else, the two of them had to get a quick game in to prove their point. Honestly, growing up in the 757, we all wanted to be Michael Vick & Allen Iverson. I mean, why not? The two of them were arguably the best at what they did a the time. Mike was the first black QB to be taken as the number 1 draft pick in the NFL, and on a good day it’d probably take me 15-20 minutes to get to his childhood home. That’s what it meant to all of us growing up in the 757 and having hometown heroes. Today I want to talk about one of mine, Michael Vick.
Michael Vick was born in Newport News, VA in 1980, which was for me, a gentleman of Norfolk, across the water. For us, everyone was talking about him when he was at Virginia Tech. Personally, I remember seeing highlight after highlight of him on ESPN, and watching him get drafted 1st overall was a feeling, even if I was 7 and barely understood the significance. What we did understand was that the man was a problem on the field and his childhood home was right over the water. I think my most memorable Vick moment was the time that he scored the game tying touchdown with his legs on the Carolina Panthers in Week 15 in the ‘04 season. Seeing that moment as a kid immortalized Mike as the best to do it from the 757, at least for me.
When Madden ‘04 dropped, I know all of y’all were just like me, bothering our folks to cop. I didn’t really have to convince my dad, he was already pretty into Madden and was playing tournaments online. So when the game dropped, we had it within the first month. I was still trying to play out my ill-fated football dreams in Huntersville, (a fancy way to say I sucked ass). After practice and after school, any time we were at someone’s house, we were running Madden, only and only Madden for one reason; to pick the Falcons and scramble with Mike. I don’t know if y’all remember that year, but Mike could do no wrong in that game. I’d run some BS play with everyone running post routes out to the right and just tuck and run the ball for a 75 yard TD to the left. The man was unstoppable and had a cannon for an arm. If you haven’t played Madden ‘04 lately, dig up your old copy and pick the Falcons; you’ll see what I’m saying. Now, imagine knowing people that went to school with him. Imagine knowing people that met him in random places around your city cause he’s got a house out there, of course. He’s a hometown hero. That’s why when news came out about Bad Newz Kennel, it was as if a shock reverberated throughout VA.
Before we get into that, humor me for a moment.
Three years ago, my family finally added a new member, his name is Mr. Bean aka Beanie Man aka Beanie Sigel aka Beanathan aka Señor Negro Frijoles, aka By-Any-Beans-Necessary-JuHeardMe. Bean is a huge factor in me getting out of the rut I was stuck in when I moved in and instrumental in my mom’s recovery from cancer. The idea of anything bad happening to him sends me into a fury. So when I was doing research on what was happening at Bad Newz Kennel, saying it was hard to watch is an understatement. The gored faces and bodies of those dogs are seriously hard to see. So, yes, without a doubt Mike definitely deserved his jail time. Especially since he was funding the vast majority of the operation, you won’t get an argument out of me concerning that. What bothers me, is that even after Mike served his jail time, it was as if he was still being prosecuted every time he showed his face. It didn’t matter what he did, how many times he apologized, how many donations he made, he is and will be stigmatized as a dog fighter for the rest of his days, even though he’s on the side of those rescuing dogs now. None of this surprises me, though.
In 2008, I started out at Granby High School as a freshman in the IB program (yeah, I was one of those kids). In the program at the very beginning, there was a decent amount of other black kids, but as the years went on, there were less and less of us in the program. Fortunately, I met someone who’d be a good friend of mine for a lifetime, his name is Rodney Godfrey. Rod and I had the same English class freshman year, and as soon as we said two words to each other, we were cool. Rod is probably one of the quietest yet outspoken and funny people I know. Rodney doesn’t always make a lot of noise when he’s around, but his presence was noted. If you’re from Norfolk, you probably know/met Rodney, as he always seemed to just be around. Actually, if you’re from Norfolk, you’ve probably been to one of his pool parties. They always happened right before school, and they were always crazy. As the years in IB went on, Rod and I started hanging out alot more, and I came to a realization: Rodney is a renaissance man.
Rod’s always enjoyed a good cypher.
In our senior year in IB, all of our classes gave us both internal assessments to be graded by our teachers in school and external assessments to be graded by teachers around the world. At this point, my elective was IB Theatre and I needed to put on a shortened version of a full play. I chose Side Man by Warren Leight. A short play about how a successful jazz musician’s son coped with the music he loved tearing his family apart. I got to work and put together a cast for my play, and about a month out from premiere, my leading man quit the show. When it happened, I was venting to Rod about it and he immediately asked if I wanted him to fill in for the leading role. Now, mind you, this would determine a solid 25% of my grade for the class, and I agreed to it. See, Rodney is the type of guy who can see anything and just….do it. It doesn’t make much sense to me, but Rod is so smart that he quietly had some of the best grades out of all of us and still managed to run track, play football, dabble in cross country, star in my play and whatever else he was dabbling in at the time. The show happened, and I’m not trying to brag, but I really do believe I had the best showing out of all my classmates that night. Rod learned everything he needed to learn to put on a great performance in less than a month. So imagine my surprise when I moved home in 2017 and found out that he’d been locked up for armed robbery.
Before I even started to write about this, I reached out to Rodney to ask if it was alright if I told his story. This was his response:
You see, Rod and his brother Shad liked Xanax, and you know what they liked more than that? Money. So when it seemed like their plug was an easy enough lick, they decided to make that play. They were successful, they got him for what he had on him, but there was a wrinkle; his girl was with him. When Rod & Shad took the drugs off of their dealer, it wasn’t a reportable crime. That was, until they also took the girlfriend’s purse, which made it a legitimate crime. At this point, at least one of them was carrying a gun when the robbery was committed, so it was upgraded to felony armed robbery.
With that being said, what Rod & Shad did is inexcusable. They know this. They don’t refute this. They’ve both been incarcerated since 2016, and I personally didn’t find out til 2017. I still didn’t contact Rod until this year.
When I found out about Rod’s incarceration, my first instinct was to reach out immediately, but I honestly wasn’t sure what to say. I mean, now I know I could’ve told my stupid self to just check on him, but back then, I wasn’t sure how I’d even start a conversation with him, so I let him drift to the back of my mind. Every couple of days I’d think about how I needed to get in touch with him, and every couple of days I’d make a BS excuse for why I couldn’t. One day, our mutual homie Kareem & I were rapping over Call of Duty and he let slip to me that Rod mentioned how many people haven’t spoken to him at all since his incarceration. Immediately, I felt charged for not reaching out to my brother so much sooner. As I reached out, I was nervous that he’d send something angry back, or worse, just not even respond. He responded immediately.
He’s the same as he’s always been. He’s the same Rod I knew before all of this. The same incredibly goofy but also extremely subdued Rod. True, he’s definitely probably seen some things that’ll shape who he’s to be in the future, but he’s still the kind person I’ve always known. He barely even addressed the time we’d lost, only his excitement that we’d link up again. After reading his message, a wave of stupidity washed over me. Of course he’s the same Rod he’s always been. Why would you think anything different ?
For months, I wrestled with this question. Why did I lose faith in a friend I trusted so much? A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Sins of The Father, a song by KA & Roc Marciano, and it finally hit me. You see, the theme for the song is prison reform, and these lines specifically got to me:
“They used to call us deviants
But if they was feedin’ us, mighta had obedience
You know my stock, was only good as my ingredients
The system only leaned on us, never showed us lenience”
I really sat with these words and realized that I’d been conditioned to resent people that have been to prison. Yes, I agree that there are plenty of people in prison that need to be there, but once they have served out their sentences, they should be accepted back into society. Yet felons are deprived of their voting rights and stripped of any and all property under their name when incarcerated. This ensures that if/when they are released, they can’t vote and they’re also destitute. It’s even more ridiculous when you consider that you have to pay just to talk to incarcerated family and friends. Whenever I talk to Rod, I have to pay not only to send messages to him, but for him to be able to send messages back. The prices for a phone call with an inmate are so high, that many people would rather just send an email. On top of all of this, whenever I send Rod a message, there’s a two day lag because it has to be inspected, and when he sends one back, there’s another two day lag. So heaven forbid that Rod has something urgent to tell one of us, because if we miss his phone call and don’t already have money on his books, he won’t be able to reach out to us at all.
There’s a common euphemism concerning prison where people consider it “paying a debt to society.” My question is; if these people have really paid their debt to society, why do we still treat them as if they owe us something? And furthermore, if you can admit that prison time isn’t enough for certain crimes, then what’s the point of prison anyway? If prison’s whole purpose isn’t to reform and redeem the criminal so that they’re reinstated in society, then what is the point of prison? Is it just punishment porn followed by a lifetime of disgrace? At least, that’s what it is for black people when they’re sent to prison.
A white ex-felon is more likely to be hired than a black ex-felon, even with similar backgrounds, a study at Princeton found (this was also proved by a separate study by the NAACP). The same study, conducted by Devah Pager, also found that white ex-felons have a better chance at getting a callback than black applicants with clean backgrounds. This makes it abundantly clear that the prison time itself isn’t the real issue, the issue is the skin color of the applicant. So if black applicants with clean backgrounds can hardly get jobs, how much harder would you imagine it to be for black ex-felons?
So let’s recap, black ex-felons are released from prison with nothing to their name, estranged by their friends and family, and also can’t get a job in order to support themselves much less a family. So with all of these factors adding up, what do you think happens?
That’s right, the ex-felon usually refers back to what they know they can make money off of and head right back to prison. That is, unless someone intervenes.
When Mike was released from prison, he was effectively blackballed from the league, even if he wasn’t still suspended. Playing in Canada seemed like a viable option, but they’d just banned teams from recruiting suspended NFL players. Mike couldn’t get a job. At least, he couldn’t until Tony Dungy, fresh off his win as the first black head coach to win a Super Bowl, took him under his wing. Tony reached out to Donovan McNabb, then starting QB of the Philadelphia Eagles, and asked him to talk to Mike. Before long, Mike was signed to a 1.5 mil one year deal in 2009 with no guaranteed money and an option for the Eagles to pick him up for a second year. This was all the opportunity he needed. In his time as an Eagle, Mike made two playoff appearances, threw his career best single season passing yards (3,303), and put up a legendary performance on November 14th, 2010.
Yes, there were scrambling quarterbacks before Mike, but after him, the game was never the same. While the other scrambling QB’s pose a somewhat multifaceted threat, Mike’s arm and legs were legendary, and inspired an entire generation of black quarterbacks with wheels for legs. Yet, even with this career of accolades and his undeniable influence on the game of football forever, Mike never even ONCE won league MVP.
My point? This is what happens when people allow others to learn and grow from bad decisions they’ve made in the past. If prison is truly the reformative tool that it is marketed to be, then shouldn’t we accept those who have “paid their debt” with open arms? Shouldn’t my friend Rodney get a fair shot at a good job when he gets out? I mean, he’s only about one semester away from finishing his art degree at Virginia Tech. When Mike was released from prison, even though he had the entire establishment acting as if he didn’t exist anymore, he had a few people who believed in him, and that made all of the difference. Reach out to Rod, if you haven’t. I promise you he isn’t holding a grudge. I’ll leave you with some words from the man himself.
