Archive for year 2009

people are understandably angry and offended by a recent PETA billboard in jacksonville, florida that compared overweight women to whales and demanded that they ”lose the blubber” by going vegetarian. the billboard has since been removed (albeit replaced with a snarky, equally fat-shaming one that leads me to believe that PETA’s staff feels they’ve done nothing wrong and won’t have me waiting by the phone for an apology) but the hurt remains — and the ridiculousness continues. PETA president ingrid newkirk sounded off to the huffington post, essentially rolling her eyes at all the “prudes” and “reactionaries” who rightfully pointed out that this billboard is hateful and hurtful and has no place in animal activism.

newkirk’s article is a gem. she makes comments such as, “the majority of fat people need to have some discipline” and “being fat means being a bad role model to our children.” i wish i was making this up, but i’m not sure i could even come up with something so cruel. i’ve blogged before about how i find it so important to respect the identities and backgrounds of our fellow activists and indeed our fellow humans, and it’s so interesting to me that newkirk continues to defend this campaign despite how incredibly problematic it is. it appears that she — an incredibly privileged, able-bodied, thin, white, heterosexual woman — is unable to acknowledge and respect the lives of people who don’t fall into those privileged categories. that people still call her an ally to animals is problematic. that she is [still] considered a “leader” of the animal rights movement is unfortunate. that she can sleep at night after having made statements like the ones she made to the huffpo is unforgivable.

ida at the vegan ideal has a really thorough analysis of this whole fiasco, but my favorite part is this:

Usually, no matter how oppressive PETA’s campaigns get, nearly everyone I talk to who still supports PETA will at some point always recite a version of the phrase: “But PETA does some good.” This is the “get out of jail free” card most commonly used by PETA supporters to dismiss harsh criticism and seek concurrence and unanimity. But the reality is there is no amount of ostensible “good” that can justify perpetuating oppression.

veganism is a stand against exploitation, oppression, and subjugation of living beings, including humans. we can’t liberate one group at the expense of another. we can’t throw people under the bus to abstractly “save animals.” there are so many compelling reasons to adopt a vegan diet and live a vegan life that don’t involve degrading other people for the way they look or whom they love or what they believe or where they live. as my friend andrea wrote, “[Go vegan] to improve your health and the planet’s. Do it to improve and save animals’ lives. Don’t do it because PETA bullied you into it.”

i recently devoured the book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, and it started me thinking about the use of prisons in the united states and the effectiveness of incarceration in deterring crime. it would seem that other folks have cages on their mind as well: royce at vegans of color put up a post about incarcerating people of color for animal cruelty, and there was recently some lengthy debate about the inclusion of hate crime laws in different ENDA [employment non-discrimination act] legislation floating around the country. both discuss the abuse of the current (in)justice system — putting people of color and trans people, respectively, behind bars in greater numbers than white and cisgender people — and the failure of the threat of prison to prevent crime.

as vegans advocating for the end of the imprisonment of non-human animals, i can’t fathom how we can simultaneously support a system that puts human animals in cages — especially those humans who are systematically marginalized, silenced, and oppressed. the SRLP, referenced above, also expresses some concern that the inherent power and hierarchy in the criminal justice system will never allow for a level playing field, and those laws put in place to protect marginalized groups through the use of incarceration (i.e. hate crime legislation) may end up putting more of us behind bars. if the laws are going to be enforced unequally based on race, class, gender, etc. then i, as a vegan, cannot support them.

a few things turned my stomach about the article referenced in the vegans of color post above. in addition to the reporter completely dehumanizing cheyenne cherry, the young, black woman who killed a cat by putting her in the oven (royce rightly notes that billions of people do this very thing every day to a chicken, and yet none of them will find themselves arraigned and sentenced to a year in jail), discussion of a demonstration outside of the courthouse includes quotes from participants calling cherry “ugly” and “a monster.” (and don’t even bother reading the comments below the article from readers; some of the vitriol there is more than i can handle.) i wonder how many of those demonstrators wore animals to the courthouse, went home to consume animals, or purchase products that were tested on (and resulted in the murder of) animals? breeze also notes, in the comments, that mike huckabee’s (white, male) son allegedly hanged a dog in 1998 but was never prosecuted, either due to his race, his father’s influence, bias/reluctance by the local enforcement, or all of the above.

i remember when the michael vick dog-fighting case occurred, gary francione seemed to be the lone voice attempting to humanize vick and bring some perspective to the crime. other individuals and media outlets were quick to brutalize, pathologize, and otherwise create a monster out of michael vick, as if the idea of animal abuse was completely unfathomable and absent from the rest of the world. of course, i find dog-fighting, murdering cats, abuse or violence against any animal or human completely atrocious, but i’m not sure that throwing michael vick or cheyenne cherry in jail is going to prevent any future violence against animals. in fact, it is committing an act of violence against human animals. the united states incarcerates more of its population than any other country (one in 100 adults are in jail in the united states, as of 2008); crime rates, however, are rising. statistics go on to further suggest that 45 percent of people once incarcerated will commit crimes upon their release.

incarceration is not working to prevent future crimes from being committed, and it is oppressing people of color, women, and/or gender non-conforming individuals. so what is the answer? it seems like education, drug rehabilitation, counseling, and striking at the societal roots of racism/sexism/classism/heterosexism/speciesism would go a lot further in preventing crime than putting people in cages (where further violence is perpetuated through abuse by inmates, guards, and the system itself). after all, aren’t we as vegans working toward the elimination of those cages, regardless of who is contained within their walls?

i recently participated in a discussion about the unlikely partnerships between animal advocacy corporations and individuals, groups, or corporations who do not focus on animal advocacy work but have chosen to support a particular animal-related issue through press releases, advertisements, or products.

many of these partnerships have been in the news as of late, and each one has certainly given me pause. we have the humane society of the united states pairing up with rush limbaugh to increase awareness about animal cruelty; never mind that in the same breath, limbaugh might be telling women to “put some ice on it” and get over it following a beating by their husbands or partners. we have PETA commending KFC — and referring to their products as “favorites”! — for its inclusion of one vegetarian option in one country in which it does business and the use of a different killing method for the chickens it slaughters. the author of this PETA blog conveniently neglects to mention that KFC is a company founded on the torture, murder, and sale of animals to humans.

advocates of these sorts of arrangement stress that it’s vitally important to get the anti-cruelty message into the ears of as many people as possible. one employee of a large animal welfare corporation told me that the animals can’t be bothered with our high standards for who speaks out for them. we should be grateful for any show support of animal protection we can get — even if it’s from people who otherwise oppress animals or humans.

but what about the potential for losing other voices who are completely horrified, offended, or triggered by the work that these fair weather animal allies are doing when not pairing up with HSUS, PETA, etc? if a handful of republican supporters are persuaded by rush limbaugh’s anti-cruelty message, what if another handful of domestic abuse survivors, and/or LGBT individuals, and/or women are completely turned off by the pro-animal organization’s alliance with an anti-human advocate?

how often have we heard that hitler was a vegetarian? in my experience, most vegans and vegetarians immediately attempt to distance themselves from that association (or even disprove the notion altogether, which, according to the internet, is not true); i’d venture to guess that few of us would reply with, “well, we don’t really consider the other things that hitler stood for, we’re just thrilled to have one more vegetarian among the herd.” a person’s whole body of work — especially when they are being touted as a spokesperson for a particular cause or message — has to be taken into consideration.

falling far short of the vegan ideal, in my opinion those partnerships actually hurt animals and animal advocates. when it is posited that animal abuse is actually more important than the abuse of humans or the denial of human rights — when those issues aren’t even considered when forming these awkward alliances — we are doing ourselves and the animals a great disservice. yes, i prefer that we conduct a litmus test on ourselves and the world around us, and i choose to push toward a vegan world — one in which no one is oppressed.

oh. and for a great post on why i might reconsider my use of the term “ally” from now on, check this blog out.

i am sorry for the blog-writing hiatus as of late; sometimes life takes us away from our computer screens, and as much as i hate to neglect the LOVE we’ve built here, i had to wait for the storm to settle a bit before i could cobble my thoughts together into something resembling a post.

thankfully, it hasn’t all been chaos and upheaval over here. some of my absence has been because of some great social justice events and conferences that have been happening in my neck of the woods. each time i attend one of these events, however, i am momentarily stunned by the fact that they are serving meat and dairy products. it would seem that the organizers of an event to benefit a feminist organization or to raise money to support LGBT youth mentoring programs would have an obvious interest in not piling the bodies of other oppressed beings onto the plates of the attendees, but time and time again i find that this is not the case.

it’s obviously important to convey our thoughts on these issues to the people and organizations putting together these events, but i often hit a brick wall in my attempts. in my experience, event organizers are so harried with the thousands of details that go into planning an event or conference that this “seemingly minor” concern from one or two people doesn’t warrant a solution. it can be really challenging — especially if you’re not a visible member of the community you’re approaching — to express the relationship between human and animal oppression and the importance of not participating in any of it in an e-mail that’s short enough to be guaranteed to be read.

i think that’s why i have had so much trouble with letter-writing campaigns or leafleting at churches/conferences/pride parades in the past. i find it incredibly uncomfortable to approach a group of which i am not a visible member or an active participant and purport to tell them how to run their events or lives. steven has talked about the use of the word “should” and how that can (intentionally or unintentionally) flaunt unchecked privilege — and i am struggling to find a balance between speaking up for the animals who are murdered by the billions and respecting the individual experiences and rights of the people to whom i’m speaking.

so do i have any suggestions or solutions? the one that stands out to me is to ensure that we’re standing in solidarity with everyone working on behalf of oppressed groups. there’s no point in hosting the oppression olympics — anyone facing any oppression on any scale deserves to have her voice heard and deserves to have that persecution ended. (at an LGBT event last night, a speaker talking about the importance of LGBT education said that she wished her daughter could learn about gay leaders and the gay rights movement the same way that students learn about black leaders and the civil rights movement “during black history month, in february, or whichever month that is.” really? you’re expressing the importance of gay history while being completely flippant about the struggles of black people to have their history recognized in the same way?)

this doesn’t mean that we have to attend every protest or participate in every legislative call-in session that comes down the pike, but yes, we can be aware and considerate of all of the struggles that are happening simultaneously with the one(s) we call “our own.” get informed! get educated about the history of oppression and how people’s lives are being affected by oppression today. go to the library, take a course at your community college, attend lectures and community events hosted by social justice groups that maybe you’ve never interacted with before. there are myriad commonalities between the different groups working to end oppression. i would love to see us pool our resources and use our energy to work together. all struggles are one struggle, my friends. what is your role in the fight?

The vegan ideal of non-exploitation is very simple: respect and honor all; and yet it can be difficult for many of us to understand what this means if our usual experiences of relationships are not centered around this ideal. For me, living the vegan ideal means cultivating relationships based on respect, friendliness, trust, honesty, and kindness. Spreading veganism is a process that occurs gradually, person by person, person to person. This is why we very much value community based activism.

Community based activism is activism by community members in the communities we are part of. It’s a way of working to build a community that shares our value of respect for all. We may be involved in multiple communities, small and large, during the course of a single day: our neighborhood, the people we ride the train with, our religious center, the neighborhood grocery across the street, our work place.

Being part of a community means we have repeated interactions with the same people and this means there is time for conversations about veganism. While the vegan ideal is simple, the reorienting it asks of many of us takes time. Through our steady presence in the community, people know they can come to us when they have questions about veganism and people know they can trust us to speak with them with kindness, respect and truthfulness. The great value of community based activism is that we can be available. We can be available to answer questions people have about the whys and hows of veganism, we can be available to provide support during the transition period, and we can be available as part of a growing community dedicated to living veganism.

More than any other groups or individuals, we as community members have the greatest stake in and commitment to transforming our communities. We can be sure we have our communities’ best interests at heart. Because we understand our communities better than anybody else, we know which issues make sense to work on in our community. Because each community is different, there is no one size fits all type or area of activism. And because we are in our communities every day, we can experiment and learn what works and what doesn’t work for our particular communities. In this way, we can be the most effective we can be in building a community of respect.