1.21.2005
Attila the Racist Dog
Dear Dave Chappelle,
I've found your black white supremacist. Its Atilla, the racist dog.
So the black lab that the boy took in last week? He's racist. Atilla's not trained in much... doesn't quite know the difference between sit and shake, and stays only sporadically. The one thing he does consistently is go berzerk when he sees a black man. I wonder if its a Georgia thing. We tried to tell the bricklayer next door that Atilla 'doesn't like people' and he said, 'Uh huh. You mean my kind of people.'
How do dogs learn this? The boy grew up with a German Shepard ex-police dog (interesting choice of pet for a german-jewish family) named Girl. Girl was racist, had a marked preference for old ladies, and didn't like uniforms too much. I used to know a rottweiler who hated hats, any type of hat. Put on a hat, and he'd start growling. Atilla came with the backstory that when he was a puppy, he was beat up in a park by a black man.I don't know.
My mind has made associations, drawn tentative conclusions, of course. Between all the racist dog stories I've heard lately, add Abu Ghraib photos, Nazi police dogs, the news blip of the homophobic dog owners who went to jail after their dogs attacked and killed a lesbian neighbor.. I'm starting to wonder if dogs are a storage device for sublimated social violence between humans. Dogs separate people into types in their doggy way. I wonder how, and how often, dogs' particular aptitudes for recognizing stranger, friend, sex, age, color, hats - and their occasionally violent pack mentality - is used to complement our own social prejudices.
The more pressing question is how to retrain the dog. I'm mad at the Atilla. Everytime I look at him I think 'racist fuck'. If I walk Atilla and he scares the heck out of a stranger because he is black, I feel complicit. But how do you give tolerance training to a dog that won't even sit on command?
The boy's got a plan, I'll let you know if it works.
- ATLMmim
http://slate.msn.com/id/2079214/
http://anastrophe.co.za/very_local_news/racistdog.html
http://www.lpva.com/Archives/Editorial/Ferguson/20020613.shtml
I've found your black white supremacist. Its Atilla, the racist dog.
So the black lab that the boy took in last week? He's racist. Atilla's not trained in much... doesn't quite know the difference between sit and shake, and stays only sporadically. The one thing he does consistently is go berzerk when he sees a black man. I wonder if its a Georgia thing. We tried to tell the bricklayer next door that Atilla 'doesn't like people' and he said, 'Uh huh. You mean my kind of people.'
How do dogs learn this? The boy grew up with a German Shepard ex-police dog (interesting choice of pet for a german-jewish family) named Girl. Girl was racist, had a marked preference for old ladies, and didn't like uniforms too much. I used to know a rottweiler who hated hats, any type of hat. Put on a hat, and he'd start growling. Atilla came with the backstory that when he was a puppy, he was beat up in a park by a black man.
My mind has made associations, drawn tentative conclusions, of course. Between all the racist dog stories I've heard lately, add Abu Ghraib photos, Nazi police dogs, the news blip of the homophobic dog owners who went to jail after their dogs attacked and killed a lesbian neighbor.. I'm starting to wonder if dogs are a storage device for sublimated social violence between humans. Dogs separate people into types in their doggy way. I wonder how, and how often, dogs' particular aptitudes for recognizing stranger, friend, sex, age, color, hats - and their occasionally violent pack mentality - is used to complement our own social prejudices.
The more pressing question is how to retrain the dog. I'm mad at the Atilla. Everytime I look at him I think 'racist fuck'. If I walk Atilla and he scares the heck out of a stranger because he is black, I feel complicit. But how do you give tolerance training to a dog that won't even sit on command?
The boy's got a plan, I'll let you know if it works.
- ATLMmim
http://slate.msn.com/id/2079214/
http://anastrophe.co.za/very_local_news/racistdog.html
http://www.lpva.com/Archives/Editorial/Ferguson/20020613.shtml
Comments:
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I have a racist radio. No matter where I am, DC, Orlando, Western MA it censors the hiphop stations. Incredible (shaking head).
love nessa
love nessa
# posted by 
: 10:10 AM
: 10:10 AM
Lol.
I feel better.
The dog is less racist now. We took him over a friends house and he didn't attack anyone. The boy curtailed the kinds of trips attila takes - first only yard, then yard and street, then yard, street, videostore, and has been er... negatively reinforcing him everytime he even thinks of going berzerker. So, dogs been good.
- ATLMmim
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I feel better.
The dog is less racist now. We took him over a friends house and he didn't attack anyone. The boy curtailed the kinds of trips attila takes - first only yard, then yard and street, then yard, street, videostore, and has been er... negatively reinforcing him everytime he even thinks of going berzerker. So, dogs been good.
- ATLMmim
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