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26 thoughts on “Opinion: Humane Groups are Misusing Race Issues to Force Pit Bull Agenda on Insurance Commissioners by Lucy Muir

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  1. Wow, another amazing job with all your research and great links. This whole movement is so utterly insulting to Black people. I find it disgusting these hypocrites and liars are doing this. They will stoop to any level to push their pit propaganda. Thanks, Colleen, for continuing to fight the good fight.

  2. Terrific article clarifying a complicated, volatile subject. (The Damien Lemon video provides brilliant comic relief.) Thank you for examining a really important phenomenon — the exploitation of race and racism to camouflage indifference to the dangers posed by certain breeds of dogs.

    It occasionally happens in San Francisco’s vicious and dangerous dog hearings that a pit bull owner accuses someone who fears their pit bull of being “racist.” This insidious comparison of the purely human injustice that is racism to the purposeful genetic manipulation of dogs to bring out different qualities is a shocking insult to every person who has ever suffered from racism or fought to combat it. “Breed = race” is as looney a formulation as any white supremacist could ever come up with.

    • So true and so well put. One of the authors in this research talks about certain breeds that were particularly vicious were used to hunt down slaves. I’m old enough to remember civil rights demonstrations where dogs and fire hoses were used against demonstrators. And today, police dogs set upon a Black person reminds of those horrible scenes. To try and make fighting breeds a “race” issue is abhorrent and on every level.

  3. There’s a reason why pitbulls are bans and most city and countries. Because they’re dangerous .these white peoples and cesar milan are the reason why pitbull are still around killing babies and old peoples.The pitbull defenders repeat the same crap over and over.that’s not a real pitbull .pitbull are nanny dog.the media give pitbull a bad rap the ever so famous one its not the breed its how the owner raised them.

  4. One aspect of this is the hypocrisy and double standards emanating from the power dog breed folks.

    In most jurisdictions, the largest cat you can own without a zoo permit or some sort of special license is a Maine Coon, that averages out at ~18 lbs. Yet, owning a back yard full of 120 lb supermaulers is somehow perfectly acceptable?

    How about farm animals? Goats, sheep, pigs, etc… are zoned out of most residential neighborhoods, but a “herd” of pit bulls is allowed? How is that reconcilable?

    The fact is, these sorts of restrictions are put into place ALL THE TIME for a variety of common sense human health, human safety and human quality of life reasons. And, these common sense restrictions are put in place and stay in place withOUT all the frivolous, specious cries of bigotry, unconstitutionality, and so forth.

    This raises the question: WHY are dog breed restrictions so overwhelmingly difficult to pass, enforce and maintain? Why can we regulate just about every other animal, and not dogs?

    • You make excellent points. This is why it’s insanity when we see it’s allowable in some states to own lions, tigers or chimps. A chimp ripped a woman’s face off several years and it was ALL over the news. Even Oprah featured the story with follow-up coverage. And yet, a pit/pit mix doing this is barely covered. Thank goodness CBS had the guts to air the dog-sitting tragedy. I’m sure they got a lot of push back from some viewers with “excuses” for what went wrong. These fighting breeds should be regulated. As you put it so clearly, It’s common sense.

    • And here in Florida they have banned the ownership of large pythons and iguanas. and I think a few other large lizards. Sadly way too late for them to control the now feral populations. But 20 years ago when my son was absolutely fascinated by reptiles and wanted them as pets as a responsible pet owner I did a lot of research with him before we purchased many reptiles. First the large snakes and large lizards while affordable to buy were going to grow and require huge amounts for food and housing and could be potentially harmful. Also I could already see some issues arising that were going to probably bring on government restrictions. So we got ones that were going to stay smaller, not cause issues,and not facing any sort of penalty or certification for them. Why pit owners think they should go out and get a dog that has so many communities banning them, such a deserved bad reputation just shows they don’t care. Insurance companies should not finance their choices.

  5. This what happens when weaponized identity politics meets the dog welfare lobby.

    Note that I didn’t call it animal welfare, because it’s really about dogs.

  6. This whole breed=race makes my head, hurt.

    If someone said “I only drink milk from Jersey cows because I’m for cow equality so I refuse to use richer Guernsey dairy products” we’d think they were stark raving bonkers. We’d find them especially bonkers if 99% of the farmers saying it, had butterscotch skin.

    For context, I live in a BSL province.

    Right now I live in a primarily Euro-Canadian neighbourhood. By that I mean that I’d wager perhaps 10-20% are PoC.

    I used to live in a neighbourhood, beloved for its diversity (less so for the level of poverty) that was well above 50% PoC. It was the most densely populated area of the city.

    In my old neighbourhood there was *one* friendly half-pitbull. Owned by a white woman. Why? Because police there harassed PoC continually and who needed the hassle of walking a dog that could get you stopped and harassed at any time? Who needed the headache of giving the cops an excuse to badger you at every turn about muzzle laws, how old the dog was, etc etc? Who wanted to get a barking or snarling dog shot in front of them during a police raid, warranted or unwarranted?

    In this neighbourhood there are at least 5 I’ve seen and all but one, are owned by Euro-Canadians, mainly women. The police are rarely seen here unless someone calls them. Even though the law states pitbulls must be muzzled at all times–they aren’t.

    This may be anecdotal but I suspect, as Colleen has proved, that there’s some serious underlying problems at the core, here. BTW, another well-researched article and I tip the hat to you, ma’am. I also wonder if there’s even more dirt under the carpet of who rescues are shovelling these pitbulls off, on.

    There’s *real* racism at play, here. But it’s in the locations where PoC are forced to settle and the level of police brutality rather than anyone’s choice of dog. It’s in the uneven enforcement of BSL. It’s who is more likely to be approved to purchase friendly dogs from rescues and who is likely to have a pitbull palmed off on them…particularly known dangerous ones.

    There’s a plethora of problems within the rescue organisations so at this point, I’m not really willing to concede that most of them are “experts” on anything other than fundraising.

    • I hate to tell you but the pitbull pushers at the “humane societies” don’t have a single qualm about pushing dangerous pitbulls off onto any unsuspecting soul they can. Once my kids were old enough to be around dogs I went to the humane society but I ended up leaving because they were trying hard to push a pitbull onto me. I didn’t even look at the dogs before they started, I simply said I wanted a smaller dog that was young. They started telling me what wonderful family dogs pitbulls were & I started laughing at them & repeated that I was looking for something like a cocker spaniel sized dog. They were just so intent on getting me to take a pitbull puppy eventually I just stopped arguing with them & told her I’d go find a nice puppy mill puppy! I didn’t of course but it would have certainly been safer than a pitbull!

  7. As a cultural aside, perhaps it should be noted, in light of the commentary on white women with pit bulls, that there is a new documentary miniseries on Netflix called “Bad Vegan.” Its troubled “star” is, in fact, a white woman with a pit bull. Their relationship underscores mental health questions raised by the series. Suffice it to say, she will do nothing for the reputation of pit bull owners.

    I had to give up on the series. As with much of the media, too much stupid crazy.

      • Christy, please, just don’t. I have been vegetarian for nearly my entire life and a vegan for over a decade. I’m a longtime member of this group– brought here by my concern for animal welfare (including human animals!) and distressed by what was going on in the world of dogs and sheltering.

        Merritt Clifton, vegan, animal advocate and humane historian, has done tremendous work on behalf of pit bull attack victims through his Animals 24-7 website. He’s much smarter than the fighting breed enthusiasts, most of whom couldn’t care less about farm animals or any other species that isn’t a pit bull.

        • In our shelters there is almost nothing BUT pitbulls and pitbull mixes. Hmm, wonder why that would be the case?
          Now just who do you think would be responsible for bringing soooo many of this breed into the area?
          I can’t imagine?
          Anyhow, I am a HUGE animal rights advocate (so guess I shouldn’t be on this site?) but I would LOVE to see this breed phased out.
          Too bad the U.S. is so slow to do the right thing with so many issues!
          Can’t all be as efficient, organized and intelligent as Germany, Denmark or New Zealand I guess?

      • Wow, this is totally not the topic of this blog post, and secondly, also unfounded. Please provide academic research papers supporting your statements or revise your opinion. You aren’t helping the cause of trying to protect the public from fighting dogs at all.

    • Me too. The many pictures of her tucked in bed under the covers with that ugly pit bull were repulsive. One episode… and I was over and out. Besides, it is a vapid premise and a poor excuse for a series.

    • That is a very good question! Years ago there was another crazy scammer woman who had her pitbull cloned. Also white btw

  8. Ha! I love how woke white people are always the ones screaming “Racism!” the loudest. Somehow they always figure out a way to get what they want by connecting the dots to racism.

  9. Lets reinterpret the “target groups” that Pit Bull advocates are solicitous of. The un informed- AKA those who do not read the medical literature. People of low Economic means-AKA deserve “free” dogs regardless of risk involved. People of color-AKA, that in itself is so racist it defies comment.

  10. As an African American person, this makes me furious! I hate when pit nutters use race (and everything else for that matter) to try to push their mauler agenda.

  11. The problem doesn’t belong to the culture/race of those conned into taking pitbulls home…

    … the problem belongs to the financial beneficiaries of promoting pitbulls as safe pets–endangering everyone.

    The photographic evidence is pretty clear on who they are.

  12. Good treatise that touches on a difficult subject.

    I tend to avoid discussing race as much as possible due to people hiding their true feelings and intentions in this regard. I used to listen to cordless phone conversations back years ago while living in Los Angeles. And for better or worse I can’t shake the distrust I learned as a result. Things you wish you never knew.

    So forgive me when I roll my eyes when ever the subject of race is brought up. I just would rather not.

  13. Sorry, I’ve not yet read the whole post. Thanks so much for all the work you’ve put into this.

    I live in Europe so things are a little different. I think the animal rehoming organisations/shelters have a lot to answer for and so do individual dog owners.

    I recently saw a very old person who used a mobility aid (a walker) walking what looked like a smaller pit bull kind of dog. Dog was on one of those flexi leashes too.

    In a recent online video I saw a younger woman also using a walker walk an XL bully dog.

    This isn’t only dangerous for the public, but for the older/disabled person too. The moment any medium or larger or stronger dog decides to chase something (assuming the dog is on a leash), the dog will pull over the person and/or their walker. In someone already frail due to very old age or poor health, this can easily mean a hip fracture or other kind of fracture, limiting their mobility even more (plus the personal suffering, and the costs to the healthcare system). That should also be the end of them taking the dog out, but then what happens to the dog if there’s no one else in the household to walk the dog?

    Who at a rehoming organisation sees a frail/older person and thinks “Yes, they need a strong gamey dog!”. What kind of person who owns a dog like that thinks “Yes, my frail and elderly mother should be walking my pit bull!”. People just have no common sense and they often make others pay for their mistakes.

    I hope that law enforcement will crack down on this way harsher and start giving serious prison time to any owner of a dog that injures or kills a human.

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