Afro-Dog: Blackness and the Animal Question

by Benedicte Boisseron

The animal-rights organization PETA asked "Are Animals the New Slaves?" in a controversial 2005 fundraising campaign; that same year, after the Humane Society rescued pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina while black residents were neglected, some declared that white America cares more about pets than black people. These are but two recent examples of a centuries-long history in which black life has been pitted against animal life. Does comparing human and animal suffering trivialize black pain, or might the intersections of racialization and animalization shed light on interlinked forms of oppression?

In Afro-Dog, Bénédicte Boisseron investigates the relationship between race and the animal in the history and culture of the Americas and the black Atlantic, exposing a hegemonic system that compulsively links and opposes blackness and animality to measure the value of life. She analyzes the association between black civil disobedience and canine repression, a history that spans the era of slavery through the use of police dogs against protesters during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to today in places like Ferguson, Missouri. She also traces the lineage of blackness and the animal in Caribbean literature and struggles over minorities' right to pet ownership alongside nuanced readings of Derrida and other French theorists. Drawing on recent debates on black lives and animal welfare, Afro-Dog reframes the fast-growing interest in human-animal relationships by positioning blackness as a focus of animal inquiry, opening new possibilities for animal studies and black studies to think side by side.

Genres: Philosophy, Race, Nonfiction, Sociology, Dogs, Politics, Animals

320 pages, Paperback

Published August 14, 2018

Reviews

[Pandaduh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who am I to review this book? I don’t like being the first one to do so on Goodreads, but it looks like it’s me. This book explores – grapples?—with the issue (the “animal question”) of comparing a human population to an animal population. At least, that’s why I was reading it. I was reading it to understand the dynamics of it, to question it, to come to some stronger conclusion. I have seen posts like this that caution against doing so and I am even guilty of making the dreaded comparison. I regret how I have compared in the past, in part, but deep down I always knew there is an intersection. The research question, for me, was how best to do it, or if it should be done even if there is an “intersection” -- if it should be done at all.

The two main populations mentioned in this book were, most obviously, Black people (i.e. slavery, mainly) and Jewish people (i.e. the Holocaust), basically because these two groups seem to be who are compared the most to animals in this culture. I was hoping this book could confirm or deny my modes of thinking, others’ modes of thinking. I’m not sure what it did for me, though it has indeed done something.

I recommend you actually read the Coda first if you start to struggle with what’s in the chapters you start to read, because this was the most enlightening portion for me and it might give the work better context than the introduction does. Before I read the Coda, the book seemed flip-floppy. The previous chapters seem to state in sections that you shouldn’t compare people to animals, only to do just that by highlighting where their struggles, most specifically Black struggles, often intersect. At other times it seems to confirm you can compare them, but only if you are part of the population being compared (which is a thought I have heard before, elsewhere). It was hard to process all this with the fact the book is one big comparison of Black humans to animals. Perhaps one critique is that the chapters are too objective (what this review would call "without much thematic structure or a temporal narrative"). I was hardly sure of Boisseron’s official stance at times, all of her observation laid out for us to come to our own conclusions. She’s clearly done the work of research and making connections, but what we should interpret from them is somewhat up in the air. And even the Coda is purposefully no official stance, showing that it’s difficult for even someone within a population to compare themselves to animals and be held as a lasting authority. Boisseron even questions herself and her authority, asking “Who am I to talk about the Afro-dog?” after pointing out Alice Walker, who wrote the forward for the Dreaded Comparison, is a lapsed vegetarian.

While I agree that if comparison is ever done it should be done in a careful way that focuses on the intersection, Boisseron makes a case for never doing it…but also for doing it? I think this paradox (?) is the point.  What I am now struggling with (still struggling with?) is how to think about the “intersection.” To me, pointing out the intersections (what this review calls searching "for narratives of interspecies connectedness, rather than structural similarities used by activists") is still a form of comparison and I don't understand the definition of "structural similarities." Additionally, I wonder if Boisseron's work does somehow (and in what ways) validate Walker and therefore Spiegel's Dreaded Comparison and works like it? Are these "acivitist" works? I've not read either, so some of what was said about them in Afro-Dog may have gone over my head.

The only word I was left with after reading this book was “frustrated” -- not necessarily in a bad way. Perhaps this is because I’m having trouble understanding it (the issue itself and this scholarly work), which is why I didn’t want to be the first to review it! I do not know what I do not know.

But to the most interesting parts of the book (for me): Boisseron referenced so much dog literature that I had never heard about. Apparently that’s a thing -- white people writing about dogs and their struggles. My favorite chapter was “The Naked Truth about Cats and Blacks” – where it examines interpretations of the Biblical Ham story. It was eye opening (quotes from it below). In some ways it reminded me about the scene in Fifteen Dogs where the woman realizes the dog can speak and starts to change her behavior around him. I also don’t think I’ve ever (?) seen Carol Adams (author of The Sexual Politics of Meat ) and Donna Haraway mentioned in the same book. If that tells you anything about where this book is coming from and going, it means it’s a necessary contribution and read. Please tell me your thoughts on it and help me better understand this book!

View my full review here: https://blackandwhitepandaduh.wordpre...

[Isabel J · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some great ideas here, but many become so over-qualified that they spiral into a jumble of contradictions. Salient insights are eclipsed by what I'm assuming are over-judicious attempts to keep the argument air-tight, paradoxically flattening its initial promise.

Despite these drawbacks, I do look forward to reading more from this scholar. I hope that she learns to trust her own voice.

[Imani ♥ ☮ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew this book could change my life but when it actually did, I was stunned. Read in a couple sittings. It's extraordinary. If you are Black and have pets or think about non-human animals ever, read this.

[Sps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super PoCo. Before reading I was hoping for more about contemporary veganism & Blackness but it's cool, it's cool. Maybe someone else has written a book (or will someday? Looking at you, Aph Ko) that delves more into that. And I mean how could I not appreciate a book that discusses both J.M. Coetzee and Toussaint L'Ouverture?

[Melvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great descriptions of how Black people and animals are entangled through colonization. The author accomplishes her goal of detailing "how the history of the animal and the black in the black Atlantic is connected" (p. xx). This is a step forward over comparable, intersectional approaches of animals and race. However, the author may seem to essentialize race and animality - as opposed to how Aph Ko locates them as mutually constitutive under the white supremacist paradigm.

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

🧠🧠🧠

[Corvus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very dense and academic. Gave me a lot to think about. More detailed review later

[Ragnhild Yndestad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant and accessible introduction to the question of animal studies and race in literature.

[Seth Kellman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book. Definitely need a couple days to read it though.