In January, mi jefe, Javier, began one week with a post about his dogs, Chato and Chiquita. While I admit they are totes adorbs, the two of them don’t hold a candle to my dog-children, Agate and Rye Lee the one-eyed wonderpug.

Now that we’ve established whose dogs are, in fact, the cutest, Javier’s main point was that he’s noticed humans seem to be more open to a meet-and-greet with dogs than with other humans, that humans exhibit more kindness and openness to dogs than the humans walking them, and so on. Being an introvert—and, not to mention, a bit of a misanthrope to boot—I am definitely in this camp. (In fact, I find myself referring to some humans as “[insert dog’s name here]’s mommy/daddy/person.”) It’s not that I actively wish humans ill, it’s just that I prefer the company of plants and critters. I always have.

I remember reading, many years ago, articles criticizing a scene in Michael Moore’s 1989 documentary Roger and Me, in which a rabbit is clubbed, gutted and skinned by a woman who sold rabbits for food and pets. She was trying to bring in a little additional family income because her husband had been laid off by GM. Defending inclusion of the scene, Moore commented, 

″It’s a pivotal moment in the film because people don’t want to look …. They don’t want to look to see the brutality of what has happened, not to this rabbit, but to this town – that a woman is reduced to killing rabbits for food in the middle of the hometown of the world’s richest corporation.″ [referring to Flint, Michigan]

Despite the point Moore was attempting to make, I read several articles criticizing animal rights activists who were, indeed, far more horrified by the scene itself than his reason for including it. Condemn me if you will, but I’m one of those people.

Why? Mostly because animals are innocent. One hundred percent, all day, every day, they are innocent of prejudice, hatred, revenge, segregation, slavery–all the horrid things humans have done to each other since homo sapiens became a thing back in the day. Though there are multiple species that practice theft, territorial defense, parasitism, even indiscriminate killing (orcas on narwhals and murder hornets on honeybees come to mind), I’m quite sure they don’t do these things because of religion, politics or greed. They do it because of a biological imperative, whether we understand it or not. Humans do it because we can.

In the late 1990s I worked for The Dumb Friends League, one of the largest animal shelters in the Rocky Mountain region. During my time there, I learned that there had been pushback over the years from people who thought the name was offensive, because animals certainly aren’t “dumb.” Founded in 1910, the League was so named because back then, “dumb” was the common term for being unable to speak. The board of directors rejected all efforts to rename the organization, because the mission of the Dumb Friends League is to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves.

There are humans who can’t speak for themselves as well, and I deeply appreciate individuals and organizations dedicated to their support and well-being. The difference is that while I feel strongly the vast majority of humans deserve food, clothing, shelter and comfort, I know for certain that we’re the ones who created a system in which scarcity are all too common. We’ve also created a world in which corporate farming and meat production are necessary evils, as well as forcing wildlife from its native habitat to make room for human expansion.

I won’t apologize for who I am—but I can also be a person who tries to practice kindness, compassion and empathy to the best of my ability towards both humans and critters.