Sociology professor claims shelter dogs killed due to white supremacy
Do you know why some dogs in shelters end up perishing? Simple neglect? The sad status of being unwanted? Global warming?
Nope. According to Katja Guenther, a professor of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California-Riverside, these canine deaths are due to "capitalism, anthroparchy, white supremacy and patriarchy."
Of course.
Guenther says, for example, that non-white people who abandon their dogs are likely victims "ensnared in the legal system," forced to leave their animals behind "under the duress of sudden eviction or deportation or arrest." She even claims that such people believe that what they are doing is for the best, because of "the constraints of their knowledge and resources, both of which are limited by the nexus of their class, status as immigrants, and ethnicity."
Incredibly, Guenther avers that if, say, a Latino man on a bicycle happens to drop a dog "while escaping from mall security officers … after stealing a pair of Wrangler jeans," it is simply the result of his "status as marginalized." Moreover, should a woman leave her dog to die at the pound after she has finished breeding her and selling her puppies to buy drugs, it is probably the fault of her "status as a poorly educated queer woman of color." Wow.
Yet, in her book, The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals, Guenther claims that allowing your dog to sleep inside your house is actually a manifestation of white privilege. She wants Fido to be locked outside when it's twenty below zero or during violent storms? Doesn't sound very tolerant and inclusive.
She says statutes that forbid the chaining or leaving of dogs outside are "intended to oppress people of color by imposing middle-class norms of animal keeping in which companion animals are considered family and treated accordingly." Bringing your dog inside oppresses "people of color"?
White (dog) privilege?
Yes. You see, Guenther explains, non-white people "are themselves trapped in poverty" and "may have few options for legitimate income generation and possibly rely on their dogs for ... status." I have no idea what the hell that's supposed to mean. And, in saying that, Katja just treated non-white people as she apparently thinks they treat their dogs.
Katja wasn't done dogging white people, however. She also accused Caucasians who volunteer in dog shelters of working to "reinscribe hierarchies of power and status within the shelter" to the detriment of non-white workers, thus maintaining "existing social inequalities between humans even as they seek to help animals." Reinscribe hierarchies of power and status within a dog shelter? Moreover, she disapproved of a rescuer lamenting the condition of a dog "with sagging belly skin, elongated nipples, and enlarged genitalia" due to its former owners having confined the dog solely to the outdoors, calling the reaction typical of "white rescuers." This raises the age-old question: "WTH?" Is Katja perhaps projecting, as leftists are wont to do, when she talks about "sagging belly skin, elongated nipples, and enlarged genitalia"? I, for one, don't want to know.
At least Guenther admits, "It is not possible for me to be impartial," even while noting, "I was trained in sociology, a discipline that emphasizes impartiality and the need to systematize observations and analysis in ways that distance the researcher from the researched." She added, "I deliberately turn away from these tendencies and instead embrace the messy possibilities of being a researcher with complex ties to the social setting I am analyzing." Quite.
According to her website, Guenther — who holds a Ph.D. in sociology — works "within interdisciplinary feminist and critical frameworks." She notes that her book is "a feminist analysis of how rescuers of companion and free-roaming (aka 'wild' animals) represent and negotiate their relationships and relations of care with disabled animals." (Insert foghorn blasts here.)
According to The College Fix, Guenther has been published in the journals Ethnic & Racial Studies, Gender & Society, Politics & Gender and Social Problems. (If you subscribe to Ethnic & Racial Studies and Gender & Society, can you get subscriptions to Politics & Gender and Social Problems absolutely free? If so, don't miss this fabulous BOGO! Call before midnight tonight! Operators are standing by!)
The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals has received praise from such luminaries as Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, a book she wrote to argue that society's fondness for eating meat is a reflection of its misogyny. (Insert your own joke here.)
What books are forthcoming from radical feminist/leftist nut-bags? "The Sexual Politics of Navel Lint"? "Astronomy: The Misogynistic Science"? "The White Privilege of Flush Toilets"?
If caring for my dog is a form of white privilege, I don't want to be woke. And if eating meat is a nod of approval towards masculinity, I'm down with that.
Crazed leftists believe that literally everything is proof of white privilege, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and global warming. But they are just baying at the moon, unwilling to look inside themselves to find the seeds of their rage and despair, in a society gone to the dogs.
Personally, I'd share my home with a dog...and keep the rabid leftists chained up outside.
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