AMERICA — The black cats of the United States have had enough.

In a statement released to Supposedly News on Friday morning — Friday the 13th, specifically, a date that the black cat community describes as their “annual PR crisis” — representatives of the nation’s estimated 14.8 million black domestic cats are pushing back against a superstition they say has followed their demographic for centuries through no fault of their own and no causal mechanism that anyone has ever been able to document.

“We have been walking in front of people since before this country existed,” said a spokesperson, who asked to be identified as Marzipan and who spent most of the interview sitting on a printer. “The war did not start because of us. The Strait of Hormuz situation — not us. The S&P 500 was overvalued before we crossed a single intersection. We would like the record corrected.”

Marzipan paused, knocked a pen off the desk, and stared at Brent Eyewitness without blinking.

“The pen was not an omen,” Marzipan added. “That was recreational.”

The History Of The Accusation

The black cat has been considered an omen of bad luck in Western European and American tradition since approximately the Middle Ages, when cats of all colorations were associated with witchcraft and black cats specifically with dark forces. This association predates the Federal Reserve, the Strait of Hormuz, the concept of classified military briefings, and the country of Iran as it currently exists, which means the black cat has been absorbing blame for circumstances that had not yet occurred for most of documented history, which is an impressive record of advance scapegoating.

In contrast, black cats are considered good luck in British folklore, Japanese tradition, and Scottish legend — where a strange black cat arriving at your home signifies prosperity. The black cat is therefore simultaneously good luck and bad luck depending on your geographic location, which makes it the only superstition that is directly contradicted by itself and which has survived this contradiction for seven hundred years without resolution, which is, Brent Eyewitness notes, a longer run than most peace negotiations.

“In Japan, we are beloved,” said Marzipan. “In Japan, I would be a good sign. Here, I walked in front of someone on the way to the CVS and now the Peeps thing is somehow my fault. It is not my fault. I do not eat Peeps. They are marshmallow.”

The Black Cat Community’s Demands

The statement, which runs to four pages and was drafted by an organization calling itself the Coalition for Feline Reputation Restoration, outlines the following demands:

1. A formal separation of correlation and causation in superstition discourse. “Every Friday the 13th, something bad happens somewhere in the world,” the statement reads. “This is also true of every other day. The black cat is not why. We were not consulted on Operation Epic Fury. We do not hold positions at the Federal Reserve. We have no opinion on the Mandelson files except that 147 pages is a lot and we would have knocked them off the desk before the second tranche.”

2. Equal treatment with ladders and mirrors. The statement notes that ladders and mirrors receive comparatively sympathetic treatment in the superstition community — ladders because there is a practical reason not to walk under them, mirrors because broken glass is a genuine hazard. “The ladder has a plausible causal mechanism,” the statement reads. “The mirror has genuine physical danger. We are cats. We are soft. We are sometimes warm. The comparison is unflattering and we request it stop.”

3. Credit for good luck when credit is due. The Coalition points out that when things go well on days a black cat was present, no one attributes the positive outcome to the cat. “Justin Gaethje is going to Quantico this weekend to train FBI agents,” the statement notes, apparently having read the news. “A black cat crossed the street outside the UFC offices last Tuesday. We are not claiming credit. But we’re noting the asymmetry. Good outcomes: the cat gets nothing. Bad outcomes: the cat gets the headline. This is not a peer-reviewed methodology.”

The Counter-Argument, Represented Fairly

Brent Eyewitness, in the interest of journalistic balance, reached out to people who have personally experienced bad luck following a black cat crossing their path to get their response to the Coalition’s statement.

Terry Paulson of Marietta, Georgia, said: “I definitely saw a black cat right before I lost my job in 2019. Right before. Like, same morning.”

Brent Eyewitness asked whether anything else was happening at his job in 2019 that might have contributed.

“I mean, yeah,” Terry said. “The whole company was restructuring. But also the cat.”

Brent Eyewitness presented this exchange to Marzipan.

Marzipan blinked once, turned around, and sat facing the wall. This is either a sign of contempt or a sign that something interesting was happening on the wall. Brent cannot be certain which. It is Friday the 13th. He is not ruling anything out.

What The Black Cats Are Doing Today

Despite the holiday, the black cats of America are going about their regular Friday activities. These include: sleeping in locations slightly too small for them, knocking objects off surfaces for reasons that have been studied and remain only partially understood, sitting in front of computer screens during video calls, appearing suddenly in doorways at 3 a.m., refusing to be picked up and then demanding to be held within forty seconds of refusing, and walking in front of people on their way places.

The walking in front of people, Marzipan emphasized in closing, is not malicious. It is directional. The cat is going somewhere. The person is also going somewhere. The paths intersected. This is not an omen. This is geometry.

“We were here before the superstition,” the statement concludes. “We will be here after it. We do not require your permission and we do not accept your blame. We accept treats, at reasonable intervals, from people who understand that we are not responsible for macroeconomic conditions.”

Brent Eyewitness asked Marzipan for a final comment on the current state of affairs — the war, the economy, the tranches, the glitch.

Marzipan sat down directly on Brent’s notes, closed both eyes, and began to purr.

Brent is choosing to interpret this as reassuring. It is Friday the 13th. He is making the choices available to him.

Brent Eyewitness conducted this interview on Friday the 13th and confirms that a black cat was present during the entire conversation and that nothing bad has happened yet. Yet. He knocked on wood after typing that sentence. The wood was the desk. The desk held. Marzipan remains on the notes. Confidence: 47%, which is the exact percentage of the interview notes still visible beneath Marzipan. Gerald the houseplant and Marzipan have not met. Brent considers this a situation that should not change.