Sweet dog or Nazi terrorist?

I just got done taking my dog, Argos, for a walk. You can see him there on the right, and for those of you who haven't seen him in person, he's a big ol' 90 lb. Shepherd/Rottweiler mix. I take him for a walk pretty much every night, and on the weekends, I walk him down to the park where I play fetch with him. I frequently get compliments on him, with twice having people pull over in their cars to tell me what a good looking dog he is. He's also quite friendly with people, and he acts calm and sweet when little children come up to him. (In all honesty, he used to bark at children, but he hasn't done that in several years now, and he's now entirely at ease with them.)

When I was walking him just now, I came across a guy whose reaction was to quickly move out of the way and go, "Whoa!" You know, as though Argos was going to tear off a limb or two. Now, there wasn't anything that my dog was doing that would give a person cause to be afraid, but I've seen this kind of thing before. Not only that, but there was a common denominator.

What's the common denominator? They were all African Americans. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of black people who have made friends with him, and he's smooched a Nubian face or two. However, I've never seen a white person act this way. I've never seen anybody but African Americans do this. There must be a reason, and I don't think that it takes much to figure out what the reason is. Obviously, whether they've been taught this from their parents, or they have experienced it firsthand, they are wary of white people with big dogs, as there are white people out there who have trained their dogs to go after black people.

Pretty damned sad, and it shows that we still have a ways to go in this country, doesn't it?

I sometimes hear white people talk about trivial things like how it's unfair that blacks get a Black Entertainment Television, but there's no white equivalent. Well, my first question to them is, "What's the matter? Feeling like you're not being represented as a white person in this country?"

Now I'm going to tell them that we get our own network when so many African Americans don't feel as though they should be scared of my dog.