Whoopie Goldberg has joined the crew of "The View." I think I've seen a minute part of one episode of that show. It's continuing staff changes would normally be of no concern to me, except that Whoopie has apparently stepped immediately into hot water by "defending" Michael Vick. People across the political spectrum are outraged that she could defend what they consider to be such an obviously heinous man.

Well, what exactly did she say? These are the quotes I could find:

"He's from the South, from the Deep South ... This is part of his cultural upbringing..."

"Instead of just saying (Vick) is a beast and he's a monster, this is a kid who comes from a culture where this is not questioned."

What Whoopie is drawing attention to is cultural context, and it's a valid concern. It was something that nagged at the back of my mind as I posted on Vick last week. The truth is that many cultures think of animals as nothing more than a resource to be used...and discarded when no longer useful. My own parents - while they would never do what Vick did to those dogs - think that cats and dogs are pretty much replaceable. If your pet gets sick, the idea of paying a vet money in order to make it well is preposterous to them. You simply get a new one. Any indignant ranting about animal rights would be met by bemusement and/or befuddlement.

And this makes sense. If you grow up in a culture where resources are scarce and how you chose to use them meant the difference between life and death for humans, then animal rights is a non-issue. While my parents no longer live in that culture, it's through that lens from which they see. And that may be for Michael Vick as well.

I thought about this and wrestled with it last week. Was my own outrage nothing more than cultural imperialism - trying to impose my cultural norms on another?

But in the end, I believe that cultural context only goes so far. Understanding and taking nuance into account cannot lead to complete relativism and the inability to make any kind of moral stand. Slavery is always wrong, even if the current culture allows it. And torturing animals is always wrong even if in some cultures it's condoned. And I'm not sure that torturing animals was condoned in Vick's culture. There's a difference between thinking animals are expendable and thinking it's ok to torture them. To assume that the latter is considered ok in the "deep South" may be yet another kind of bias on our part.

I disagree with Whoopie *if* her intent is to excuse his actions, but I think the concern she brought up is valid. And I certainly agree that we should not just write Vick off as a monster.