A couple years back, one of the big cats at the local zoo escaped his enclosure. High on freedom, he roamed the other habitats and killed eight other animals, none of which he even partially consumed. Wildlife experts were interviewed to explain that this “surplus killing” was the result of his instincts interacting with the unnatural, constructed environment. He was overstimulated, he saw movement, he attacked. “It was completely natural behavior that is in no way reflective of a bad cat.”

Not long after, my dad and I happened to be watching the local news together. The anchor reported yet another murder in a high-crime neighborhood. Disgusted, Dad changed the channel. “The way they talk about these people. It’s like they’re talking about that big cat loose in the zoo.”

It stuck with me. I’m sympathetic to the life circumstances that make poverty or crime all but inevitable for people less fortunate than me. I want to understand these dynamics so we can fix them.

But yeah, sometimes when I’m talking to progressive friends, they use almost the exact same language about people from unfortunate backgrounds who do horrible things as the wildlife experts used about the wild animal loose in the zoo.

  • /u/raggedy_anthem