Henrietta. Georgia. Poppy. These are all names my partner and I considered while we waited for the shelter staff to bring our new puppy to us. But when the sun hit her hazel eyes and orange coat, we both knew “Ginger” was the perfect fit. Ginger has a fairly simple to-do list: lounge around all day, start whining at around 5 p.m., and head over to our unofficial dog park at 6. We’re regulars. We meet up with the same six people and their eight dogs almost every day. We threw our dogs a joint birthday party and I had matching t-shirts made. It’s safe to say we’re pretty comfortable with each other.

I’ve come to look forward to the hours we spend in our giant fenced-in space, sharing tennis balls and swapping stories about our pets’ latest shenanigans. During quarantine, the dog park regulars were pretty much the only other people my partner and I interacted with on a regular basis. And though our little group has clearly already built a rapport, we try to be as friendly as possible to folks who bring their dogs to the park for the first time. But we all have our limits.

One spring day, we all dragged our feet to the park yet again because our dogs are just that spoiled. As more unfamiliar faces— canine and human— entered the park, we gushed over how cute the newbies were, and smiled politely at their people. One of those dogs, a beautiful all-black pit bull, came barreling across the field with that signature smile pits tend to have. He made a bee-line for Delilah, one of the dogs in our unofficial pack. He closely followed her all around the park in a way that clearly made Delilah and her human uncomfortable. Months earlier Delilah had been attacked at another dog park by a bigger dog who just wouldn’t leave her alone, so they were understandably nervous. I tried my best to keep the pittie away from Delilah, but he was focused in the way that many unneutered dogs can be. Eventually, I had to grab and physically restrain the dog, which is when his parents finally took notice. And then it happened— 

“Django!”

A white man in a camo trucker hat slowly made his way across the field in my direction, while shouting the name “Django.” And though it was certainly possible that the name referred to the Belgian Romani jazz guitarist, the computer program, or the 1966 western movie, my friends and I immediately recalled the 2012 Quentin Tarantino film, Django Unchained. Most importantly, we remembered that Tarantino’s Django is an enslaved Black man on a mission to rescue his wife from the plantation. That’s the Django most of us know. 

I’m rarely speechless, but as that white man came toward me, in my Black woman body, calling the name of an enslaved person, I had no words. And I know that he wasn’t calling me Django, but I also couldn’t take comfort in the fact that he had given his black pit bull that name either.

You don’t have to look very far to find the research on the connections between the treatment of Black men and the treatment of pit bulls in this country. I’ve even done a little writing myself on how racism, classism, and laws that discriminate against pit bulls all work hand-in-hand to uphold white supremacist ideals. But none of that research and writing helped me put a single coherent thought together in the moment. White audacity still found a new way to surprise me. 

And then I felt it: that uniquely isolating feeling that only marginalized folks so often feel in public spaces. It was like a horde of clouds had crept over our little park, our “safe space.” Even worse— it was like a single, dense cloud came and cast its darkness over me and me alone.

Despite all of the research I do as a grad student in African American studies, I usually try not to think about slavery at the dog park. There I was, enjoying a regular Monday evening with friends and BOOM— antiblackness struck again! Just like that, the privilege of comfort was revoked from me. I could only think about how my boyfriend and I were two out of four Black people in the park that day. I worried about white people turning to look at me like they did in school whenever the topic of slavery was mentioned. I pitied the pit bull whose parents used him to make a mockery of something truly horrific. To add insult to injury, he just wasn’t ready to play at the dog park. And frankly, I felt embarrassed. I still can’t exactly pinpoint the reason why; my best guess is that I felt like I was making a mountain out of a molehill that was too small for most other people to see. 

How can we make pet spaces feel safer for people of color?

Comfort is so basic that people forget it’s a privilege. In fact, feeling at ease in most spaces, including those designed for pets (think dog parks, the pet store, etc.), isn’t common . It’s a privilege to move through the world without concern that you’ll be targeted for some aspect of your identity.  Have you ever felt uncomfortable somewhere because of who you are? I certainly have. As a woman, I’m not totally comfortable walking around outside at night. As a Black woman, there are plenty of towns where I’m not comfortable walking around outside during the day, for fear of someone thinking I’m in the wrong neighborhood and deciding to be a vigilante or call the police. And then again, I see white men enter almost anywhere without fear that who they are and what they look like could bring them any harm. I wonder what it must feel like to be so confidently free. 

I have since learned that Django’s pet parents, (a white man and a Black woman), actually did take their inspiration from Tarantino. They chose the name together because they got him right after watching the movie. I don’t know if they even considered how his name might make others feel. That’s the thing about microaggressions; they’re just small enough to make us think that they’re unintentional and that we may be overreacting. 

Pet spaces aren’t free of microaggressions. In fact, because our attention is so focused on the animals, it’s easy to ignore the feelings of the people in the room (or the people never invited into the room in the first place).

Whether you’re the director of a shelter, the organizer of a dog competition, a frequenter of a dog park, or simply a person who cares about others, you have the power to make people of color feel more welcomed by showing some concern for our comfort.

If your safety isn’t in jeopardy, call out the microaggressions you catch, and believe us about the ones you don’t. 

To clarify, I didn’t expect anyone to raise hell in the middle of the dog park. We were too busy telling him off about Django’s humping problem anyway. My friends and I exchanged sideways looks and they all agreed that the whole encounter was awkward from start to finish, but none of us were ready to actually name the awkward feeling for what it was: racism. I still go to the same park with the same friends. Sometimes Django and his folks come by, and when they do, I stick with the people who make me feel safe. You can be one of those people for someone too. It all starts with being willing to listen, to acknowledge, and to act. 

Reading List

Katja M. Guenther (2020) “Taking the ghetto out of the dog:” reproducing inequality in pit bull rescue, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43:10, 1795-1812.