While checking out the 7th Carnival of Empty Cages (well worth a read), I found a link to this post from the Sistah Vegan Project. It critiques an article from Outdoor Life magazine called “Squirrels Gone Wild.” In this article, squirrels are evil beings who attack innocent humans.
But what’s really stunning is the illustration that accompanies the article: a squirrel drawn as a stereotypical gangsta. What’s wrong with this? As Breeze Harper (the creator of Sistah Vegan Project) notes:
Is the implication that black and Latino men involved in thug and gangsta life (or maybe if they aren’t even involved in gangsta life, but by default “gone wild” because they are black and Latino in a white culture that constructs them as deviant “at birth) are “animals”? Is this why, when the cartoonist decided to illustrate a “humanoid” version of a squirrel “gone bad”, he can only think of his perception of the deviant a black or Latino male that could also invade the white family’s reality and attack them?
Ugh.
Thanks for the link to the carnival! I’ve added you to the Deep Roots blogroll. Its always nice to find other vegans making the connections between human and non-human oppression.
Congrats on going vegan, btw!
Thank you! And yes, I feel so relieved when I find other vegans who understand the interconnections too!!