Here’s Sue Coe’s insightful interpretation of Michael Vick and his admittance to killing pit bulls and involvement with dog fighting.
By calling this woodcut, Strange Fruit, she draws a parallel between the lynching of black people in the segregated south of the United States with how Vick hung pit bulls who were considered unfit to fight. She asks us to see that there is a continuous line in oppression regardless of the victim and their species.
Strange Fruit is a song that condemns American racism. Billie Holiday’s version is the one that most people are familiar with. The Grumpy Vegan prefers the one by Robert Wyatt. The pathos in his voice hauntingly reflects the songs’ lyrics.
Interestingly, Oscar Wilde also wrote in The Ballad of Reading Goal
For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!
(Image reproduced with permission of the artist.)
