Nothing but the Dog in Me: Critical Race Theory and the African American Construct of Canines as Nonhuman Animals

• In Event: Roundtable Session 117
  In Roundtable Session: Thinking Across/Through the Species Divide: Nonhuman Animals in Educational Theory and Research

Abstract

In the continuingly developing discourse around nonhuman animals in education there has been limited discussion about race. This is a compelling absence given that the broader literature on nonhuman animals where there have been numerous discussions (Goff et al, 2008; Anderson, 2002; Fredrickson, 1981; Jordan, 1968), as well as in the critical educational literature (Milner, 2006; Jennings & Lynn, 2005; Hughes, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 1995) there has been long standing discussions about race in education. This paper attempts to connect the disparate strands of thought that make up the literature on nonhuman animals in education with the extensive literature on race in education in an effort to expand an understanding of social justice that embodies respect for nonhuman animals while simultaneously embodying a critique of race and how treatment of nonhuman animals has been part of the structure of racialized discourse in American society.
Specifically, I intend to use both critical race theory and critical animal studies as beginning points to examine the relationship between race, power and identity as embodied in the use of dogs as a metaphor in the media and popular culture as a signifier for African-American males. Royster (2005) has investigated the connection between African-American men and dogs as a part of sexualized discourse that signified “…pushing the limits of both physical strength (and/or flexibility) and propriety” (118). To further explore this idea, I will examine the recent controversy of professional football player Michael Vick who spent nearly two years in a federal prison for his role in a multi-state dog-fighting ring. This example is especially important because it exemplifies the issues of African-American masculine identity as well as issues of race and power as evidenced by the media coverage and society debates over the Vick case. Critiques of Vick have been intense with at least one commentator calling for his execution while animal rights activist vehemently condemned his actions while adamantly denying the role of race in their condemnations. In contrast, the African-American community showed strong support for Vick and expressed outrage at the attacks on Vick in the name of animal rights, a concept that they chided as a thinly veiled cover for the continued expression of racist ideas and the maintenance of white supremacy (Laucella, 2010; Saleton, 2005; Kim, 2009).
Using critical race theory and critical animal studies will allow me to explore the contested space(s) produced by the lived construct of race while taking into account the need for people of color to embrace more nuanced understandings of the Other as embodied in common notions of the nonhuman animal.

Author

• Michael E. Jennings, The University of Texas - San Antonio