Campus Reform | Academics say fear of pit bulls is linked to& racism?
Also referenced is the work of Emory University associate professor of philosophy, Erin Tarver. In her work “The Dangerous Individual( s) Dog: Race, Criminality and the Pit Bull ,” Tarver applies French philosopher Michel Focault s notion of the dangerous individual to what she sees as modern racialized attitudes towards pit bulls and the perceived threat to normative whiteness such animals pose.
Despite accounting for just 6.5% of all dogs in the United States, pit bulls were responsible for 66% of total fatal dog attacks between 2005 and 2017.
Tying the societal perception of pit bulls to anti-Black racism has become a theme in certain American academic circles.
Pit bulls are such good dogs. Take our rescue pittie, Mitzi, named after LWJ’s late great aunt, whom she resembles. She was Joe Lewis’s cook, the great aunt, not the dog, and once saved his son from their wicked nanny, who was anesthetizing him, the little baby that is, by sticking him in a gas oven. Mitzi, the pit bull, is crazy, or mentally ill more correctly, but she is such a beautiful dog. I love her to bits, and she loves me. Strangers, not so much. We keep her on boatloads of Prozac and keep her away from the pool guy. If pit bulls scare you, you might be a racist or some other sort of nasty person. I’d say more but I have to scratch Mitzi’s ears now.