A Furry Love Story - Politics of Creation
#2 of Scraps
It all started when I was born. For some reason a group of scientists at the University of Minnesota felt compelled to create a new species. I don't blame them. It must be tough being the only creature on Earth with such intelligence, such passion, such creativity as the human race. It must feel lonely at the top.
I remember them telling me what inspired my creation. A worker brought his dog to work with a Douglas IV collar. This dog, unlike most other dogs who simply ask to be fed and let out, kept wondering about people. He kept asking about what it was like to have thumbs, to walk on two legs, to write, and to read. He thought it was cool. As much as they tried teaching him, he still couldn't understand because he wasn't like them. He wasn't human.
As time went by, scientists started experimenting with creation. They knew that if they could create another sapient being all by themselves and without using other organisms, their contribution would generate a lot of attention, despite the fact that it was legal at the time. Indeed, many were predicting it would happen anyway. Using algorithms, computer code, and makeshift DNA, they made an intelligent life form with the appearance of a dog. There was no room for error, since any small mistake could have been catastrophic, and after years of careful planning they were able to make me on their first try. They then started doing it over and over again.
As you can probably imagine, I have no biological parents, and I could hardly call the scientists I grew up with my "family." Though they fed me, taught me, and trained me to be who I am, they were not very compassionate people. All they wanted were results and data. Was I self-aware? Was I intelligent enough? How fast could I learn? What was my IQ? Could I perform certain tasks? What was my state of health? What was my use?
The more curious I got, the more worried they became. I was all cooped up in a laboratory, and I became curious about computers and how things worked. I learned a lot about the human race through computers, even more than some of the scientists. However, they emphasized greatly that I was not to have any accounts and chat with other people. "You're not old enough yet," they said to me. So instead I made makeshift "ghost" accounts, talking to people by pretending to be a person.
Eventually people figured out about the experiment. It caused a political uproar. People on the right side of the spectrum were starting to panic about a potential new race, and the hate machine added fuel to the flames.
They gave me white fur. They also gave me a blue star on my right eye. They told me it was so that I could blend in with the snow. They lied. I later found a document online. They were hoping the white fur would somewhat water down racial tensions. Believe me when I sat that it didn't help with anything. Though my fur was white, my skin was black and gray. You just can't keep something like that a secret anymore. Even with that factored in, people were much more willing to judge me by my species than by my race, so much so that it caused a political uproar.
America used to be a two-party system of Republicans and Democrats, but that long-standing tradition started falling apart with the Obama administration. I think he was a great president, perhaps one of the greatest in our nation's history, but that did not stop people from protesting based on lies that they wanted to believe were the truth.
After I was born, the National Coalition parties (consisting of Republican, Populist, and Conservative parties) ran on a platform of banning experiments like me. They used all their energy to revive the same fears that were prevalent in what were thought to be long-dead groups like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, the National Organization for Marriage and the Tea Party Patriots. This put the Progressive Coalition parties' (consisting of the Democrats, Socialists, and Greens) majority at risk. Sympathetic Libertarians, who were part of neither coalition, were also in trouble. The two districts in Missouri that had voted for "Empty Seat" were now in play.
Once again, the Progressives were not able to muster an effective counterattack. After that campaign, the National Coalition gained their first majority in more than a decade. Though they vehemently deny it, race obviously had everything to do with it. They try to bullshit their way out of it by telling us that they're only concerned about their freedom, or that the races they don't like are criminals and terrorists. I learned all about their defense strategies. However, despite their best efforts, we look at these reactionary groups with greater disdain with each passing generation. When will we ever learn?