Equality Between Humans And Animals
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The question is not whether humans and animals are equal, the questions are:
Should either suffer? and What can you do to stop their suffering?
“Whether or not Renee or anyone else eats dead animals isn’t the point,” wrote chava in response. But whether or not Renee or anyone else eats dead animals is exactly the point. Renee wrote:
“We can all agree that animals deserve to be treated with respect and love. They are vulnerable and we are the top of the food chain. Very few people would openly say that they approve of cruel slaughter methods or housing them in terrible conditions. The more that we can improve conditions that animals live in the better, however; until we can get to a point where there is equality amongst the human race, demanding such equality between humans and animals is going to be an issue.”
Based on the last sentence, her WHOLE point is that until or unless she can be convinced that humans are equal to nonhuman animals, she will continue to eat them. EAT THEM. To her, animals don’t deserve life unless she regards them as equals. To her, animals don’t deserve freedom from suffering unless she regards them as complete and utter equals.
I honestly don’t know what to say. It’s so absolutely absurd.
The right to not be eaten by humans who have a choice in the matter and whose health would improve by going vegan and whose ecological footprint would exponentially decrease does NOT require equality. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
The belief that humans and animals are equal is not necessary for the belief that ethical veganism is superior to omnivorism. [...] The simple belief that non-human animals are entitled to exist without externally imposed unnecessary suffering is sufficient for ethical veganism.
Because…
- current animal agricultural methods are cruel
- eating animals is bad for human health
- eating animals is bad for the environment
- most animal suffering and death occurs as a result of meat, dairy, and egg production
…veganism is your moral obligation.
If you’re unable to get there just yet and be vegan tomorrow, that’s OK. Keep trying. But STOP with the excuses already. If you claim to care about animals, stop eating them.
Yes I will continue to eat animals and I don’t see it as problematic behavior. Let’s not pretend that animals don’t get eaten by other animals. Also you missed the point of the post entirely to push your vegan message.
I think it’s hilarious when people come here and whine that the website is exactly what it claims to be: a vegan soapbox.
Renee, the title of your post was “Are Animals And Humans The Same?” The title was NOT, “Stop Using White Privilege To Support Animal Rights.”
You can claim that your article was purely about white privilege and racism within the AR community, but that’s not really where you stand. VOC and Sistah Vegan stand there, NOT YOU.
Where you stand is 100% anti-vegan and anti-animal. You use racism within the AR community to discount the validity of veganism.
I love how Renee completely ignored your entire post and then commented with such blatant ignorance.
Renee, when SOME animals eat other animals, they are playing into an ecosystem. Ecosystems are kept in balance by multiple things including carnivores (which have to eat meat UNLIKE humans) eating prey, the prey eating his/her prey or plants, and the plants being kept in check or kept stable by this.
HUMANS, on the other hand, domesticate, alter ecosystems, screw them up completely, pollute, waste resources, cause extinction, climate change, and on top of all of it, are cruel with their farming practices. So, your comparison of “animals eat other animals” does not fit.
Also, Renee. Why is it that you are allowed to compare humans to other animals when it is convenient for you, yet anyone else comparing humans to other animals is a racist (regardless of the skin color of the human they are comparing the other animal to)? You just used other animals as a reference for human behavior. Are you now a racist?
Let’s also not go into the fact that sometimes some other animals rape and cannibalize each other… I wonder if that would be an excuse for the same behavior.
PS, excellent entry, EV.
Does anyone else think see the irony in Renee complaining about animal rights activists comparing humans to non-human animals and then she compares animals to humans by saying it okay to eat meat because some animals eat meat?
Interestingly, I seem to have been blocked from commenting on the Femenisting post. Feel free to check for yourself, but I believe I was blocked for simply disagreeing with the blog author and not for being rude or hostile. In fact, the only hostility seemed to be directed at me.
If anyone is interested, my final blocked comment was:
Some more food for thought. Last comment for the day. I promise.
Coretta Scott King, wife or Martin Luther King Jr., was vegan and was in favor of animal rights. Coretta and Martin Luther King’s son Dexter, considers veganism the “logical extension” of his father’s philosophy of nonviolence.
Alice Walker, an African American woman and famous social justice leader, said “The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They are not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women for men.”
Dick Gregory, an African American man and civil rights leader, said “In like manner, if the wealthy aristocrats who are perpetrating conditions in the ghetto actually heard the screams of ghetto suffering, or saw the slow death of hungry little kids, or witnessed the strangulation of manhood and dignity, they could not continue the killing. But the wealthy are protected from such horror…If you can justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the ghetto. I cannot justify either one.” He also said “Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel, and brutal taking of life.”
Cesar Chavez, a Mexican-American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist, said “I became a vegetarian after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do. I feel very deeply about vegetarianism and the animal kingdom. It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.” He also said ““We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to make all people understand that animals are fellow creatures and that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves. And that the basis of peace is respecting all creatures.”
Marjorie Spiegel, a female author, wrote “The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery” which dares outline the similarities between human slavery and animal domestication.
Jewish author Charles Patterson dares explore the similarities between the Holocaust and the treatment of animals in his book “Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust.”
One of the positions of the Black Vegetarians groups is that “animals have an inherent right to exist for their own purposes and not to satisfy the wants of humans.” In fact, there us a great interview on BlackVegetarians.org with members from Justice for All Species (JAS). JAS is an organization of people of color with the mission of providing resources to communities of color to promote a vegetarian. This interview really ties it together.
BV: What are your thoughts about the comparison made between the enslavement of people of African descent by whites and the oppression of animals in factory farms by humans?
KC: While I can understand why some people might be offended by being compared to an “animal,” I always remember that humans are animals, too. Such comparisons are demeaning only if you make them so. So when I see pictures of animals enslaved in factory farms, I do see a connection between their condition and the unconscionable suffering that my ancestors had to go through under slavery by white domination.
Humans dominate over animals because we can, not because it’s right to do, or we have to do it to survive. Factory farms and corporations profit from animal suffering, just as slave owners profited from my ancestors. I can see parallels in the oppression and the treatment of animals, and of slaves, as well as the motivations of the powerful to dominate over someone, and profit from them. Anyone interested in these connections should definitely check out Marjorie Spiegel’s book, The Dreaded Comparison .
TM: I have no problem with the comparison of humans with other species. It’s no different then comparing a raccoon with a wolf. There are significant similarities, such as self-awareness, the ability to feel pain, the desire to protect our young, intelligence and social culture. There are also significant differences that vary depending on species. This is the case with all species including humans regardless of their ancestry.
So I am comfortable with members of other species being compared as sentient beings with all people, including those of us of African descent. We cannot deny the connection with capture, transport, breeding, confinement, and denial of physical integrity. However, I am concerned about who is not being compared to animals. When the comparisons made by animal rights groups focus solely on communities that have been “treated like animals,” read Blacks, Women and Jews, the chance of white men, often the architects of such systems, being compared to other species is rare. This leaves them in a class unto themselves, and may unwittingly reinforce an existing hierarchy of oppression.
We need to continue to broaden the comparisons to include the power structures, economics, and cultural ideologies that allow and accept the torture of entire classes of beings. After all, these atrocities don’t happen in a vacuum and viewing them in context, equitably calls everyone to account for both the problems and solutions.
Yeah they block everyone that disagrees with them. Especially the animal rightsists because they expose their hypocrisy and ignorance. They are no different than racists, sexists, and so on were in the past and still are today.
Actually, try commenting on another post. At Feministe, each post is moderated by the post author. Just keep your comments on topic and not sexist or racist.
For engaging anti-vegans, this post might be helpful:
http://www.vegansoapbox.com/the-reasonable-vegan/
PS Allen, I just went back and read a lot of the comments on there since I was banned and I am amazed. You made excellent arguments.
And when someone had the nerve to insult you, then say “inability to say no” was reason for exploitation, I almost died. I guess a passed out woman is ok to rape as well, being that she can’t say “no”. What a bunch of stuck-up psychos are over there.
To be fair, it really is just the AR issue that they go nutso about. If you talk to them about other issues they’re much more sane. I regularly read that blog and find it useful, inspiring, and interesting.
I have trouble listening to anything people say that are so hateful towards the animal rights movement. I mean I have met plenty of people who weren’t all about animal rights that were not insulting like the people on that site. They won’t even listen to what you have to say and immediately call you racist, sexist, etc if you bring up animal rights and it messes up their tiny worldview (by their, I don’t mean all of them, just the ones that do this).
I’d much rather spend my time on a site like feministing where there is at least some open dialogue and not a bunch of whining and anti-animal rhetoric. They are able to speak about the sexism in PETA’s ads while dividing it from the fact that animals do not deserve to be exploited.
Calling oneself a devout speciesist while bashing racism is sick to me. Vegans of Color wrote an awesome post about it: http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/for-as-long-as-my-skin-is-black-i-will-be-a-devoted-anti-speciesist/
Very interesting… I’m “out of the loop” with femminist issues – No excuses – there’s just only so much of me. But I certainly know that exploitation to women still exists…it’s in my world too, everyday.
But I would think of all people, women of color would be most sympathetic to Animal Rights – exactly for all the reasons Allen mentioned in his post. It just illustrates how deep the speciesism really is.
Here is an excellent post on the topic:
http://criticalanimal.blogspot.com/2009/08/people-of-color-and-humananimal-divide.html
The one that Adrienne recommends above is excellent, too.
As an update, I guess I wasn’t blocked from the Femeniste blog site. I guess it must have been a computer glitch that didn’t allow me to make comments for a while. The debate wages on – ad hominem attacks against me continue unabated.