nrrrdcakkke:

but making the caption “vicious Pit Bull killing a baby” or “Oh my, look at this vicious killing machine” - is like posting a picture of a black guy being a regular dude and throwing a racial slur underneath under the guise it is ironic and hilarious. You are not ending the bias, you are adding to it.

Quit spreading the hate and discrimination you’re trying to fight as a bully owner and step up, you gotta be above the bullshit. Stop perpetuating it. Act like your dog is a regular fucking dog because it is and people might simply begin to believe you.

As someone who recently did this, I think that there may be some overreacting here. I really don’t think I’m adding to the bias by making a joke about how my roommate’s pitbull is being “vicious” by lying in a cuddly pile of blankets on my bed. The reason I did that was not to be ironic or hilarious, it was to point out how absurd the stereotype is; the aim is to make people think about how and why that stereotype is applied. I don’t think anyone would have mistook it in any way for me perpetuating the stereotype. If you really think that’s the case, I guess we can argue about it all day, but I don’t think any good’s gonna come out of it.

I mean, I see where you’re coming from and I’ll keep it in mind in the future, but I really don’t think this applies to all situations and all contexts. I’ll grant that there may be some cases for which this criticism is apt, but not all.

Pitbulls aren’t regular dogs, they’re amazing dogs who have gotten a bad reputation because of assholes who trained many of them to be violent. The scales are stacked against them, breed-wise. While it certainly is important that we show people pitbulls being normal dogs, I think we can also do more if we care about them to actively fight the stereotype and point out why it is absurd and wrong.

It’s not like me making this joke made someone think pitbulls might be vicious when they didn’t think so before. Everyone knows that stereotype, it’s not a secret that we don’t want getting out. Let’s talk about it, point it out, and show people why it’s wrong.