the dreaded comparison

While reading Am I Blue? I find myself reckoning again with the concept of “presumption” as the “natural and original disease” of humanity.  We presume to understand animals (and other humans) but really do not.  (Michel de Montaigne likely wrote “An Apology of Raymond Sebond” as an adult, which may explain his perspective).  In Am I Blue?, however, we are introduced to the creation of presumption as a product of passing time.  That is, perhaps we weren’t always presumptuous.  There is something to be said about the vast difference in perspective between a child and an adult.  Walker says, “by the time we are adults, we no longer remember.” (612)  We no longer remember that we are connected to other animals and to other humans and to ourselves.  We sometimes, as adults, forget “the depth of feeling one could see in horses’ eyes.” (612)  Isn’t that what psychiatrists always ask of their patients; rediscovering their inner child?  Their forgotten sense of connection and truth. 

Looking into a turtle's eyes is something else.  I get you, Walker.
http://www.nikonians.org/forums/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=169&topic_id=11318&mesg_id=11318&page=15

Something struck me about reading of this sense of loss—this amnesia that Walker attributes to age.  I used to love animals.  Up until the last five years, I had spent my childhood hours around many pets: mice, cats, fish, birds, and dogs.  I was never an animal-lover, per se, but I felt connected to them. Reading this particular article, I have realized just how much removed I have become from the turtles that live in my apartment.  I used to spend hours watching them sunbathe on rocks, eat basil, and catch minnows.  Now, it seems, I too have “forgotten the depth of feeling one could see in [turtles’] eyes.”  Can we attribute this sense of forgetting childhood realities and feelings to the passing of age?  Or is it the fast pace of our lifestyles that send us going from one task to the other without stopping to meditate on such a serene and beautiful thing as gazing into the soulful eyes of an animal (or other human being, for that matter).  I wonder, perhaps it has something (or everything) to do with the influence of society on our memories, feelings, and state of mind.  

Painting depicting the Black Diaspora.
"It is vital to link oppressions in our minds..."
http://www.zimbio.com/Black+History+Month/articles/
OBrnU1Oq_j4/RBG+Started+Slave+Ships+Feat+Voices+Slavery

The next example Walker talks about, illustrates just how much society and age sculpts our perspectives and feelings: “well, about slavery: about white children, who were raised by black people, who knew their first all-accepting love from black women, and then, when they were twelve or so, were told they must “forget” the deep levels of communication between themselves and “mammy” that they knew.” (612) And while it is still difficult for me to fully accept the racism-speciesism comparison—the “dreaded comparison”—I am beginning to believe more and more in its validity.  The following quote resonated with me largely because it is something I already know but have failed to remember when talking about animal ethics:  “any oppression helps to support other forms of domination.  That is why it is vital to link oppressions in our minds, to look for the common, shared aspects, and work against them as one, rather than prioritizing victims’ suffering…” (618)  This reminds me of discussions in other contexts about the Black Diaspora.  The diaspora links so many scattered African identities in so many ways.  It is likely that a diasporic identity can also be applied to the dispersal of animals around the world for our entertainment, research, and commerce.  I can’t help but end on a downbeat—to echo the despair we feel when we are welcomed into the “desert of the real.” Borrowing words from Walker, in a word, “we are guilty.” (616)