DeWayne Jeter Jr. has noticed something interesting.

Black people he has run across are processing Michael Vick's dogfighting drama differently from white people. They say Vick should be punished, "but don't have the venom that whites have," he said.

Any acknowledgement of Vick's culpability always seems to be followed by a "but" . . .

"I kind of wonder about it," Jeter said. "They'll say, 'It's nothing but some damn dogs.'"

His wife attended last week's Fridays at Sunset, featuring Erykah Badu, and the neosoul singer said Vick has been done wrong. The predominantly black crowd erupted in agreement, Jeter said.

"Whites have a viewpoint, and blacks have a viewpoint, and it seems as though we view the world through the prism of our own existence," he said. "And it seems like whites want us to view the world the way they see it, and blacks want whites to view the world the way they see it. It seems like rarely do the two meet and find points of commonality."

The lines are not so neatly drawn. The interim president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Dennis Courtland Hayes, said yesterday that Vick "is not a victim" and should be held accountable for his actions.

But often, the Vick case has been viewed among us from this perspective: America has treated black folks like dogs. With its history of slavery, lynchings and other violence against black people, America is this puffed up over the abuse of pit bulls?

But there reaches a point when personal accountability must trump historical injustice.

Michael Vick and I share the same historical bloodlines of oppression. But it would never occur to me to do anything to a dog more violent than brush his coat or scratch his neck.

Jeter raised an interesting point: Hanging was one means in which Vick's dogfighting ring allegedy disposed of poor-performing dogs. If you come from a culture where your ancestors were lynched, what pathology could lead you to replicate that act on an animal?

Anyone who would do such a thing is one sick puppy.

But -- now it's my turn to say "but" -- folks inclined to read this and throw up their hands saying, "here we go again" might seek a greater understanding of why black Americans often circle the wagons in these cases: America's historically racist criminal justice system and its historical tendency to demonize black males.

If our response in these situations is not always rational, neither is theirs. I've received e-mail messages from readers detailing, in vile and violent terms, what Michael Vick deserves.

The condemnation meter is as high as I've ever seen against a criminal defendant. This passion is curiously at odds with the level of national indifference over the still-at-large Osama bin Laden.

Where Vick is concerned, no punishment is harsh enough. It has been suggested that even after he has done his time behind bars, the NFL should suspend him or ban him.

If we're a nation that believes in rehabilitation, denying Vick a livelihood after-the-fact would send an awful signal to would-be employers of ex-cons with far fewer resources than Vick. Once offenders pay their debt, they shouldn't be barred from becoming productive members of society.

That's something we should be able to agree on, even for Michael Vick. Don't we all have a dog in that fight?
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.