More than fur and feelings

How We Even Got Here

If you had told me that one day I’d be connecting a sci-fi movie about aliens to my wife’s therapy stories and a man’s beef with two dogs, I would’ve assumed I was in the middle of a very weird dream—or a podcast I wasn’t emotionally ready for.

But here we are…

My wife is a therapist, and sometimes she comes home with stories (all ethically vague, of course) that just stop me in my tracks. This time, it was about a couple on the brink. Not because of money. Not because of cheating. Because the woman kept bringing her dogs to bed—and the man, a Black man, kept saying he was uncomfortable. I immediately thought of the film Arrival—yes, the one where the aliens speak in smoky, circular ink-blot language that humans can’t understand. But once decoded, the words weren’t what they seemed. “Weapon,” for example, actually meant “tool.” Their language was layered. Emotional. Timeless.

And that’s when it hit me: we all speak in circles. In codes. In histories. In things we’re saying that don’t sound like what we mean.

Especially when it comes to culture.

It Was Never About the Dogs

Let’s be honest—Black folks have a thing about white people and their pets. It’s not just a quirk; it’s a code. If they let dogs sleep in their bed, then the dogs probably hop on the kitchen counters, lick the dishes “clean,” and—by cultural calculus—they probably don’t wash their bodies, don’t wash their legs, don’t wash their clothes, and definitely don’t clean their house. One detail turns into a whole hygiene cosmology.

That sentence—“She lets the dogs sleep in the bed”—isn’t small talk. It’s a cipher. Anyone fluent in the code can read the entire backstory. It’s not about the dogs. It’s about what that behavior symbolizes in a particular cultural language. And every community has its own version of this logic:

• A Jewish college student tells someone they’re majoring in finance, and suddenly, there’s a whole imagined lineage of real estate empires and hedge fund inheritance behind their name.
• A trans person walks into a room, and before they even speak, someone assumes they’re promiscuous—or worse, grooming someone’s children.
• A middle-aged white man with a bald head and a lifted Ford F-150 gets clocked as alt-right before he’s said a single word. Neo-Nazi, conspiracy theorist, Trump-all-the-way—just add camo.

These are our modern Heptapod sentences. One phrase. One image. And suddenly, an entire identity is decoded—accurately or not—based on cultural proximity, trauma, satire, or fear. So no, it was never about the dogs. It was about the hidden sentences we keep writing for each other.

Sentences that aren’t spoken, but felt.

Sentences that divide us long before we ever have the chance to understand each other.

When the Codes Don’t Translate

The real danger isn’t just that we carry these unspoken codes — it’s what happens when we expect someone from outside the culture to read them fluently.

In relationships, especially the ones that stretch across race, religion, class, gender identity, or background, it’s easy to assume love is enough. That connection will override confusion. But love doesn’t automatically make you bilingual in someone else’s emotional language. If anything, it can make the misunderstandings feel worse — because when the codes don’t translate, it doesn’t just feel like a misread. It feels like being unseen.

That’s what happened with the man and the dogs.

He wasn’t asking for a debate. He was stating something sacred: “This makes me uncomfortable.” Not just because of personal preference — but because of what it means to him. What it says about cleanliness, respect, space, culture, history.

But if that sentence gets heard through another cultural filter — one that says, “It’s just dogs, calm down,” — then the meaning is erased. And over time, that erasure becomes the story.

This is how people leave while still in the room.

This is how resentment becomes the common language.

Not because someone couldn’t love — but because someone didn’t translate.

The Codes We Created to Survive

This isn’t just about relationships. It’s about survival. And survival has always required strategy—especially for those on the margins.

From slavery to immigration, from Jim Crow to gender inequality, society has spoken in hierarchies. Whole systems were designed not just to oppress, but to confuse: laws passed in plain sight with double meanings, policies dressed in neutral language, public speeches wrapped in dog whistles. And so, in response, the marginalized learned to speak back — not always with protest, but with code. With rhythm. With knowing glances. With inside jokes that weren’t really jokes at all.

We created languages within languages.

To keep ourselves safe.

To keep what was sacred ours.

To talk about you in front of you and still go unbothered. Black culture did it. Immigrant families did it. Women did it. Catholics. Queer people. Deaf communities. Disabled folks. Trans communities. Anyone who’s ever been watched has also learned how to hide in plain sight. And often, that hiding looked like language.

But here’s the challenge — and it’s a hard one to admit: Sometimes, the very codes we created to protect what’s precious to us become the same tools that isolate us from others. Or worse — from ourselves. Because when everything carries hidden meaning, we start distrusting the obvious.

When every gesture is decoded, we stop listening for sincerity.

And when we only speak fluently to people who look, act, or suffer like us — we risk mistaking protection for purity.

So yes, the man with the dogs wasn’t just reacting to fur in a bed.

He was reacting to an entire language he didn’t trust — one that he had learned to translate long ago.

But let’s not pretend we don’t do it too.

Our cultural fluency runs both ways. Our code-switching is both power and defense.

And sometimes, it’s a wall.

Protect the Language, But Learn to Translate

So where does that leave us? We’re all speaking in codes now. Some inherited. Some invented. Some built from trauma. Others from pride. And while every culture deserves to protect its sacred dialects, we can’t ignore what happens when we become so fluent in our own language that we stop believing anyone else is worthy to learn it.

But here’s the truth I don’t say out loud too often:

As a Black man in America, I don’t know if I want to share it.

Not all of it. Not with everyone. Because so much has already been taken. Our music, our slang, our style, our bodies, our grief. So when I say I’m protecting culture, what I might really mean is: I’m tired of watching people borrow what they don’t bleed for. But here’s the other truth — the one I wrestle with when it’s quiet:

Sometimes, my fear of losing culture is actually a fear of being fully seen. Of being raw and real and possibly offensive — and not knowing if I’ll be held or punished. Because it’s easier to call something sacred than to admit it’s shielding me from accountability. And that’s the elephant in the room.

So no, I’m not asking everyone to understand every cultural sentence we speak. But I am asking this: if you’re in the room — if you’re in the relationship, in the classroom, in the community — don’t mistake the silence for simplicity. There’s language everywhere.

And if we’re brave enough,

we’ll protect what’s sacred…

and still make room for our codes to be translated to others with care and empathy.