(what a title, eh?)
I had the unfortunate idea of taking our house dog to Petco today to get his nails clipped and some other things (this is not an endorsement of Petco!). A friend drove me as I am without car or drivers’ license. I am white, my friend brown. We’re both queer and we both look it. The dog is a pitbull-boxer mix having come to us from a rescue agency bringing along with him all the issues from trauma of a most likely abused and neglected creature. These issues, the dog brings with him, are good lessons for me in how to relate to a traumatized creature and makes me fully aware, constantly, of how important it is to check myself and walk with compassion. That all being said, the dog is a talker and being a pitbull comes off as intimidating (and that’s an entirely different piece of how we as people have treated creatures to fulfill our own shit and the stereotypes we’ve created and enforced along the way). I know enough to know I am not the best dog person I could be. There is a lot I need to learn about how to be a dog person and especially how to be a person to a dog with issues of trauma. All this is background for our Petco experience.
While we were in Petco our dog barked twice at other dogs. These barks were one off vocalizations that, knowing this particular dog, amount to ‘look at me! I’m a dog, you’re a dog and even though I am actually scared of you, I want to play’. Bark. The second of these two single vocalizations was while we were in the check out. I should also say, knowing that other dog people are not always keen on pitbull mixes and bring their own shit and stereotypes to the mix, I keep our dog on a short lease. So, we were in the checkout line, our dog barked once at one of those happy-go-lucky, no-issue-retriever type dogs in line ahead of us. The owner of this happy-go-lucky dog was startled by our dog’s single bark and turned on me to reprimand me for being such a horrible dog person. This dog owner railed on about how if my dog was going to bite and attacked other dogs, I need to take charge and beat my dog down to prove who is the boss (and again, our dog barked once – the biting and attack bit was again, this dog owners’ shit and stereotypes. As we will see though, this dog owner has a lot of deep shit about a lot of things). And even though this person seems a bit out of line and was actually escalating the situation, I decided to engage because, again, I recognize I have a lot to learn about being a dog person. My engaging seemed only to piss this dog owner off more as they stomped out of the story telling me to ‘get a grip’ in their wake. My friend and I finished paying for our stuff and left the store starting to process what went down. This was probably a good 3-5 minutes after the encounter. My friend was commenting on how open and engaging I was to this other dog owner and we were starting to talk about things this brought up for us. As we entered the parking lot, both of us noticed a red car coming toward us and each independently wondered to ourselves if this was the irate dog owner coming back for more. Alas, it was, and said dog owner pulled up with her head sticking out the window already yelling before yet even reaching us. It seemed apparent this dog owner did not want to engage but to only yell at us as she once again started in concerning how dangerous our dog is and what bad dog people we are. An interaction ensued in which we let this dog owner know we felt she had some shit of her own to deal with and in no uncertain terms she was acting like (IE, is) an entitled, white, bitch. This prompted the dog owner to get a big smile on her face and yell as she started to drive away that my friend was a “lesbian, nigger bitch”. Over and over this dog owner repeated these three words with a smile on her face that let me know how much she was enjoying herself. And besides the obvious, my brown friend isn’t black or African American or anything close. She’s Persian. This of course does not change the horror of this dog owner’s joy in getting to throw her racism out her car window as she drives away, but at the same time adds so many layers to that racism. Layers of being able to throw everyone who doesn’t look like you into a box of hate and then just walk away satisfied.
We drove home switching back and forth from silence to verbalizing our rage at this racist but, as with so much else, were left with that big old question mark of ‘what the f do you do?’ My presumptions are that this racist dog owner will now spend the day feeling self righteous that she ‘stuck one’ to a brown person and bad dog person. I will most likely spend the day sitting with my rage and sorrow and with that question ‘what the f do I do?’
What do we do with the racism walking amongst us every day? What do I do as a white person when face to face with this shit? My desire of fighting, my desire to smash the windows of that dog owner’s car seem so satisfying but I know in the end, will only leave that dog owner feeling more self righteous and possibly more deeply justified in their racism. And so, even as I am involved with work and surrounded by so many who focus on dismantling this racist, classist world we live in, I still sit with that question – what do I do? What is the right answer of how to challenge that racist dog owner as she verbally and self-righteously attacks others? For this moment, for my personal self-preservation, writing helps get the grossness out. Writing is not enough though.
Posted on September 8, 2010
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