01/02/11
Ever since Nicole Larocco came and talked about pit bulls, I've been thinking about people's perceptions of pitbulls and, in particular, how these perceptions are perhaps related to racism. I have always been taught that pit bulls are vicious dogs. My mother is completely terrified of them and tells me every time there is something in the paper about a pit bull biting someone. I did not know that they didn't have lockjaw and didn't know that they were used as bull and nanny dogs.... I am shocked that I'm leaning all this now. But I'm surprised-- I used to have a doberman mix who was extremely sweet and did not live up to the reputation of dobermans as killers.
When its humans that pit these animals against one another for "sport," who abuse them terribly, I think its clearly us that are the monsters, not them. I saw this Animal Planet show called Pitbulls and Parolees that had inamtes who working with pitbulls-- because both are hated by society, both as discriminated against. But I want to address something new here-- that Americans' perceptions of pitbulls are founded in racism. Not breed racism so much as the fact that the majority of people owning pitbulls are people of color living in cities. White people tend to own pure breds-- the typical image of the golden retriever or yellow lab. I don't think its a coincendence that dogs traditionally owned by wealthy people-- pomeranians, chihuahuas, poodles, dalmatians, corgis, terriers, etc. bite just as much, if not more than pit bulls and are just as aggressive, but it doesn't get as much coverage. I'm not saying dogfighting and breed characteristics aren't a factor, but I think a key piece of pitbull hatred is that they're linked in people's minds to poverty and people of color.
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The National Canine Research Council and the free online book The Pit Bull Placebo (link in this blog under "Human-Animal Relations") are great places to begin looking at "the hard facts": actual data about dog bites/attacks vis-a-vis breeds. Sadly, as you note, Arielle, few people bother to do this before leaping to confusions!
ReplyDeleteThe issues you raise about dog breeds, race, and class are complex. I'd be curious to discover statistics linking specific dog breeds to specifics of dog "ownership" (e.g., ethnicity, race, class, gender). I'm not sure if any studies have been done on the points you raise, but it'd make for interesting research. And there's much research of this nature to be done in human-animal studies!