Showing posts with label I am the majority. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I am the majority. Show all posts

Monday, January 21, 2013

We are the Majority

Revised 
The Animal Farm Foundation started an "I am the majority project" in which people download a poster from Animal Farm Foundation, insert their profession or contribution to society such as 'grandma' or "volunteer' and then photograph themselves holding their poster with their pit.

The project has gotten a LOT of contributions!  Nutters LOVE it!  The AFF made a little video highlighting just a few of the photos that were sent in.  It takes 2 seconds to realize that one unspoken thing they want you to know is that there are WHITE pit bull owners!  heavens!  I started counting the white, brown, and black faces.  The first non-white face appears 12 photos in.  I got bored after I'd counted 60 white faces, 5 brown faces, and 6 black faces.

The second thing you realize after looking at their video is they show lot's of teachers, fire fighters, police officers, engineers, nurses and chiropractors.  Oddly, I saw no pole dancers, repo men or bartenders among the photos even though many of those people are nice, fine, and upstanding citizens, too.  And I'm betting there's no shortage of pit bull owning repo men or bartenders. They say teacher is the number one profession listed among the responses.

So, they don't want you to stop thinking in stereotypes.  They simply want you to think about the positive stereotypes associated with some professions and some skin colors instead of the negative associations people have about pit bull owners.  Associations such as that idea that criminals and other deviants are more likely to be attracted to pit bulls and other dangerous dogs - which happens to be true and to have been described in a peer reviewed study.

Funny thing is just because the stereotype of teachers is that they are kind, intelligent, and helpful people, that doesn't mean they all are.  When you google "teacher convicted" you get about 10 pages of results, and I bet you won't need two guesses to come up with the number one crime they're convicted of.  Yeah, sex crimes.  And it is no surprise that googling "police officer convicted" gives up a mountain of results.

Being a teacher doesn't lead you to own a pit bull.  Embracing deviance from the norm to some degree leads you to own a pit bull.  You might merely feel you don't adhere to stereotypes held by most people (the norm) and since you're not a sheep, you embrace pit bulls because you like to "think outside the box" (deviate from the norm).  But people who are just straight up, hardcore, illegal deviants from all socially acceptable behavior  ALSO love their pit bulls  - big time.

And those hardcore deviants go into all kinds of professional fields, including the "helping" professions, for all kinds of reasons.

Take Kim DiPrima, special education public school teacher, for example.  DiPrima was convicted of second degree manslaughter in 2009 after her pit bulls, Popeye and Brutus, entered her neighbor's yard and mauled 90 year old veteran and retired crane operator, Henry Piotrowski, so badly that he eventually died.

She got 5 years probation and continued teaching until she was later charged with second-degree attempted murder, second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and first-degree reckless endangerment for another fracas involving a felon ex boy toy and gunfire. Read a good write up about all the felons involved here.

There are fine upstanding bartenders and pole dancers and there are deviant teachers and policemen.  There are honest, hardworking, and good people who become pit bull owners because they want to give pit bulls a chance and are assured that pit bulls get a bad rap.  And there are majorly deviant pit bull owners

Some upstanding people who own pit bulls are lucky and no living thing is ever hurt by their pit bull.  Some fine, upstanding people who own pit bulls quickly get rid of them at the first hint that the pit bull's genes are expressing themselves.   Some upstanding pit bull owners don't get a warning and experience the gruesome loss of a loved one to a pit bull attack.  Many, many deviant pit bull owners wreak mayhem, havoc, maiming and death on entire neighborhoods with their pit bulls because they just don't care unless it affect them.

The fundamental truth is this: Pit bulls maul, maim and kill more people than all other kinds of dogs combined.  They kill literally tens of thousands of pets and livestock animals every year.  So, if you, your family, or your animals have been attacked by a pit bull, you are the majority.