| Abstract: | In April of 2009, near the end of National Football League (NFL) quarterback Michael Vick's prison term for dog fighting, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell proposed Vick might resume his career if he could demonstrate “genuine remorse” for his actions. At the same time, Vick was mapping out a plan, with the help of public relations professionals, for how he would perform in interviews and public appearances. The result was an orchestrated campaign whereby Vick was both imposed upon by and performed through a surveillance-based program of social testing designed to prove that he was forgivable on the grounds of genuine remorse. I maintain that the Vick case represents the power of popular institutions like sports leagues to shape and test conditional standards for forgiving through frameworks of surveillance, therapy, and confession that affirm racialized ideals about social order and authentic interior reform. Through an analysis of the NFL's monitoring and surveillance program, as well as a series of highly publicized interviews, I demonstrate the importance of distancing forgiveness from politics, and examine potential alternatives to conditional forgiveness from within rhetorical studies. |
