The other user who responded to you, @evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world, does a good job of analyzing the core idea here. To quote Benjamin Disraeli, there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. Black people are no more “innately inclined towards criminality” than a pit-bull is innately inclined towards mauling people. Where people of color have been historically over policed, profiled by the criminal justice system, and generally set up to have a higher rate of criminal statistics than other ethnic groups, pit-bulls face similar statistical problems. Bite statistics are often self-reported by people who either witnessed a dog attack or who were themselves victims of one. Identifying a dog’s breed by sight, especially for mixed breed dogs, is nearly impossible, and more error prone than accurate. And for a pound, any “big dog with a blocky head” immediately gets labeled as a pit-bull, even if it has literally no pit-bull DNA. These dogs are routinely adopted by people who explicitly train a dog to be mean to people, as opposed to socializing them. The fact that they also have this reputation as guard dogs or attack dogs exacerbates their reputation.
I already suggested this in another comment, but you can easily apply a thought experiment here.
Magically replace all white people with black people with the same upbringing: does crime go up, down, or basically stay the same?
Magically replace all pitbulls with chihuahuas with the same upbringing: do maulings go up, down, or basically stay the same?
Couldn’t tell the cops if the mugger was white or black? Pretty understandable.
Couldn’t tell the cops if the dog that bit you was a chihuahua or a pitbull? Really?
Any “big dog with a blocky head” should be banned from breeding or sale, and nobody who agrees with that statement cares about DNA. It is a matter of public safety and it doesn’t matter that humans are the real problem, because humans are notoriously hard to control. The pitbulls and similar breeds we have today deserve all the love and comfort we can give them now, but they shouldn’t be bred into the future because there is no legitimate reason to own one except for its potential for violence and flatulence-scapegoating.
The other user who responded to you, @evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world, does a good job of analyzing the core idea here. To quote Benjamin Disraeli, there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. Black people are no more “innately inclined towards criminality” than a pit-bull is innately inclined towards mauling people. Where people of color have been historically over policed, profiled by the criminal justice system, and generally set up to have a higher rate of criminal statistics than other ethnic groups, pit-bulls face similar statistical problems. Bite statistics are often self-reported by people who either witnessed a dog attack or who were themselves victims of one. Identifying a dog’s breed by sight, especially for mixed breed dogs, is nearly impossible, and more error prone than accurate. And for a pound, any “big dog with a blocky head” immediately gets labeled as a pit-bull, even if it has literally no pit-bull DNA. These dogs are routinely adopted by people who explicitly train a dog to be mean to people, as opposed to socializing them. The fact that they also have this reputation as guard dogs or attack dogs exacerbates their reputation.
I already suggested this in another comment, but you can easily apply a thought experiment here. Magically replace all white people with black people with the same upbringing: does crime go up, down, or basically stay the same? Magically replace all pitbulls with chihuahuas with the same upbringing: do maulings go up, down, or basically stay the same?
Couldn’t tell the cops if the mugger was white or black? Pretty understandable. Couldn’t tell the cops if the dog that bit you was a chihuahua or a pitbull? Really?
Any “big dog with a blocky head” should be banned from breeding or sale, and nobody who agrees with that statement cares about DNA. It is a matter of public safety and it doesn’t matter that humans are the real problem, because humans are notoriously hard to control. The pitbulls and similar breeds we have today deserve all the love and comfort we can give them now, but they shouldn’t be bred into the future because there is no legitimate reason to own one except for its potential for violence and flatulence-scapegoating.
Because those are the two dog breeds that exist. Pitbull and Chihuahua. There are no others.