Western Supremacy in Dog Meat Activism
Whenever the topic of eating dogs come up, white people get all up in arms about how barbaric the practice is. They decry the brutalization of man’s best friend, protest the disgusting nature of those who would eat an animal that is so cute. Many of those same people feel comfortable eating steaks, pork chops or chicken drumsticks. There is a clear hypocrisy in that. Why is it wrong to eat dogs, but not to eat horses, snails, chickens or cows? The consumption of horses, snails, chickens and cows are all part of the culinary traditions of various Western nations. Dog eating is not. The uproar caused by dog consumption in Asia has clear undertones of Western supremacy.
A common argument used to protest the practice of dog eating is that dogs are more intelligent than other animals, and as a result, they should be spared from slaughter. Pigs are actually significantly more intelligent than dogs, but few protest the practice of pork eating due to its “inhumanity.” Eating pork is part of the Western tradition, eating dogs is not. Many of the other arguments used to protest dog eating can be applied to eating rabbits. Like dogs, rabbits are adorable. Like dogs, rabbits are fun to pet. Like some dogs, rabbits have floppy ears. Like dogs, rabbits are commonly “companion animals” that live primarily in domestic settings. Like dogs, rabbits are alive. Unlike dogs, eating rabbits are part of European culinary culture. Eating dogs makes people uncomfortable because Asians do it, not because the practice is any more brutal than that of killing and eating any other animal.
The condemnation of dog eating seems to be part of the great Western tradition of demonizing the non-West and imposing moral standards onto other nations. To this day, dark skin is deemed ugly and undesirable in many nations conquered by the West—a legacy of colonial times. The West’s colonization of the world has led many traditions and cultures to be stamped out and destroyed. Languages have been lost due to white colonists forcing their subjects to stop speaking their native tongues. All of these tragedies are the result of the Western need to tamp out any practices that are foreign. For similar reasons, dog eating is being demonized today because it is unfamiliar, “other.” Western nations pressuring Asian nations to ban the practice of eating dog meat is part of the Western cultural legacy of supremacy.
Granted, there are problems to the dog meat industry. Just as in other meat production industries, the abuse of dogs raised for consumption is rampant. Some dog owners have reported having their pets snatched by butchers so that they could sell the stolen pets as food. Criticizing these aspects of the practice of dog eating is valid. That said, such legitimate criticisms are invalidated when presented with the racist undertones of the present anti-dog eating movement. It’s hard to take those who want to reform the practice of dog eating seriously when T-shirts that say “Save a Dog, Eat a Chinese,” are sold online by animal advocacy groups.
There’s nothing wrong with people being uncomfortable with the practice of meat-eating. But to apply this logic unevenly, to protest the meat eating practices of Asian cultures but not those of European nations is culturally supremacist, if not racist. White meat-eaters decrying dog eating and urging Asian countries to move away from the practice is a classic example of Western paternalism. Feeling empathy for our fellow animals is noble, but perpetuating Western supremacy and anti-Asian racism is not.