they accept any of mine. Had the
cats made more of an effort, I might
have felt like I had lost something.
But even as a kid, looking at these
dead, mutilated animals, I was like,
“Well, there you have it. Maybe if
they’d been nicer, they could have
avoided this.”
After the cats were killed, we
took a break from pets for a while.
Then we got dogs. Dogs are cool.
Almost every black family I knew
had a dog. No matter how poor you
were, you had a dog. White people
treat dogs like children or members
of the family. Black people’s dogs
are more for protection, a poor-