It's time to stop being ashamed

Last week, Seth Godin had this brilliant post that reminded me of a quote that I often refer back to.

In Godin's post, he notes about how things we're ashamed of change over time:

"Society changes when we change what we're embarrassed about. In just fifty years, we've made it shameful to be publicly racist. In just ten years, somene who professes to not know how to use the internet is seen as a fool. The question, then, is how long before we will be ashamed of being uninformed...."

Two years ago at the No Kill Conference in Washington Dc, Richard Avanzino made a quote that I think is inherantly true and ties very closely to this concept. In talking about the killing of 4 million shelter animals in our country every year, Avanzino noted:

"I think in 10 years we're going to look back at this time and be embarrassed that we ever allowed this to happen."

I couldn't agree more -- although I think his timing is off a little. I think it's happening right now -- in communities across the United States - people are stepping up and saying that they're embarrassed that their city shelter is unnecessarily killing healthy dogs and cats. They're ashamed that dogs are systematically killed because of what they look like, or that feral cats are rounded up and killed at their shelter (even though such a practice would never exist for other animals like squirrels).

It's time to stop being ashamed, and start fixing the problem. Step one is knowing that stopping the killing is possible.

It's great that society is changing how theyview their local animal shelters -- and that they are embarrassed and ashamed at what is happening. The next step is to act upon it and make it stop.

 

Comments

[Roberta Beach]

Oh, and avoid Fox News; a survey showed that watchers were less informed than those who watched no network news programs at all. Just a bit of trivia -
Killing is not trivial - and it is stopping.

[Elle]

Great post!