Corky and I went to Jackson, Mississippi for a conference on blindness. We exited our hotel and two African-American men jumped aside as they saw us. Around a corner we went. We met a black woman who ran away. I commented on this to a blind man later that day. He was a white blind man. He said, “Oh yeah, black people don’t like dogs.” But I thought, “Black people don’t like dogs in the hands of white people, even blind white people.” I was sad all day. I felt the old distressed garments of American racism falling down like scarves.
The schismatic inheritances America offers are enough to make a grown man and his dog weep. How does a dog weep? She stops wagging her tail. It was not long before I noticed Corky wasn’t wagging in Jackson. Maybe she was picking up on my mood. Maybe. But a dog who loves people must also sense their fear and feel a compensatory sadness.
Wallace Stevens wrote: “The world is ugly and the people are sad.” He could have added dogs.
Planet of the Blind 