Episode 406 — Black Dogs

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Melissa Hunter & Andrew discuss why black dogs are more difficult to get adopted. Be sure to keep leaving us messages at (323) 389-RACE.

[Buenos Muertos 0]

I think it has less to do with any race association, and more to do with people liking their dogs to have more of a pattern. Same with birds, cats, and reptiles.

[dlo burns 129]

So a bit of forgotten-ish Anglo culture is of black dogs/wolves as grim reaper type figures. Probably the closest most people have heard of anything like these is Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of Baskerville.

 

http://en.wikipedia....lack_dog_(ghost)

 

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Moddey_Dhoo

 

http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=360

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I think it has less to do with any race association, and more to do with people liking their dogs to have more of a pattern. Same with birds, cats, and reptiles.

 

As in, they like them to have a pattern of being close to their owner's skin color?

 

Although to be honest, it might not be racism in this case. Definitely, I don't think there's any racism in the old European belief that black dogs and cats are evil. This dates back to a time when most Europenas probably didn't even know darker-skinned humans exist. Obviously the connotations of evil come from the fact that most people find night and darkness scary, and are more likely to be afraid of animals that can creep up on them unseen in the night.

 

If anything, the racism is in perceiving people from Africa as being "black" in the first place (as opposed to, say, brown). It's all about taking the established negative connotations of the color black and pushing the association onto other groups of people. Notice how racist depictions always try to make them as jet black as possible.

 

With people adopting dogs and cats now, though, it's possible that there may be racist undertones to people not wanting black pets. But whatever association would have to be very subtle. It never even occured to me until now that people would even associate black dogs with black people. It seems weird to me because, you know, actual black people are a totally different color. And I hadn't heard about this until now. It is food for thought, though.