Is Loviefluffy An Oppressor?

A failed attempt to decolonize my apartment.

I woke up this morning, just before 5 am as is usual for school days, but today I got a special present! On my yoga mat was a dead mouse! A Mother’s Day gift, obviously, from the Panther Princess Predator, Her Majesty, Loviefluffy Candace Smith.

I was not all that surprised as I had heard her hunting cry in the night. She howls to wake the dead, or to kill the living, when in pursuit of a mouse. We live in an old Victorian cut into apartments in West Philly, and no matter how clean you keep the place, you’re going to get a mouse every few months. Still, I wonder how the local mouse community has not gotten the memo. THERE IS A DANGEROUS CAT THERE! DO NOT ENTER!

Apparently my local mice are repeat offenders and slow learners.

Of course I praised her Fluffy Majesty for her feat of hunting, thanked her for protecting the home front from vermin, and petted her at length. Then I removed the mouse from the house and put it outside for a burial at garbage.

It occurred to me that some of my old liberal friends, especially the vegan yoga teacher, would be horrified that my cat killed a mouse and left it on my yoga mat.

“So much for ahimsa!” he would screech, referring to the yogic ethical principle of non-harming. I really did love that yoga teacher - he was a fabulous teacher with a dominant streak that he would deny exists - but he went psycho vegan and is now a religion professor with a PhD and a bunch of keffiyehs.

Here is what he fails to understand: it is the cat’s nature to kill the mouse. This is a world with a food chain, with predator and prey. Most of the time, she is a cuddly throw pillow with ears. But once every few months, she becomes her natural self, and tortures a mouse to death. It’s who she is.

There are people who would insist on feeding tarantulas vegetarian pellets, when all know that tarantulas only eat live prey. There are those who feed cats vegan cat food even though cats are natural carnivores who have serious health problems if they don’t eat meat products.

There are plenty of people who insist that the world is not the way it is, and that we should contort ourselves into pretzels to make it other than it is.

There are those who see things entirely through the lens of oppressor and oppressed, all determined by color.

On this Loviefluffy would win because she is black! She’s black so she must be the oppressed, not the oppressor! I’m sure if she scratches me, a white woman, it is my fault (actually we have a comfortable arrangement regarding scratching, all are at peace with it.)

She was born on these blocks. A true West Philly black girl. Her street cred is impeccable.

I imagine a few who figure out that she is a conservative cat might want to dig deep to find out if her skin is white beneath that black fur. Those people are likely to lose a hand or an arm or an eye if they try to dig into my cat, and they would deserve it.

Some wacko vegan progressive out there probably thinks that we should let the mice overrun our modest home because they are lower down on the food chain than either Loviefluffy or I, so they must be given the land, even if they make the rest of us miserable, leave trash everywhere and eat all the Splenda (newer readers may have missed the time the mice ate approximately 1000 packets of Splenda in my kitchen cabinet. Tastes just like sugar, they say!)

Loviefluffy and I have a lot of shared values. Calm, quiet, routine, early to bed and early to rise. Listening the birds sing in the morning, cuddling at night. Getting rid of those who invade our home.

Is Loviefluffy the oppressor? Only in a worldview that denies the natural order of things.

If you think that way, I suggest you not visit. She would likely bite you.