And we love him. Unconditionally. I am one of "those" people. I have pictures of my dog on my cell phone and have even been known to sneak my dog into my office (Don't Tell!). "B" is loving and fun and sweet and intelligent and loyal, as are most of the dogs I've met in my lifetime.
And our dog is a mutt. And honestly, every dog I've adopted is a mutt/mixed-breed/non-pure-bred because I've always adopted dogs from rescue leagues/shelters and these are the dogs that are dropped off the most.
[This is Coffee--I found her picture on-line through a New York area rescue league called Mighty Mutts. There are MANY rescue league and shelters similar to Mighty Mutts. If you are thinking of adopting a dog, please consider going to Petfinder.com to find one at your local shelter/rescue league]
I start here because Barack Obama in his first "press conference" about a week ago, made an off-the-cuff comment about himself as a "mutt" when declaring his preference that the "first dog" be one adopted from a shelter or rescue league (click here ).
I bring all of this up because yesterday I asked readers to submit ideas about conversations on race/racism/anti-racism that they wanted to have and a commenter (and someone whose blog I admire greatly) wrote in asking me what I thought about the Obama-mutt comment.
And honestly, I haven't given it much thought. I know when I first heard the "mutt" comment it struck a discordant note for me--but I honestly didn't process it fully. And upon reflection, I do think that equating "mutts" with "mixed-race people" is potentially problematic, depending on whether you equate "mutts" with negativity, with whether you find it offensive to make a comparison between people and animals, and whether you have had the phrase "mutt" hurled at you as an insult while growing up--a way to demean your mixed-race status.
Having said all of that, I think one reason I didn't think much about it was that growing up I had mixed-race friends who often referred to themselves as mutts. And they used the phrase with affection and an undercurrent of pride. And I remember that there was teasing in our group, among the mixed and non-mixed among us. But this was all back in high school, and I couldn't tell you anything more specific than that. But as a dog lover, I don't find comparisons of humans to dog derogatory, because there have been very few dogs whose company I ever avoided (even the ones who act fierce are just being territorial and have their own issues, but they are fairly explicable in dog-terms). Whereas there are plenty of people I'd avoid like the plague if I found out we were sharing the same air space (Rush Limbaugh? No thank you! I'll take a pitbull-mix any day of the year).
I am, of course, being a bit tongue-in-cheek. And here's the further truth. I don't identify as mixed-race--no one has ever called me a "mutt" in a derogatory way. So I don't have a strong reaction to that word, although I can imagine that some folks might. But I do think that Obama using it to describe himself doesn't strike a bad note with me. It was a discordant one, because it was jarring to hear himself refer to his mixed-status using this analogy, but I was also pleased to hear him refer to his mixed-heritage. Because just as Tiger Woods isn't ONLY a black golfer, Barack Obama isn't ONLY an African American political figure. I'm not saying he is NOT or that Obama (unlike Woods) doesn't consistently identify as African American. I am saying that it is important to remember that the immediate family who raised Obama were white Americans. And that his mother, Stanley Dunham, was a white American woman who raised a black son in an Asian-majority culture.
And the further truth is, the idea that some of us are "mixed" and some of us aren't, is just not true, in the sense of both culture as well as "race." As I've written extensively elsewhere, race is a fiction, albeit a powerful one, and one that we can't wish away. Race is here to stay, at least I believe it is in my lifetime. But the truth is, if you go back far enough, we are all mixed. In terms of culture, I can't imagine a nation more "mixed" than the United States in terms of race/ethnicity/culture. Which makes every "American" a mutt.
