Things I've been reading recently, about the precarity of dogs in human society, especially those branded as "vicious," "unadoptable," or plainly, "pit bull":
* "Dead Dogs: Breed bans, euthanasia, preemptive justice" by Colin (aka Joan) Dayan: in grad school I read some of Dayan's work on race, slavery, and prisons. I also saw her give an amazing talk on "cruel and unusual punishment": still the only time I've heard an academic speaker whisper to mark points of emphasis, in almost mesmeric decrescendos that pull the audience forward, body and all. Then I discovered that she is a dog person via an elegant, unflinching essay simply titled "The Dogs." Part memoir, part philosophy, the essay tracks the liminality of dogs in Judeo-Christian thought through a terrible personal memory: under disorienting circumstances, Dayan had agreed to have her 11-year-old dog Dogie put down for a sudden, mysterious illness, a "good death" she later came to doubt. She's one of a small handful of critics/writers I know who has grappled with the fact of dehumanization under racism - of people being treated "like dogs," "like animals" as a matter of state policy and coordinated race and species violence - while treating animals as well as humans as social beings. [Updated May 2: forgot to note that the "Dead Dogs" article mentions the case of Oreo, the pit bull who survived being thrown from a six-story building only to be diagnosed with terminal aggression by the ASPCA and put to death.]
* Pit Bull Patriarchy: a tough and beautiful blog which explores the life-and-death consequences of breed phobias, co-authored by spotted dog farm (also a photographer - Flickr stream here) and redvelvetfemme. Mulling over SDF's recent post on her "dog bite embroidery" project, it strikes me that maybe pit bull fear is, at bottom, a fear of non-human sociality, of a sociality acted out with bodies that are irreconcilably alien to our own, despite our attempts to make them conform to human desires:
A bite is a most basic form of communication. I mean, dogs don't have hands, or English. What are they trying to say? I've seen dogs bite out of love. Extreme love, and the desire to be close, and to play. My dog bite embroidery is a series of linens that have been "altered" by Kaya, the artist, and then embroidered with phrases that I think she might be feeling while she's shredding my linens. The words are a reminder that dogs want family, a lifelong commitment; they are not bodies to be dumped when mistakes have been made, fear sets in and anger shows its teeth.
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