Vick belongs in prison for what he admitted to doing. The details, if you feel anything at all, do not need repeating. You look for commonality, and this was supposed to be an easy one. You break the law, you pay.
And yet, the majority of African-Americans who wrote say Vick has been unfairly targeted, and also believe that African-Americans offended by his actions have lost the meaning of being black. They've just been co-opted by whites.
The baseline of common decency -- that people simply are not supposed to behave this way and there are basic concepts of behavior we can all agree upon -- has disintegrated. Or maybe it hasn't even arrived. The letters tell you this is so. The exchanges between you and the black people who say you have contributed to the destruction of another black male grow heated and depressing. The question about how someone who murdered an animal could become so much more about black-and-white is being answered right here, right now. And you think about money, that everyone with enough talent in the right discipline can earn $1 million.
But as with the ubiquitous Simpson, we cannot reach the human layer of commonality, because we believe it doesn't exist. Not while race first defines who has value and who does not, who receives sympathy and who does not, and who goes to jail and who does not.