I would argue, she says, that to frame the animalization of Black women as an inherently subjugating process cedes territory to the white colonialist assumption that humankind is separate from and above the rest of animal kind, justifying human dominion over it. How powerful it would be for us to be called animals and say, Yes, yes, of course. And what does that make you? Not animal? Not flesh? Not alive? Dead? Whiteness is deadness.
