( CNN ) -- Go ahead , read the headline again . It does say `` Writer 's black '' and not `` Writer 's block . '' No doubt , overlooking a mistake like that would be a gigantic copy editing if not editorial blunder . But think about it . How often do we do the editorializing in our own minds before we even start to read a writer 's work ? A recent article by ESPN The Magazine writer Toure ' about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick got me to thinking . Opinion : Why I wrote 'If Michael Vick were white ' The article and provocative headline pose the question , `` What if Michael Vick were white ? '' `` Hmmm , '' I wondered out loud to another writer sitting next to me . `` Hmmm , '' the writer said back to me , following up with a `` That 's deep . '' Then we sat quietly for a few moments looking around the room , pondering . We did n't say much else , but the incident and the article stuck with me for a few days . ESPN defends 'white ' Michael Vick . It stuck not because of the sports angle , but for the broader ramifications of his questions . It made me think about all the times I had to defend myself for something I said or wrote simply because of my gender , background and any other mechanism we use to define ourselves and other people . I thought about all the times I had been called privileged by African-Americans , biased by whites , narrow-minded by Hispanics , too sensitive by men and unfeeling by women , lefty by conservatives or right-wing by liberals . And I wondered what the response would have been if the reader knew nothing about my background or me . What would it be like ? So I decided to write this article anonymously and provide you the reader with a sort of written Rorschach test . I could be white . I could be black . I could be Hispanic or Asian or male or female . Fill in the blanks . Straight away , I must admit that I have a completely selfish reason for doing this . The filter of my own experiences had duped me , too . In all honesty , when I saw Toure 's byline , my mind immediately leaped to the finish , drawing a conclusion that an African-American writer would probably go easy on Vick . But I caught myself , stopped , and much like I do in both my personal and professional lives , I put the writer 's ethnicity aside and kept reading . So , in an effort to make it easier for you to do the same , I 'm removing my byline as I assess the racial and cultural differences that might have steered Michael Vick onto the path of dog fighting , his demise and eventual redemption . In one of the neighborhoods of my youth , blacks and whites had vastly different relationships with animals ; mainly dogs . I 'm generalizing here , but whites typically treated their dogs as part of their families . The dogs lived indoors , and they climbed onto sofas and into beds at will . But many blacks did not want to eat at a home where dogs or cats had the run of the house . The logic went : An animal in the house meant animal hair in the food . And by the same token , ( again , a generalization ) whites were generally upset by their black friends who treated their animals as not human . Dogs and cats were mostly kept outdoors unless the temperatures dipped below freezing or swelled to triple digits . Both black people and white people kept any chickens outdoors , and the only violence the fowl faced was getting their necks wrung on the way to becoming Sunday dinner . But for Hispanics I knew , cock fighting was not only accepted , but also expected . Those who partook did n't understand why it 's OK to slaughter a rooster but it 's not OK to have them fight . Spaniards celebrate bullfighting . Americans flock to the rodeo . And however you feel about any one of these probably has a lot to do with your relationship with animals growing up . Just as the ESPN article makes no excuses for Vick 's behavior , this one does n't either . Part of my mission is to help you understand that people from different backgrounds have different feelings about animals . And perhaps it has more to do with where you come from ( culture ) rather than the color of your skin . But in America , race somehow pervades the discussion on just about any subject . Even Toure ' admits it in his own article when he questions the headline . He writes : `` This question makes me cringe . It is so facile , naive , shortsighted and flawed that it is meaningless . Whiteness comes with great advantages , but it 's not a get-out-of-every-crime-free card . Killing dogs is a heinous crime that disgusts and frightens many Americans . I 'm certain white privilege would not be enough to rescue a white NFL star caught killing dogs . ''
ESPN article about a `` white '' Michael Vick got this author thinking . Readers can make assumptions about authors ' race and culture . This anonymous writer invites you to guess those attributes from this essay .