In the above image not only is Steve Madison using unverified and bias “statistics” from Pit Bull hate group DogsBite.org (the claim of 27 Pit Bulls causing human deaths is totally erroneous, considering 17 incidents didn’t even have images of the offending dogs), but he continues to latch onto, and then promote, all-encompassing language that supports his banning and vilification agenda. Just yesterday he repeated a singular claim about all medical professionals. Do you see the trend here? All Pit Bulls are vicious, bred to kill, dangerous. All doctors and surgeons would never own a Pit Bull. All, all, all. Broad strokes folks!

The man that Madison references, an alleged doctor, apparently went up to speak while we were all out in the hallway during the last Council meeting. I’m not sure how, as public comments for items not on the agenda had been closed, but sure enough he ended up on the microphone anyway. And sure enough, he went ahead and took the liberty of speaking for every medical professional in the country. Madison, as expected, ate it up, and as you can clearly see has been starting to reference this claim as though it is verifiable fact.

This is of course a complete joke, as countless doctors, nurses, surgeons across the country own Pit Bulls as pets. But since they can’t show up to Pasadena to speak before our beloved god it must not be a fact that he can accept. There’s quite a big difference in stating the obvious, which is that people have differing opinions and differing dogs, and taking the liberty of speaking for everyone and thus holding up this baseless and off-the-cuff opinion as truth.

Below is a letter from Barbara Telesmanic, registered nurse and co-founder of SoCal Pitbull TEAM. She is also the owner of a therapy Pit Bull named “Buddy” that routinely visited the children’s hospital…

Barbara Telesmanic opposition letter to Pasadena BSL by swaylove

But you see, she doesn’t exist, and neither does any other nurse, doctor or surgeon who would state otherwise to his embraced belief. Good grief.

The Pasadena City Council has no idea what it’s done. They were not expecting anyone to care. Most on this Council thought that the minimal opposition that they received to their proposed mandatory spay and neuter law for all dogs (an idea that they tabled, and in part due to the backlash) would outweigh the backlash that they’d receive when targeting breeds or types. Wrong.

What’s clear is that those who voted to create a breed-discriminatory ordinance (6 of them) have literally nothing to say in defense of it. They are getting pelted by emails daily and the silence is deafening. The 2 people who have attempted to respond (Steve Madison, lead anti-Pit Bull demagogue; Bill Bogaard, Mayor lobbying to change state law) are doing so in the laziest and most disingenuous fashion possible…

Not only are they sending out a canned template email, an email that they themselves probably didn’t even write, but with this exercise in repetition they are most definitely trying to avoid and evade what is dually evident… That they want to criminalize and ban Pit Bulls but know that they currently cannot, and that they have given verbal and written testimony proving that they are actively lobbying state legislators for a dismantling of the current prohibiting of breed bans. See here, and here, and here.

They can deny this all that they want, in 100 different ways if they were so creative. It doesn’t change the facts nor does it shift reality. And people are pissed off, and rightfully so.

These bogus email responses are so incredibly disingenuous that they don’t really need a response, but I’m giving one anyways, mostly because I’m so personally offended…

Madison’s auto-response to constituents and California residents:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding the proposed mandatory spay/neuter ordinance for pit bull and pit bull cross-breed dogs. We understand and respect your views. The City Council is committed to ensuring public safety, while at the same time establishing preventive health measures for pets that can reduce overpopulation and improve their quality of life.

The proposed ordinance is consistent with California Senate Bill 861 which states that “uncontrolled and irresponsible breeding of animals contributes to pet overpopulation, inhumane treatment of animals, mass euthanasia at local shelters and escalating costs for animal care and control; (while) irresponsible breeding also contributes to the production of defective animals that present a public safety risk.”

Many other cities and counties—including Camarillo and Lancaster, plus Riverside and San Bernardino counties—have implemented the same type of breed-specific ordinance such as the one the City of Pasadena is considering. There is clearly a reasonable basis for this local legislation. Statistics suggest that pit bull breeds are responsible for over half of the fatal dog on human attacks in the United States. No doubt you have followed the cases just here in our region over the last couple of years in which toddlers and seniors have been viciously attacked, and some killed, by pit bull breeds.

Meanwhile, animal shelters—including the Pasadena Humane Society—are overcrowded with unwanted pit bull puppies and thousands are put to sleep in California every year. Our proposed ordinance will directly address these issues.

The proposed City of Pasadena ordinance, which is still under review, would help mitigate the effects of pit bull and pit bull cross-breed overpopulation and help ensure that these pets, their owners and the community remain safe and maintain a high quality of life.

I appreciate your comments and thank you for your community involvement.

Steve Madison, Councilmember for District 6

First off, Steve Madison doesn’t “respect” anyone’s views. The only view that he even remotely pays attention to is a view that directly agrees with his own.

Secondly, the city of Pasadena cannot be “committed to ensuring public safety” while at the same time ignoring the 3 reckless circumstances that are behind almost every dog-related human fatality ever recorded (loose dogs, chained/resident dogs, unsupervised children). They also cannot climb on top of the public safety mantle while at the same time ignoring the already existing leash law, anti-chaining law, and breed-neutral dangerous dog law.

Thirdly, when did this become about “overpopulation”? Wow. Because I have direct video evidence from meeting after meeting showing this clown Steve Madison ramble on about how all Pit Bulls are inherently vicious and have been “bred for thousands of years to be killers.”

Fourth, never have they taken up the issue of why there is “mass euthanasia at local shelters,” nor have they discussed “escalating costs for animal care and control.” Not once.

Fifth, define “reasonable basis”? The “statistics” that Madison repeatedly cites are from quite literally the most unreliable dog-related website on the entire internet, Pit Bull hate group DogsBite.org.

Sixth, how dare you cite shelter killing and claim that Pit Bulls are “unwanted,” AS YOU DEMONIZE THEM OPENLY AND IGNORANTLY, AND PERPETUATE SUCH BLATANT AND EGREGIOUS MISINFORMATION, which, by the way, directly leads to why many people do not consider them. How dare you!! You know absolutely nothing about “shelter killing,” nor do you know anything about the typical “sheltering” system, nor do you care how many Pit Bulls are currently being killed in such a system considering your ultimate desire is to see a ban enabled so that you can then have Pasadena customarily kill them all.

Seventh, your doublespeak about Pit Bulls and their owners “remaining safe” and “maintaining a high quality of life” is a massive steaming pile of you know what.

I’ve been on this planet for 32 years, and Steve Madison is one of the biggest assholes I’ve ever been in a room with. I sincerely hope that the other 6 members of this City Council, plus the Mayor, do not follow this crackpot into further profiling, scapegoating, witch-hunting, and all other nasty ideas that have been fundamentally repudiated by any decent human being that has ever walked the planet Earth.

I recently did a post regarding the genuine known circumstances behind the 2013 dog-related human fatalities. Document downloadable here. It’s within that post where I detail that 26 of the 32 (81.25%) dog-related human fatalities for 2013 involved either roaming dogs, chained/resident dogs, and/or the non-supervision of children. It was also pointed out that 17 of the 32 (53.125%) incidents had zero public evidence of what the offending dog or dogs actually looked like, only breed claims coming in the form of a media mention.

Yet yesterday provided us with a ban- and kill-driven, standing on dead bodies document from DogsBite.org that claimed that 78% of these fatalities were caused by Pit Bulls. Totally nonsensical and unproven in any way, yet there it is, out to attempt to set 2014 public policy.

Astonishingly, amongst this pile of erroneous debris there is NO MENTION of how many offending dogs were running loose, chained and/or resident yard dogs, or amongst children while unsupervised. No mention! Aren’t those things relative to public safety? Yet there’s this “press release,” filled with “stats” meant to be salivated over by anti-Pit Bull sociopaths who want to “dirtnap” (as they say) millions of dogs for the actions of the extreme, extreme, extreme few. How in the world does this woman get to act as if she cares at all about public safety? How? By screaming “Pit Bull” and ignoring both the millions of Pit Bulls that have never done anything and also the clear and apparent circumstances behind almost every dog-related fatality ever recorded? Really?

Listen, if you seriously desired to improve public safety you would take the misnomers out of the discussion and promote 3 ideas that run counter to the 3 reckless circumstances that come aligned with almost any and every dog-related human fatality:

1) Keep your dog leashed, keep your dog properly contained.
2) Do not chain your dog, do not tether your dog for hours on end, interact with your dog, socialize your dog, expose your dog to different elements, teach your dog some basic obedience, stimulate your dog’s mind, give your dog a bit of structure, treat your dog compassionately and as a member of your family.
3) Watch your children, do not leave your children with any dog unsupervised, teach your children how to interact with animals and how to respect their boundaries.

For anyone that knows anything about dogs, how does any of this not apply, and further, how is this not a focus? How is this not THE focus? No serious person can answer or retort these things. I’d love to see anyone try.

And then there’s this gem, which I find pretty entertaining…

The only other known nonprofit organization, in addition to DogsBite.org, that tracks this vital data publicly is Animal People.

Wow! How convenient to say, I mean, that those 2 “organizations” are run by individuals (Colleen Lynn and Merritt Clifton) that both want Pit Bulls banned and dead. Incredibly fair, not bias, of course not, right? It’s quite intriguing that there’s no mention of the National Canine Research Council, but that’s because everything they say repeatedly lays waste to Colleen Lynn’s nonsensical posing as a representative for genuinely desiring to increase public safety.

And finally, don’t forget that we are talking about 32 incidents out of 75+ million dogs and 300+ million people. 32!

Now some grandstanding charlatan will say, well, how dare you say that 1 life isn’t precious! How dare you imply that 32 lives lost isn’t important! I’M NOT SAYING THAT. I’M NOT IMPLYING THAT. If you listen to the things that I’ve written I actually repeatedly try to remind folks why the majority of these things happen. Most of these fatalities are completely avoidable. But you have to add perspective and scope to the problem. This is not a simple issue where you can just snap your fingers, eliminate every dog that even remotely resembles a Pit Bull, and have all these problems wash away. This is a reckless human problem, not a dog one.

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone said back prior to voting to usher in breed-discriminatory legislation that “if 1 life can be spared through this ordinance, that it’s 1 life worth saving.”

Okay, but at what cost? How many lives need to be lost in this philosophical process? How many problems need to be avoided and outright ignored? How many people and animals need to be scapegoated? This is where you enter the realm of demagoguery. This is Colleen Lynn’s specialty. A mentality like Stone’s is the same type of thinking that attempts to justify dropping an atomic bomb on an entire city. Have you ever seen a wedding party or a neighborhood blown to smithereens by a hellfire missile or a drone? And just because there was a piece of “intelligence” that put 1 person in that vicinity? That’s what you call collateral damage. The doctrine of embracing collateral damage is the work of tyrants. So these people acting like they care about the sanctity of life, while green-lighting literal boundaryless mayhem in order to fill a singular objective, is utter hypocrisy of the highest order.

To bring it back to dogs: The collateral damage for the objective of frauds like Lynn and DogsBite is millions of dogs dead. That’s their desire; stated, stashed, masked, and true. Rampant vilification based solely on how sentient beings look. The line of thought that dogs from certain visual groups are not also individuals, but rather products with no differences. People being denied housing and a livelihood based around what kind of dog that they may have. Families being torn apart. Municipalities closing their doors to you, and criminalizing you when you are in reality totally innocent. Stereotypes and labels being attached to people, and all because of the individual dog that you love. Creating this regurgitated hysteria and playing on fear, which is the lowest common denominator when attempting to actually be intelligent. Shelter policies becoming more draconian than they already are. Due process being eliminated. Laws being circumvented, while others go ignored. A further unAmericanness taking tighter hold. That’s Colleen Lynn and DogsBite.org. That’s who, and what, you support when you swallow the utter garbage that is housed on that website.

Back in October of 2013 the Pasadena City Council opted against mandating the spaying and neutering of all dogs. Regardless of whether you’d support that idea or not (I would not), it is imperative that some compare and contrast go on here…

So here’s some further lines of thought in regards to the input given by the different Pasadena City Council members as they opposed the mandatory spaying and neutering of all dogs, but then immediately turned around and desired to see the same law passed which is promoted as only targeting Pit Bulls.

To this I say where is the consistency in opposition? If you oppose 1 on certain grounds, that same thought process should carry over, considering both laws are exactly the same and they have many of the same questionable dynamics.

Councilwoman Margaret McAustin and Councilman Terry Tornek take the same approach, both opposing the mandatory spaying and neutering of all dogs on the grounds that it is broad, overreaching, intrusive, oppressive, expensive, reduces community participation, gets more dogs killed, and is all around “too much.” They also come to the conclusion that promoting education and letting the community know what they can participate in is the best way to go in comparison to passing such a law. Yet, when it comes to Pit Bulls and a breed-discriminatory law of the exact same type, all of their very legitimate conclusions go completely out the window. What the heck?

Councilman Victor Gordo saw a big problem with the lack of specifics when attempting to define what made for a “reputable breeder.” Fair point. I’d urge him to keep this critical perspective when looking over whatever ordinance Pasadena brings forth, as their definition of “Pit Bull” is bound to be as vague and subjective as humanely possible, as it seems to always be with these kinds of laws.

Councilman Gene Masuda quite literally thinks that all dogs categorized as Pit Bulls should be punished because 1 of his constituent’s leashed dogs was “attacked” in a park by an unleashed dog that was described by him as a “Pit Bull.”

No attention paid to the fact that this was a roaming dog, running at large after escaping its yard. No attention paid to the lack of proper care for this dog, or the desire to contain it in its yard. That’s clearly human recklessness but no one seems to care or point any of this out.

Councilman John Kennedy, who has since came out against breed-discriminatory legislation as well, brings up eugenics while discussing why he’s opposing the mandatory spaying and neutering of all dogs.

If Kennedy made this connection back in October, then it should more powerfully apply in regards to smaller groups of dogs (Pit Bulls) being targeted because they are deemed “less than” by certain members of his City Council. That is most definitely eugenics, 100%. I’m quite positive that Councilman Kennedy will vote to oppose any attempt at BSL.

Councilwoman Jacque Robinson has consistently been against the targeting of certain dogs, but supports the law for all dogs.

And of course, my personal response to demagogue Steve Madison…

The bottom line is that all breed-discriminatory laws serve to do is further perpetuate misinformation and sensationalistic rhetoric, further ignore public safety, further demonize dogs, further ostracize owners, further squeeze low income persons, further kill Pit Bulls, further make Pit Bulls more appealing to true criminals, and further create precedent for worse pieces of legislation to come.

Last night we had numerous public commenting members of the community that came out to support dogs and Pit Bulls.

As you can see from the above video, Steve Madison immediately discarded everything that I said during my public comment, while at the same time pulling up hate group DogsBite.org and their absurdist statistics to counter me from the bench. He also claimed that he had been “responding to some of my emails,” which isn’t really that accurate. He responded to 1 email and wrote back: “Where in Pasadena do you live?” I responded back that I wasn’t comfortable giving what I deemed to be a vindictive politician my personal address, but that I was in District 6. To see the documentation that I was referencing above please click here and here.

I’d like to also commend Councilman John Kennedy for coming out and stating his opposition to breed-discriminatory laws, and also say a huge thanks to both the other folks that showed up to speak and the many that sat in the crowd to support. I gotta say, all of the public comments were excellent but I most enjoyed Stephanie’s commentary which was so powerfully personal and yet delivered without contempt or anger.

Below is some video of many of us outside of the Council chambers, with a Pit Bull service dog named Atticus and a 2-year-old resident whose best friend is a Pit Bull.

I cannot stress this enough, and have before, but it is IMPERATIVE that the rescue community and dog-loving members of society show up to oppose Steve Madison, and more importantly discrimination. Since the issue will be an agendized item for the upcoming 1/27 meeting that means that the public comments will not be condensed to a 20 minute period. If 100 people show up and want to speak, all 100 people get to speak. They will very likely be voting on the ordinance during this same meeting. Please educate yourselves on what’s happening in Pasadena and turnout for all of our dogs and for common sense. If you’d like to attend then please check out the created Facebook event and plan accordingly. It’s also advised to email the Council members leading up to this meeting, and all email addresses are provided at the link for the Facebook event. One of the best and most comprehensive documents out there to oppose this legislation is something that the American Preservation Dog Society put together, and you can get that right here.

For all of 2013 I spent time taking screenshots of every local and national media report that I could get my hands on in regards to any dog-related human fatality. This was a vast amount of information, and here are the relative circumstances that faux websites like DogsBite.org will never focus on, find relevant, or even bother to tell you.

There was 32 dog-related human fatalities in the United States in 2013.

There are 3 overriding circumstances that universally fit most instances where a dog is found to have killed a human. Those are: Roaming and loose dogs, chained and tethered (resident yard, non-family) dogs, and unsupervised children.

Only 6 of the 32 fatalities do not involve any of these circumstances.

26 of the 32 fatalities involve at least 1 of these circumstances, and many of the fatalities involved more than 1 in tandem.

Roaming/loose dogs killed 7 people this year.
Chained/resident dogs killed 12 people this year.
The non-supervision of children led to 16 deaths this year, victims who were all under the age of 7.

17 of the 32 incidents included NO PHOTO of the alleged offending dog or dogs. None.

15 of the 32 incidents came with at least 1 visual of the alleged offending dog or dogs. I have no idea how accurate or inaccurate these presented photos are.

5 of the 32 fatalities were potentially due to natural causes or foul play, maybe in full or maybe in partial, it’s ultimately unknown by anyone, but those ruling it out are just ruling it out to pad their promotional statistics.

1 of those fatalities is also a fatality that didn’t involve any of the 3 reckless circumstances that lead to most fatalities, thus potentially dropping that number from 6 to 5.

Breed is irrelevant, as there’s no way to accurately peg most of the dogs involved. Further, to focus on breed-centric pissing matches means that you’re actively attempting to suppress and ignore the real ways that one could actually go about making their community safer, which should be obvious to anyone that doesn’t look at how something visually appears and then think to their disgracefully soulless selves “every living thing that looks in any way like that should die.”

So in conclusion…

81.25% of all dog-related fatalities for 2013 involved either roaming dogs, chained/resident dogs, and/or the non-supervision of children.

18.75% of all dog-related fatalities for 2013 (or 6) involved no reported element of recklessness, and thus could be said that it was a much truer version of a dog-related fatality that couldn’t have been easily avoided.

Over 50% of the dog-related fatalities for 2013 had zero public evidence of what the offending dog or dogs actually looked like, only breed claims coming in the form of a media mention.

The truth is that dogs are incredibly safe. The truth is that there are 72-78+ million of them in the United States. The truth is that there’s well over 300 million of us in this same country. Think about how many daily interactions that creates! Dogs are incredibly safe. Pit Bulls are dogs. Throw whatever cherry-picked, unverified, media-reported statistic out at me that you want… 99.9999999999999% of all dogs, of all Pit Bulls, and no matter the breakdown–by breed or type or city or county or state–have never done anything to anyone. That is a stat that not a single person can refute.

Video evidence that the intent of most of the Pasadena City Council members is to go along with trying to change state law:

My response to Steve Madison’s talking points:

Numerous people have also noted how the officials are now responding back with what’s clearly an automated response, claiming that they are not intending to ban Pit Bulls. Listen folks, the evidence is right up yonder. Anyone can view it. Their response is a simpleton misinformation tactic. End of story.

My biggest takeaway from 2013 is that far too many people do not seem to understand what breed discrimination is. There’s numerous facets to this thought, and I view each portion as really problematic. First off, dog discrimination is real. Throw all the empty and off topic attempts to counter this point out the window–that dogs aren’t human, that anthropomorphism shouldn’t be done, that it trivializes race issues–because none of them matter or damage the ultimate point that’s being made here… It’s the line of thought, the conceptual approach, the philosophy and the response that is the exact same to human discrimination, and in any form. There lies the indisputable reality. You cannot blame, or attempt to pigeonhole, or criminalize an entire group of anything based on the actions of 1, or 5, or 25, or 500, or 5,000, etc. That is not only extraordinarily ignorant, but extremely dangerous as well. Dogs are individuals just as humans are. Those rejecting this basic premise are quite literally dense as a box of rocks.

More troubling, to me, is how the principles behind this premise get left behind by some in the “rescue” and “animal welfare” communities. This past year I found myself in 2 very public situations, each of which kind of provide the perfect examples for what I’m trying to convey here now…

Many months back I wrote about what Villalobos stated on their own Facebook page, in regards to supporting a watered down BSL proposition in Westwego, and got immediately lambasted for it by half of the internet. I stand as firmly now as I did then behind what I was trying to get across to people, which is that blatant and unjust discrimination cannot be “compromised” with at any level. When you compromise such a basic belief, to oppose blanket vilification and visual criminalization of mass amounts of (insert here), you then cease to have that belief. What I went through in the month or so that followed this event showed me that lots of people do not even comprehend what breed-specific legislation is, at all. Not only that, but it introduced me to blind allegiance, vitriolic backlash, hatefulness, irrationality in large doses, and an utter backwardness that did nothing but fracture concepts that should remain obvious and strong. I’m not saying the majority of this was even Villalobos’ fault, but it’s kind of a byproduct of critically engaging with such a well-known commodity.

The 2nd situation was involving PETA, and confronting spokeswoman Lisa Lange on their organization’s hypocritical stances of supporting Pit Bull regulations and bans, promoting the idea that shelters not adopt them out, and desiring to seem them phased out of the dog population completely. The discrimination and hypocrisy with PETA is off of the charts, almost to a laughable level. You honestly have to laugh to keep from crying. They are mortally harming these dogs while posing as if they care to protect them, and while running around attempting to protect all other types of animals that apparently deserve protecting far more than any dog deemed to be any part Pit Bull.

I said earlier that I find these facets “more troubling” than those that outright just do not acknowledge dog discrimination in the first place. Why? Because they have the biggest reach to teach! So when they are on the wrong side of history on such an obvious issue like mass criminalization then they are literally adding to the culture that is dumbing people down, and at the expense of the one that could be lifting them up. They are muddying the water, not filtering it or clearing it up. And I’m in no way comparing Villalobos to PETA, because they are night and day organizations when it comes to Pit Bulls. Villalobos does actual great work, PETA does “great work” only if the goal is to further marginalize innocent dogs and get them killed.

Lastly, there are those that claim to understand how discrimination manifests itself, and they find it appalling and wrong, yet clearly choose putting the notion of opposing it on the back burner out of a desire to believe that more dogs will be spayed or neutered by force, thus creating less killing. Evidence often refutes this, but that’s really not the point here. The point is that these people are choosing one issue at the complete expense of the other. And this “other” is the foundational issue of everything, the ignoring of which is what is actively tearing down the dogs that these folks so openly claim to love. I serve you up Riverside County, Riverside City, and Pasadena as prime examples…

What happened to education and open dialogue in regards to spay and neuter? Instead you’re happy to support another unenforceable law while convincing yourself that the many relevant issues and dynamics in play here will all of a sudden work themselves out through its implementation? And even if it would, which it won’t, all of the stereotyping and demonizing is really an acceptable price to pay? Some would actually say yes to that last question. That’s really sad to me. Because there is a heavy stream of collateral damage coming down the pipe because of this, and it is coming no matter how you slice it.

I’ve been criticized a decent amount for saying many of the things that I’ve said here, and I keep saying different versions of it and won’t stop doing so. Been ignored, been tuned out, been belittled and otherwise. And all for opposing absurdist discrimination. All for trying to be consistent with my opposition. And all for trying to communicate to others why that’s imperative to do. So that’s my takeaway for the year. And I know this sounds like a downer post but it’s not, it’s just me reflecting. With all of the not so helpful there’s also been tons of support and understanding as well, and a lot of communication and rational discourse. So thank you for that.

So over the last week I was finally able to watch Fruitvale Station, the movie that follows the 22-year-old Oscar Grant up until his murder on New Year’s Day 2009. First off, the movie is really good. If you haven’t seen it yet please do. More relevant to this page though is a scene that was included in the movie for metaphorical reasons, as it features a stray Pit Bull having a moment with Michael B. Jordan, who plays Grant, while he gets gas.

*Spoilers ahead*

The camera then cuts back to Grant as you hear a car speed by, which ultimately strikes the Pit Bull and doesn’t stop. The dog is fatally wounded. Grant runs after the car and then turns around to help carry the dog off of the road, where he was left to die. I’ll leave it to them to explain the symbolism…

From Michael B. Jordan:

Black males, we are America’s Pit Bull. You know, we’re labeled ‘vicious,’ you know, ‘inhumane,’ and left to die on the street. Oscar was kinda like left for dead, so many of us, you know, um, young African-American males are left for dead. We get branded a lot.

From director, Ryan Coogler:

When you hear about them (Pit Bulls) in the media, you hear about them doing horrible things. You never hear about a Pit Bull doing anything good in the media. And they have a stigma to them … and, in many ways, Pit Bulls are like young African-American males. Whenever you see us in the news, it’s for getting shot and killed or shooting and killing somebody–for being a stereotype.

Many people apparently love this scene, and others seem to hate it. Not for the metaphor, but for reasons that they feel the scene “misleads” the audience into liking Oscar Grant more. To that I say: It’s a movie! Don’t criticize these men for one aspect of their art. For anyone to sit here and act as though they knew Oscar Grant in full prior to seeing this scene, and then for you to get angry at the notion that this scene possibly tampers with your potentially bad thoughts about Grant, it just goes to show the improper judgment that you are carrying around in the first place! You don’t know him either way, and it’s certainly no crime to humanize someone who we all came to know only from a YouTube clip showing him being unjustly murdered in the back, while laying face down and handcuffed.

Isn’t that what should lead to your outrage? But that doesn’t and Coogler’s artistic choice does? See, it’s stuff like that that makes me shake my head at some folks in a vigorous fashion, certain media “journalists” and otherwise.

As for the comparison: It’s real, and it’s deep, and it’s powerful. Human beings are individuals, just as dogs are individuals. You do not learn someone’s character in a sound bite. Character echoes through life, through existence, through action, through history. Through the seen and the unseen, known and the unknown. Millions of things make up someone’s character, and provide evidence to their track record. No man or woman is all bad or all good. We are all imperfect. But each of us is an individual, and if we act heinously towards another then let us be judged on the crime that we committed, and on the facts. To demonize the group on the actions of the singular is the biggest sham that this system can ever conjure up. To look at someone and say that they are all (insert here), based on how they look and nothing more, well, it’s most definitely the bottom of the intellectual barrel (and the compassionate one, too). The same applies to dogs. That’s the point. And it’s wholeheartedly true.

For those curious, the dog in the movie is named Ian and you can follow him on Facebook.

Many of you are familiar with the awesome webpage Stuff on Scout’s Head, which shows a cute and tolerant Pit Bull-mix displaying different humorous items balanced on his head. He is quite the talented character indeed. Well, Scout is from Ontario, Canada where Pit Bulls have been banned since 2005. He was grandfathered into the ordinance, as his owner had already adopted him prior to this draconian law being put into place. All those dogs coming after have been seized and killed simply because of how they look. Please stop for 2 seconds and think about that… Not killed because a shelter was full, or for space, or for behavior, or because a staff would rather ignore efforts to promote dogs and get them adopted. They were killed because of how they look! That’s BSL/BDL, or breed-specific (more appropriately called breed-discriminatory) legislation. I found this photo to be incredibly powerful, I hope you do as well. It shows Scout wearing his muzzle, which he must wear any time he steps foot outside. Please support them and stand against discrimination at all times.