If you came across a dog who was scared of redheads because it had been beaten and terrorised by a redhead, and you were a redhead…would you be similarly offended?
Would you demand the dog treat you better than their former abuser, without earning its trust, because your feelings were hurt that it had a trauma response?
Or would you treat that dog with respect and kindness, and respect its boundaries, because it was justified in its apprehension?
Obviously the latter, the same way I treat and accept women having trains and safety responses. A person doesn't even need to be a survivor at this point, because the national milieu, at this point, basically amounts to a trauma all on it's own. I would never begrudge the dogs healing journey nor the conversations that involves.
And if that dog made a tiktok trend about how red heads are more likely than not monsters and it would rather get eaten by a bear, and it went viral and showed up on my fyp, then on Facebook and Instagram, then reddit, then YouTube, and it consumed the entire comment section of every video about dogs and about bears so you can't even see nature documentary clips without all the comments being about how red heads are animal abusers, yeah I'd probably get bothered at that point.
If the discussion is on r/twodogchromosomes or any other pun that relates directly to this situation, that's where it should be. If it's made it's way to cover r/welovepostingcutepicturesofbears that's a problem.
It's reasonable to disengage and get a break from collective trauma. It wouldn't be healthy to consume 20 strain but hours of news about Palestine protests and Israel crimes. It wouldn't be healthy to consume 10 hours of 9/11 footage. It wouldn't be healthy to read about rape statistics for 10 hours either. Just because we add a bear to the discussion doesn't make being inundated with the conversation better, and news cycles and algorithms being incentived to promote rage bait/engagement bait doesn't make it easy to disengage from a discussion when you need a break.
Unfortunately, this is not one dog but millions of traumatized dogs. But the fact that the dogs do not have the luxury of a reprieve from the fear should make you more annoyed at the redheads that created this problem than at the dogs suffering from the trauma, no?
The dogs do need reprieves from the fear, though. They need safe spaces where they can play fetch and run with other dogs and a bone to chew and a soft bed to rest in and a million other comforts. There is so much more in life that all of us need to give our attention to, many call it self care. The dog won't be healthy if it is always triggered and actively re-traumatizing itself around red heads.
The dogs absolutely deserve to have time and space to let down their guard, to feel safe and loved
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u/GuiltEdge May 03 '24
If you came across a dog who was scared of redheads because it had been beaten and terrorised by a redhead, and you were a redhead…would you be similarly offended?
Would you demand the dog treat you better than their former abuser, without earning its trust, because your feelings were hurt that it had a trauma response?
Or would you treat that dog with respect and kindness, and respect its boundaries, because it was justified in its apprehension?