Animals Savages Beasts: Specimens And Observations Of An Unjust System

2025

The term "pig" to refer to police originated in England around the early 1800s. Back then it was used more generally to describe someone who was disliked, overweight, or greedy. In the 1960s, The Black Panther Party referred to police as pigs during speeches, and in their weekly newspapers, popularizing the term in the United States. Animals Savages Beasts: Specimens And Observations Of An Unjust System carries the torch by combining art and science in an observation of the racially and ethnically motivated extremists who infiltrate law enforcement in America.

U.S. law enforcement has long played a role in enforcing white supremacy. Police, heavily armed and trained for violence, disproportionately target marginalized communities, infringing on civil rights. In the early 1600s, plantation owners organized patrols to monitor, investigate, and intimidate enslaved laborers. Following the civil war, a mix of former slave catchers, confederate soldiers, and members of the KKK continued to patrol, harass, and terrorize Black and indigenous populations. This early method of policing as a means of oppression eventually became the law of the land. Laws were carefully rewritten to empower police to enforce the political and economic repression of non-white people.

These fundamental principles of U.S. settler law laid the foundation for systemic racism. The disproportionate impact of law enforcement on Black communities has been thoroughly examined and documented. The verdict is clear: law enforcement is systematically constructed to perpetuate white supremacy, and strict policies, departmental and legislative, are desperately needed to prohibit racially motivated extremists from gaining access to law enforcement.

Lack of accountability, abuse of power, and unfair treatment of Black, Indigenous, immigrant, queer, and disabled communities continue to contribute to the unlikability of police. Animals Savages Beasts: Specimens And Observations Of An Unjust System explores the connection and differences between animal and man, by humanizing an animal that is often used to dehumanize man.