Who Let the Dogs In? Antiblackness, Exclusive Humanity and Social Implications

• In Event: 2112 - Section on Animals and Society Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Animals and Identities

Abstract

While Irish have become White and by extension, human, by embracing racism against Blacks (Ignativ, 1995) dogs have not only been embraced by whites, but have been employed as part of the policing of Black bodies.  This paper explores humanity, humanism and resistance by interrogation the integration trajectory of dogs while Blacks remain excluded.  It explores how ideological positioning of whites has indeed shifted from the period of racism when one would find the above sign situated throughout the country.  I draw upon antiblackness and Sylvia Wynter’s reimagining of human to explain why integration continues to fall short and it unyielding resistance to Blacks as human being in a way that defies humanist hopes.  In the sections that follow, I outline the usefulness of Sylvia Wynters’ (1984) reimagination of human that destabilization European notions which permanently exclude Blacks.  I examine the inclusion of dogs into mainstream culture and the degree in which they are granted access to spaces once forbidden to them and spaces still de facto exclusion for Blacks.  I conclude by examining current school and neighborhood segregation through the social fixation of Blacks as the anti-human, or the negation of human in white conceptualizations.

Author

• Lynette Parker, Reach Institute for School Leadership