“The colonizers insist on colonizing.”
A New York-based journalist and activist on Friday declared: “Dogs are a tool of white supremacy and gentrification.”
Ben Faulding was responding to a local TV report last week about students at Howard University in Washington, D.C, who are annoyed about neighbors walking dogs on the campus. Nobody interviewed in the Fox 5 broadcast mentioned race.
But according to Faulding, whose left-wing commentary has been published in The Washington Post and elsewhere, white people were clearly weaponizing their dogs in a colonialist attempt to seize control of the historically black college. Although he did not seem to have any special knowledge about the situation, he claimed to have science on his side.
“There is research that shows how white newcomers dogwalking routes stake out territory. And white owners use their pets to socialize with other white owners excluding minorities,” he tweeted, linking to a clip from the Fox 5 story.
“Meanwhile if black dog-owners would show up in white neighborhoods they’d be surveilled and harassed.”
Meanwhile if black dog-owners would show up in white neighborhoods they’d be surveilled and harassed. pic.twitter.com/OiiTT5wSHp
— Bloomberg is an Oligarch??♂️?? (@TheHipsterRebbe) April 19, 2019
Asked to cite his sources, Faulding, who is a black and Jewish sociology student at City University of New York, linked to a study published last year in the journal Sociological Forum.
Other progressives backed up Faulding’s take, too. The Root, a black progressive news website, on Friday ran its own version of the Fox 5 report about Howard, at one point opining of the local dog walkers that “the colonizers insist on colonizing.”
“This is an ongoing trend in the D.C. area,” the writer continued. “Places that were once rich with black culture have now been whitewashed, and the city has become unrecognizable to those who have called it home for many years.”
On Saturday, social worker Alicia Sanchez Gill tweeted that the controversy at Howard reminded her of something racist one volunteer firefighter in Ohio got fired for saying years ago.
Directly addressing “white folks,” Gill said: “I don’t care how nice your dog is, dogs have been used as a tool of white control, dominance and violence, from slavery, through civil right to police dogs today. When you let your dogs take up more space than us, you are perpetuating this.”
white folks, I don't care how nice your dog is, dogs have been used as a tool of white control, dominance and violence, from slavery, through civil rights to police dogs today. When you let your dogs take up more space than us, you are perpetuating this. https://t.co/iO8tRb89ZB pic.twitter.com/LAcNjStgpa
— alicia sanchez gill. (@aliciasanchez) April 20, 2019
Other Twitter were less supportive of dragging man’s best friend into identity politics. Faulding tweeted a number of messages from people questioning his intelligence in harsh and sometimes racist language.
This is probably the dumbest thing if seen all day https://t.co/uaZB7Loi5L
— Ciaran (@notciaran) April 19, 2019
A Washington, D.C. local – who had argued on the Fox 5 broadcast that Howard should embrace dog walkers on its campus as part of its role in the community – even appeared on Faulding’s timeline to call him a “stupid fool.”
ಠ_ಠ pic.twitter.com/EqhwSHo3Ug
— Bloomberg is an Oligarch??♂️?? (@TheHipsterRebbe) April 19, 2019
In a more thoughtful commentary, magazine writer Jesse Singal joked that Faulding had nicely summarized the woke worldview.
This does nicely sum up a certain uber-woke approach to science
"Research suggests men are, on average, more into things, and women more into people" — UNBELIEVABLY MISGOYNISTIC HOGWASH
"Research suggests dogs are tools of white supremacy" — YES FINALLY SCIENCE CONFIRMS IT
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) April 21, 2019
Helen Pluckrose, an editor at the Areo analysis website, agreed, though she described Faulding’s ideology as “critical race theory.” Within that system of “magical thinking,” she said, “of course dogs will be a tool of white supremacy. Everything is. Everything.”
Given this kind of mentality, of course dogs will be a tool of white supremacy. Everything is. Everything. No matter where you are or what you're doing, if you're in a place where humans of various races are, you will be able to spot white supremacy.
— Helen Pluckrose (@HPluckrose) April 21, 2019
Hours after his original tweet, Faulding sought to explain himself similar terms. He said that he had not meant to malign dogs, though he suggested he did not necessarily like their white owners. Rather, he said, his point was that “the effects of white supremacy are so pervasive that they trickle into every crack of our society…”
He followed-up with a sentence that, with a few grammatical tweaks, could almost serve as a motto for woke politics: “There is no behavior or interaction to innocuous enough it can’t be a microaggression or serve to reinforce system of inequality.”
There is no behavior or interaction too innocuous enough it can’t be a microagression or serve to reinforce systems of inequality.
— Bloomberg is an Oligarch??♂️?? (@TheHipsterRebbe) April 20, 2019
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