ANKY - that absolutely sickens me. i've seen those 'homies' before around here too. but i had no idea about how they were portraying dogs.
in my town (Lawton, OK) there is a fairly bad gang problem and along with it, a large amount of dog fighting. its disgusting. you can see in many backyards of gang territory neighborhoods (we just moved out of one), rows of kennels all with pit bulls - looking underfed and acting very aggressive. i know that people who dog fight often starve them so that the animal is more viscious. we once had a beautiful pit wander into our yard, ribs protruding out horribly, battered ears, and just as friendly as he could be. we fed him. and fed him and fed him. the poor thing would gobble down anything we put in front of him. we finally put him in the backyard with our two Westies. he was afraid of the Westies! he was one of the sweetest dogs we'd ever seen. we started trying to find a home for him but couldn't. we contacted the local Humane Society and another animal rescue group, but they couldn't help us either. all these groups did at the time was find foster homes for cats~! both groups did tell us tho that if we called the pound, they wouldn't even adopt him out and by city law, would just kill him immediately. i just couldn't hand the poor creature over to a death sentence. and at the time, it was my mother's house i was living in, and she said she just couldn't have a pit bull living in her home (my mom unfortunately clings to her pit misconceptions and is afraid of them). she also said she didn't think we could afford him tho either. the poor thing had something wrong with his mouth and his tail, and we probably couldn't have afforded the vet bills. so finally, one night my father let him go. we all cried. we couldn't figure anything else out. fortunately at least he did just take off down the street, seeming happy to roam rather than being sad that we put him out. we never saw him again either, so i hope he found a home. a REAL home that is. there was a house of gang members just around the corner from us with pits, and we figure he probably had come from there. he was EXTREMELY starved, and yet he wasn't dirty at all, so it was as if he had been starved under someone's care. he was just SO sweet and a big of a chicken really, so if he did come from there, they probably threw him out because he wouldn't fight.
it just makes me sick that this beautiful, loyal breed is being used this way by some people because they think its COOL and the macho thing to do. complete idiots.