By Rizwati Freeman
The little one was in a floral dress on a warm spring evening, led on a leash and reaching for the dollar bills thrust into her face. People gathered around her on Third Street Promenade, oohing and ahhing, giggling and laughing and snapping pictures with their cell phones. They applauded in delight and the little one’s ‘guardian’ looked hungrily at the dollar bills. Because the little one was a monkey, somehow her small audience seemed to think this freak show was appropriate, presumably because she is ‘an animal’ (unlike them, of course) and because they are above her, great and noble human beings, while she is a thing, inferior, beneath them, serving to fulfill their whims and appetites As I gazed upon this barbaric show, I couldn’t quite figure out what was more disturbing, the sight of the monkey on a leash, held by her “owner,” used as a trained slave, or the reactions of the people — ecstasy rather than outrage, amusement rather than distress.
I wondered how they would like it if they were forced to stand there with a leash around their neck, grabbing dollar bills, or how they’d like it if their little daughter or son solicited funds for them by doing little tricks for a public crowd. And I wondered, as well, how it could be legal to openly exploit and abuse animals in a city which professes to be among the most progressive in the land, with enviable social services, the first “green” library and a sustainable public transportation system. That sight was a sad reminder of just how far we have yet to go, of how a culture of dominance, oppression and violence reigns and how so many collude, themselves becoming the man holding the leash.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 19, 2008. Read the original PDF.