Why vegetarian feminists are upset with PETA

by Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, founder and editor of Equal Writes

You wouldn't think that feminism and animal rights activism would be mutually exclusive ventures, but even if they offered me a job, I would never work for PETA (and in this frosty economy, no less!). This is not because I love fur, leather shoes, or pepperoni pizza - with the possible exception of my vintage cowboy boots, I could, and do, live happily without all three. In fact, I'm a lifelong vegetarian. I've never eaten beef or pork (except for the occasional hot dog when I was 5, before my father told me that they eat cat in Africa and I made the Lisa Simpson connection between lambs and lamb chops), and I stopped eating all meat when I was 10, so I think I have pretty good vegetarian street cred. I cried in the middle of a cafe earlier this year while reading a Michael Pollan article about cattle raised for beef (read it - it made me go vegan for three months before I got anemia from my college dining halls) - it's incredibly easy to get me worked up about animal rights issues, and if there were more than 24 hours in the day, I would be devoting time to animal rights activism.

But I'm also a lifelong feminist, and I have been increasingly shocked and horrified by PETA's casual exploitation of gender stereotypes and objectification of the female body in an effort to raise support for its activism. If you've seen any of PETA's ads, you know what I'm talking about. This commercial was banned from the Super Bowl, for obvious reasons (surely there are ways to convince people to go vegetarian without showing a scantily clad woman preparing to fuck a bunch of asparagus), but PETA has repeatedly launched advertisements which throw respect for women (or, for that matter, for men) out the window in the name of animal liberation. Just a few examples: Alicia Silverstone stripped naked for a PETA ad, with the tagline "I'm a vegetarian" above her obviously airbrushed body. The strippers of Rick's Cabaret posed nude for another ad campaign, which declared "We'd rather go topless than wear fur." In a demonstration last year, PETA used a pregnant woman in a cage as part of a demonstration against mistreated pigs. And just to prove that they could perpetuate damaging male stereotypes as well as sexualizing women, PETA produced an ad last year featuring Mickey Rourke, who inveighed upon viewers to "have the cojones to fix your dog." Sometimes they like to use a psuedo-feminist, "love your body" type of rhetoric to mask the fact that they're blatantly exploiting women's bodies (tagline: "Be comfortable in your own skin: don't wear fur"). But usually, PETA throws itself behind campaigns that unashamedly objectify women in the service of "justice."

This is similar to problems that I have with other methods used to encourage people - usually women - to go vegan. On Princeton's feminist and gender issues blog, Equal Writes (shameless plug: I'm a co-editor), I wrote a post about the "Skinny Bitch" book series, which play on women's insecurities about their bodies to shame them into changing their diet. Another post on this blog points out the obvious problems in encouraging girls to stop eating meat because it will "make you fat" (another one from PETA - it boggles my mind that they're not called out more often for this shit). The really aggravating thing for me, though, is that vegetarianism is in many ways a healthier diet. So why tell women that veganism is the way for them to become a "skinny bitch" rather than a "healthy woman"? Because it's easier to play on women's existing negative self-image. Our culture has done a great job of laying the groundwork for anyone to shame women into eating proscriptively, and rather than helping women feel better about their bodies - and at the same time, work for animal rights - PETA and other activists take the low road.

The problem, at the most fundamental level, is that we're not acknowledging intersectionality. This is not something that's limited to animal rights activists - American Apparel is a great example of a company which uses women's bodies to sell clothes that were made under decent working conditions - apparently, we can't have happy workers and desexualized models (for a more in-depth rant, I've written two posts, linked here and here, about American Apparel on Equal Writes). Why can't we humanize animals in the attempt to make people care about the way that they're mistreated, rather than dehumanizing women?

Animals, women and workers are frequently denied full rights as living creatures. But using women to gain rights for animals is not really progress. And what does it say about the movement itself if the only way to convince people to treat animals with respect and dignity is to sex it up? Why not show images of slaughterhouses, rather than assuring us that greased-up naked women don't eat meat (and please, just because Playboy does it, doesn't make it ok - they're not trying to take some kind of moral high ground)? Why not tell people that it's actually healthier to eat less meat, rather than telling women that it's the only way they'll get skinny? It's desperate and tacky and offensive to promote justice for one cause at the expense of another. And it makes it impossible for me to respect an organization that logically I should love.

I'd also like to note that PETA's advertisements have recently strayed into the realm of racism (beyond the fact that the vast majority of their nekkid models are white). Last year, there were discussions of renting ad space on the border fence between the U.S. and Mexico, for billboards that equated a carnivorous diet with the border patrol. The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will - Go Vegan." I'm not sure what the status is with these ads, but the very idea that this is an acceptable strategy is totally unbelievable. The images on the billboards are definitely racist, and content aside, what the hell is the idea behind giving the U.S. government money to support its fucked-up immigration policies?

I'd love to see the day when animal rights activists acknowledge the connections between abuse of animals and abuse of women. But I will never get behind any organization that so flippantly disregards health, self-esteem, and the female body. Thanks, PETA, for trying to promote your issues through misogyny and racism. And until it's willing to take the road of basic decency and stop using tired stereotypes and "sexy" advertising tropes, I'll keeping throwing up in my mouth at the mention of its name. I don't know how many converts PETA's gotten from these ad campaigns, but it's definitely lost my support.

PETA, Pets, and Extinction

I’ve always been surprised by the number of people who criticize PETA for operating animal shelters which euthanize animals. There are certainly many grounds on which to criticize PETA, but I’ve never thought the fact that they kill unwanted pets which no one is capable of providing for is a particularly good one. Ultimately, euthanizing animals which cannot reasonably be treated to a meaningful and pleasurable life is clearly consistent with the utilitarian philosophy from which many animal rights activists draw inspiration (note, for example, Peter Singer’s strident support for human euthanasia and infanticide, alongside his concern for animals). Frankly, the “hypocrisy” of PETA euthanizing animals is far less than the hypocrisy of the many “animal-lovers” who eat meat but love their pets enough to cry foul when PETA chooses the least-bad option to address the systematic problem of pet overpopulation.

A recent poster on this blog, however, offered a more intriguing allegation: that PETA’s euthanasia policy is part of a broader attempt to make pets extinct.

There are a few reasons why the elimination of pets might be bad news for humans. First off, there are the obvious uses of companion animals for assisting blind and deaf individuals. Most of us have heard about the medical and psychological studies that have shown that having pets makes human beings healthier. These are, of course, scientific attempts to codify common sense: most of us know that in a world where humans are often atomized and isolated from one another, pets provided much needed friendship, affection, and unconditional love.

My family “owns” two dogs, and I can certainly see simply from my own experience that all of the above are true. Nonetheless, I still find compelling the arguments of those who have suggested that domesticated animals are actually bad for humans in a broad sense. Jim Mason – who co-authored “The Way We Eat” with Singer in 2006 – wrote an earlier book, “An Unnatural Order,” that suggests that the subjugation of animals was, in a sense, a rehearsal for our later domination of the earth and one another. According to Mason, by dominating and domesticating animals, we create in ourselves a mindset that allows us to dominate more than just animals. It’s a complicated argument, but it’s worth considering, and it is consistent with less far-flung connections that have been demonstrated between abuses of animals and abuses of humans.

The point of being an animal rights activist, though, is that our sphere of ethical consideration is wider than just humans. And so, however we decided to weight the above evidence as to whether dogs and cats are “good” for humans, we ought also to ask whether it’s good for dogs and cats. In this respect, I have to agree with Gary Francione that if there were two dogs left on the planet, I would not let them breed.

I’m sure many of us who have derived a great deal of pleasure from the company of animals – myself included – shudder at the above statement. But when we really look at the root of the issue, I think the problem with the very idea of domesticated animals becomes clear. Fundamentally, PETA has to euthanize thousands of animals because we have bred entire species of beings that are completely helpless. Dogs and cats may seem happy, but – without being inside their heads – I imagine that their lives lack the fulfillment that would come from a free life in the wild. They are utterly dependent on others, and I submit that this means their lives can never be that much more valuable than that of a particularly well-treated human slave.

I sincerely doubt that PETA actually wants to rid the world of pets. PETA’s thinking tends to be short term and focused on the immediate alleviation of animal suffering (hence their support for things like Proposition 2 in California). I doubt something as far fetched as the elimination of pet ownership will ever make it onto their radar screen. But I do think that reconsidering our relationship with pets is important, if nothing but for the role such animals play in our broader mindset.

Skinny Bitches or Bulimic Vegetarians?

Introduction
In 2007, few people would have expected a "no-nonsense" book of "tough-love" for American females to become one of the most succeful vegetarian advocacy publications in the Western hemisphere. This book, Skinny Bitch, spawned a whole slew of products including a cookbook, an instructional book on pregnancy, a journal, and now three work out videos. Already, the original book has become an international bestseller, hung onto the New York Times bestseller list (including a breif spot at the top), has sold two million copies, and has been translated into 20 languages.

While many vegetarian and AR activists have welcomed this book with open arms, too few people have heeded to the criticisms that this book preys on female body insecurities. Below, I will discuss why disguising a vegetarian message within a frame about weight-loss/management is not only detrimental to the health of adolescent females and young women but also trivializes the radical political orientation of veganism by conflating it with a self-interested, faddish diet. In light of continuous research that links the adoption of vegetarian diets by teens to disguise and/or justify their eating disorders, the sizist discourse that shames and blames "fat" people, and the vogue-ing of vegetariaism for the mainstream, I suggest that vegans ally instead with feminist and radical social justice groups to promote body acceptance and HEALTH rather than societal acceptance and "health."

"I am a vegetaian: I don't eat meat... or anything for that matter."
Just several weeks ago, a paper published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association proved suspicions that many teen girls choose vegetarianism as a cover for their extreme dieting measures. The authors of the study conclude that

current [adolescent and young adult] vegetarians may be at increased risk for binge eating with loss of control, while former vegetarians may be at increased risk for extreme unhealthful weight-control behaviors. It would be beneficial for clinicians to inquire about current and former vegetarian status when assessing risk for disordered eating behaviors.

Though there may be health benefits from adopting a vegetarian diet, many who choose such diets do so as a guise to manage their weight in the most unhealthy ways.

John Cloud from The Times recentlyreported on this latest study:

in a 2001 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, researchers found that the most common reason teens gave for vegetarianism was to lose weight or keep from gaining it. Adolescent vegetarians are far more likely than other teens to diet... [and] teens with eating disorders are more likely to practice vegetarianism than any other age group.

So while the public and socially acceptable answer many teenage vegetarian girls for their vegetarian may be "to save the animals/environment," at least one out of five (and potentially over half) really adopted the diet primarily out of concern for the health and/or image of their body.

Cloud continues, summarizing the results of the study:

approximately 20% of the [teen] vegetarians turned out to be binge eaters...compared with only 5% of those who had always eaten meat...This disparity in extreme behavior disappeared between [the ages 19 to 23]... But among former vegetarians, that number jumped to 27%.

Interestingly, teen vegetarians were four times as likely to be binge eaters than omnivores, but young adult vegetarians were no more likely, suggesting that many teen vegetarians started extreme dieting prior to their omnivorous counterparts. Most concerning is that over one of four those who had once been vegetarians as teens, but quit, were extreme dieters. That's twice the rate of eating disorders as among young adults who had never been or who still were vegetarian! The moral: the adoption of a vegetarian diet as a teenager for the primary purpose of body-management sets one up for serious risk of eating disorders in the future.

I Love them Bitches: Don't Have a Cow, You Fat Pig, LOL!
The authors and publishers of Skinny Bitch are not naive to the "self-loathing" young (and old) women feel as a product of modern capitalist patriarchal culture. The official Skinny Bitch website gives a concise description of the book, or at least why someone should be interested and pick the thing up:

If you can't take one more day of self-loathing, you're ready to hear the truth: You cannot keep shoveling the same crap into your mouth every day and expect to lose weight.

The answer to self-loathing, the book suggests, it holds is not to accept and love one's body, but to stop eating crap and lose weight--nevermind that many of the readers of the book are proabably already at a healthy weight.

Of course, the point of the book is not to make girls into "skinny bitches" but into veg*ns with jarring editorializations of meat processing and propoganda. The title is just a diversion to get people to pick up what Julie Klausner, in a scathing review of the book at Salon described as "a PETA pamphlet in chick-lit clothing and an innovative fusion of animal rights with punitive dieting tactics that prey on women's insecurities about their bodies." According to a previous review in the New York Times

[o]ne South Cal botique has sold more than 2,000 copies of Skinny Bitch because "[customers] just like the title." Likewise, one fasion publicist said that she "would never have read 'The Omnivore’s Dilemma.' I’m not even sure I know what an omnivore is. But I know what a skinny bitch is, and I know I want to be one."

To put it simply, the Skinny Bitch franchise is so popular largely due to the clever marketing that went into it. As the fasion publicist said, women know skinny bitches, and they know they want to be them; they don't necesarily know (or care) what an omnivore or a vegan is. With a title like Skinny Bitch, the book drew on a much larger, mainstream audience, like a magnet for body-insecure women. But is this more of a succss for vegetarianism or perpetuating body-image anxiety?

Klausner would probably agree with he latter: Skinny Bitch is more likely to perpetuate eating disorders than to nurture a sustainable compassion for animal others:

The relentless bullying peppered throughout the authors' advice accounts for much of the book's humor, including quips like "you need to exercise, you lazy shit," "coffee is for pussies" and "don't be a fat pig anymore." It was a formerly anorexic friend of mine who nailed it when she read excerpts from the book. "When you have an eating disorder," she told me, "that's the voice you hear in your head all the time."

The authors of the book, understand that bullying voice internalized in women from all races, classes, and regions of America that drives them toward unhealthy eating, and they are not afraid of exploiting it to humorously shaming/motivating people into eating "better" food. How ever tongue-in-cheek the humor of their tough-love style is, it trivializes that oppressive voice within women's heads and further validates false associations between fat/stupid/lazy/bad and thin/smart/agency/good. In many ways, the humor actually is apologetic for that oppressive voice as well as mysoginism and sizism.

PETA: People Encouraging Teen Anoretics?
The title of tis section may be hyperbole, but I also don't believe it is totally out-of-hand or false. On the contrary, the success of the Skinny Bitch franchise comes after almost two decades of PETA "selling" vegetarianism and sex in the form of attaining a more beautiful and virile body, which is almost always abnormally thin and fit. PETA, which unlike Skinny Bitch does not garb its political agenda in weight-management discourse, is no less the culprit of perpetuating body-image anxiety. The organization often utilizes fat phobia and sizism to shame/motivate people to adopt a veg*n diet. For instance, Vegan Kid notes that, according to PETA's video"Chew on This: 30 Reasons to Go Vegetarian," the #3 reason to go vegetarian is because "meat and dairy make you fat." Of course, many other things "make you fat," and meat and dairy need not be any of these things. They prioritize this "fact" because they know that most people are already insecure if not ashamed of their weight and size, and as such, it may be more compelling than reason #11 "because it is violence that you can stop."

Another example of the "fat" phobia/shaming done by PETA is in a response to Jessica Simpson's "Real Girls Eat Meat" shirt on the official PETA blog. According to this PETA employee, the #4 reason that "Only Stupid Girls Brag about Eating Meat" is that

Meat will make you fat. All the saturated fat and cholesterol in chicken wings, pork chops, and steak eventually leads to flabby thighs and love handles. I hope the upcoming "Jessica Simpson's Intimates" line comes in plus sizes! Going vegetarian is the best way to get slim and stay that way.

Here again, just like we saw with Skinny Bitch, is the perpetuation of the stereotype linking size to stupidity--something that has been common at least since the pseudo-science of physiognomy. Worse of all is that PETA even has the audacity to distribute "Chicken Chump Cards"--which are still available at their online store and Petakids.com--to kids, of wich one shames fat children. On the front of the card is a sad, morbidly-obese child entitled "Tubby Tammy;" on the back it explains "how" chicken makes you so fat you'll have to wear a bungeecord for a belt.

Again, these three cases of fat phobia/shaming are in no way trivial. Each is part of a highly calculated marketing tactic to "sell" vegetarianism as a social panacea. The discourse in the blurbs and visuals has little to do with enhancing and sustaining health (or even a healthy body weight), but about looking your best for society which will reject you as a big fat, stupid person who is probably less compassionate and more self-indulgent than the other kids.

Unfortunate for the well-intentioned female animal advocates of PETA, those who do not conform to the mainstream's socially acceptable standard of beauty for women, the very standards PETA perpetuates, will be harassed and shunned. Take for instance the reactions at Perez Hilton to a publicity stunt in which a pregnant woman posed in a mock-gestation crate to protest hog farms. Comments included:

Yikes, I get the picture, but hmm... saggy boobs= kinda gross!!!!

What's a tubby naked bitch in a cage got to do with eating pork??

She needs to go on a diet

wtf is this about

ewwwwwwwww

Moo cow..UGLY

Why couldn't they have chosen an attractive female?

Of course, no one deserves to be called such horrible, mysoginistic and speciesist names; but it would not be surprising if PETA, or some animal advocates in general, used the same rhetoric to attack a woman who was promoting pork. As is suggested in their anti-fur ads, "Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin," one blogger comments, PETA "is basically saying that yes, you should let animals keep their fur because you should be comfortable in your own skin–as long as you’re a size 2 and conventionally beautiful."

Lettuce Entertain You: Vegetarianism is the New Black
Nearly all of PETA's ad campaigns utilizes not just any woman (or man), but celebrities, and not just any celebrities, but particularly physically attractive ones who are actors and musicians. These celebrities, thus, are visual icons. There are few, if any ads of famous (and beautiful) female scientists, photographers, authors, scholars, etc. suggesting the organization values (or at least values the people who value) "entertainment" over "art," science, and literature. Such famous people may not be "cool" enough for PETA's campaign targeting youth. Vegetarianism and AR is being "sold" as the "in" thing, and as is evident with anti-fur slogans in the movement that publicly shame women for wearing fur (i.e. "the Trollsen Twins," "Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people"), women who do not conform are not only moraly but physically ridiculed.

Let me emphasize that the use of such visual celebrities is very deliberate, and, as I believe, very misguided. The use of these celebrities over others emphasises not any moral, political, artisitc, or intellectual of the particular person being associated with vegetarianism and AR, but an image. One should go veg because vegetarians are pretty, hot, badass, or funny, not because they are social/political radicals healing injustices everywhere or writing/discovering something that will change the world. (Unfortunately, television, cinema, and the internet have made the former celebrities' images much more prominent and at the expense of the great works of scholars, scientists, artists, and social entrepeneurs).

To return to Chris' point, PETA dresses-up celebrities in vegetables instead of showing them eating vegetables because PETA doesn't really care what people eat so long as their "food" does not come from animals. For all they care, vegans could just eat a Boca burger, potato chips, and a soft drink--not exactly a nutritional powerhouse. The ads are intended not to promote HEALTH, but to promote an image. By dressing up celebrities in vegetables, PETA is marketing the vegetarian diet as either sexy and/or graceful. Vegetarianism, in a sense, is the latest fshion, "the color" of the 21st Century.

However, note that by framing vegetarianism and AR as an image, as an "in" thing, it easily can become an "out" thing. Many of these ads and campaigs which target younger audiences may influence thousands of people to try out vegetarianism and AR, but the question becomes "for how long?" If vegetarianism is a matter or being like a particular "cool" or "hot" celebrity, especially one whom may be obsolete in two years, as soon as another "cool" celebrity comes around who eats animals or people realize how potentially challenging a vegetarian diet can be (all the social and emotional maintenence that is involved) they may shrug it off; it's just not worth it, just as those irksome designer heels are just not worth it.

Basically, if one cares about animal "rights," veg*nism is essential to putting their values in practice, but veg*nism is only contingent if they care more about body-image, which can not only be attained a number of ways, but is also something that cannot be guaranteed by a strict vegetarian regime. Certainly one can be "vegan" and eat unhealthy foods and not exorcise, but some people are not naturally disposed to being "thin" as others--making the pursuit of thinness a futile journey. In the end, those people striving for thinness on a veg*n diet may be unhappy with the lax results and move on to "the next big thing" to lose weight so that they can achieve their "ideal" body size.

On the other hand, if vegetarianism is "sold" as a political-ideological-intellectual orientation and commitment, it becomes a part of one's values, and hence one's more permanent identity util those values change, if they change. Instead of going for numbers, if non-profits and other organizations went for outstanding citizens, we may have much stronger and longer-term advocates on our hands. So much of these attempts take the "shotgun" approach by trying to hit any and eveyone in a mass audience. Tragically, many of these politically active and radical people are being "turned-off" to the vegetarian message and thousands of dollars are being wasted because these ads and discourses more than likely alienate and offend potential ARAs who are not "thin" like the women in these ads, and more generally, unjustly contribute to the anxiety of girls outside the movement about their own body image.

This is an abridged version of the original, cross-posted @ HEALTH

Privilege: The U.S. Vegan Movement, Whiteness, and Race Relations (part 1&2)

Introduction
My aim in this series on privilege is to examine the (not so) invisible whiteness of the “vegan” movement. In the subsequential posts, I hope to educate fellow advocates who have not thought much, if at all, about white privilege and how it not only ostracizes vegans of color, but also alienates potential vegans and allies from joining the movement.

“Are Animals the New Slaves?”
In the summer 2005, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals [PeTA] began a traveling exhibit entitled “Are Animal the New Slaves?” in which photos of American slaves in chains and nooses (among other things) were juxtaposed to photos of nonhuman animal bodies in like contexts. After only a month on the road, the exhibit was suspended after major outrage ensued in New Haven, Connecticut.

Not only did students begin shouting at PETA’s staff that the exhibit was racist, but predominant Afro-American organizations joined in the outrage at the juxtapositions being made. For instance, Dr. Cameron, the founder of America’s Black holocaust Museum and the man being lynched in one of the photos, asserted that "there is no way we should be compared to animals today… You cannot compare the suffering… I experienced to the suffering of an animal." [1] In response , Ingrid Newkirk, the president and cofounder of PETA, wrote that she can and should make such comparisons despite the outrage of millions of Afro-Americans “because it is right to do so and wrong to reject the concept. Please open your heart and your mind and do not take such offense” [2].

What went Wrong?
After the hurt caused by the exhibit, one must wonder if PETA ever considered the feelings of those who’s ancestors may have been in the photos. Did PETA ever consider surveying some Afro-Americans to have any input? Were there so few staff and friends of color who could have even given them feedback? Who exactly was PETA targeting with its exhibit: people of color, everyone, or mostly middle-class white people? What does this say not only about PETA, but about the larger animal defense movement?

Few have attempted to examine where PETA’s (and others’) good intentions to facilitate empathy went wrong beyond marking others as “speciesists” or “racists”. There is, however, common agreement among those whose voices are too often invisible that this juxtaposition went wrong is its appropriation of others.

Johanna over at the Vegans of Color blog believes that “part of the resentment comes from a feeling that PETA (/AR in general, since so many people seem to see PETA as synonymous w/AR) ignores POCs until they want something from them.”[3] While PETA does not lock up Afro-Americans into cages (or does it?), it exploits them through appropriating their images and suffering. Such “innocent” comparisons by people who otherwise ignore the oppression of people of color are actually counterproductive in rallying more support for veganism because they unfortunately come to represent the entire vegan movement as white and exploitative.

The outrage incited by PETA’s exhibitionist tactics cannot be said to only be rooted in speciesism. A recent suit against PETA makes this very apparent. The person suing them is none other than Marjorie Spiegel, author of The Dreaded Comparison (1997)—a book which does nothing less than juxtapose human and animal exploitation. According to Spiegel, readers will “be forced to view it through the distorted prism that PETA has created, rather than on its own merits." [5] PETA's exhibit did nothing less than to "degrade and impair public discourse." Spiegel plans to make her case by juxtaposing the generous reviews her book received and the negative reviews PETA’s exhibit received. Having no history of “pimping” people of color and women and presenting a more credible case for the juxtaposition, Spiegel’s book is more worthy of credibility than instantaneous condemnation. Such sensitive and important issues must be addressed through inviting people into dialog, not inciting people into an argument. This is especially true when people with privilege enter a space belonging to people with less privilege.

Racism, Speciesism, and Cross-racial Misunderstanding
My understanding of the outrage of many of my black peers came first from hearing Breeze Harper (aka Sistah Vegan) discuss her research into this issue on my favorite podcast, Animal Voices. Upon learning about the outrage, Breeze Harper investigated how fellow Afro-Americans responded online. Nearly all the comments she read on message boards were negative, very few sympathized with PeTA’s intended message. She related their distress to what Dr. Joy Leary calls “post traumatic slave syndrome” [8].

In conversation with a loved one, Breeze was given a much more personalized account of the trauma catalyzed by the exhibit:

“[A]s a black female from Jim Crow era, she...recounted the traumatic experiences of being called "animal”, "dirty", and/or "nigger" by her teachers during her kindergarten through high school educational experience". [8]

Further, from her standpoint as a dehumanized black female, her concept of “animal” is radically different than that of most white animal advocates.

Her perception of "animal" is connected to being called or seen as "dirty" or a "nigger"... It is absolutely impossible for me to explain to her the concept of speciesism because she has been so thoroughly traumatized by racism and what it "means" for someone to suggest that "her suffering" is the same as an "animal"... For her, "animal" has a different "meaning" than it does for many people like myself… They are caught in "trauma and survival mode [9]

The inability for her (and perhaps other people of color) to appreciate the concept of “speciesism” is not the result of a superiority-complex, but rather the colonization of her psyche from the trauma she experienced in childhood.

In other words, the neutrality of the word and idea of “animal” for white middle-class animal advocates means something quite different to people of color who are always at risk of not being fully human in our racist society. Thus, when white vegans say that because they are not offended at being compared to animals neither should people of color, they equivocate between two grossly different contexts. One veg*n of color explicitly addresses this point on her blog:

Many white folks are perfectly happy to insist that *they* have no problems at *all* being compared to animals–but it is not white folks that are being killed on genocidal turkey shoots either... this comparison of brown human beings to animals/insects, is not something in the past that is occasionally drawn on to make a point. is something that exists in the very fabric of our current society and as such, carries very real repercussions [10]

Just as racism has not been defeated, neither has the collective trauma of the Afro-American community.

Breeze speculates that, perhaps because of the trauma whites have experiences witnessing non-human animal suffering, they too “are unable to ‘see’ past non-human suffering.” Surely, a part of the reason some white animal advocates subordinate other oppressions to animal oppression is because they perceive it being the most traumatic. On the other hand, this inability to see past non-human suffering is sometimes related to self-esteem. While we all need self-esteem and we all try to make the world a much simpler place, white middle-class animal advocates need to acknowledge their privilege and become more conscientious about how they approach people who, because of historical and geographic contingencies, are not quite as fortunate.

Towards an Inclusive Vegan Movement
“Are Animals the New Slaves?” ought to cast the vegan movement into dire reflection. The reaction the exhibit received signifies a severe shortcoming in the general movements tactics and social consciousness—even for those who do not generally like PETA.

Much of vegan discourse and tactics are engendered with implicit racism and classism. The racism and classism are not of the hateful type, but of the preferential kind that caters to a white middle-class audience. Such preferential treatment marginalizes the value and perspective people of color have to offer. It is assumed that only white, English-speaking middle-class people really care about animals; only they are the enlightened heroes. Not only is the construction of vegans as white middle-class English-speakers very uninviting to “Others,” like vegans of color, but it also makes invisible the voices and contributions of those “Others” to the vegan cause.

I can imagine some people still thinking “Wait! Most animal/vegan activists I know are not racist, don’t like PeTA, and would never use these tactics. The racist, sexist, and discursive practices of some vegans don’t represent the whole vegan movement!” Perhaps this is true, but I am more inclined to disagree. If anything the inverse is true. The general vegan movement is obliviously “white;” it has neither condemned the racism of demonizing and/or fetishizing foreign nations and cultures nor has it put forth significant effort into respectful vegan outreach in communities of color. The animal/vegan movement(s) systemically ostracize people of color (which is arguably a symptom of institutional racism)—most often without any consciousness of doing so.


Animal Rights or Animal Whites?
If anyone took the time to reflect upon race within the vegan movement(s), it would become pretty clear that the general movement is at best ambivalent and at worst indifferent to its own whiteness. Whatever the general position on race in the movement may be, it is almost certainly not merely a case of naïve innocence. The veg*n movement(s) is so “blindingly white” that some outsiders and insiders suggest it could just as easily be called the “animal whites movement.” [15, 16, 17]

While the majority of the vegan movement(s) has been reluctant or indifferent to address the whiteness of the movement, vegans of color have been more outspoken. After all, they “don’t have the luxury of being single-issue.”[19] Breeze Harper, most notably, has been asking relevant questions in regards to the constructed whiteness of the vegan movement(s) for several years. For instance, Breeze wonders why a "[v]egetarian festival is 95% white though the city is very ethnically diverse" and that “all the top selling books that have been written about veganism, 'ethical consumption' and animal rights have been by whites (mostly male)"?[20] These are statistics that (I assume) the majority of vegans take for granted, that is, unconscious of. The majority of vegans either never dwell upon these figures or the figures trigger little of their concern.

The unfortunate (but not wholly undeserved) perception of vegans as self-righteous whites infers upon them a colonial or even a white supremacist identity. The implication of this combination is that a vegan—like GW—“doesn’t care about black people” (or any other people of color). An example of this perception was expressed in the comments following a passionate post attacking the weak rhetoric of “white privilege.”[27] After several vegans accused the author of “speciesism” (because he had made an analogy between distribution of privilege and fried chicken), a person (presumably of color) charged the vegans (who were “undoubtedly white or white-identified”) as distracting people from discussing the original topic of white privilege:

Whitey gets on a forum challenging their white privilege and therefore they have to distract it with some other "superior" ideal… This is a discussion about white privilege, whitey! This ain't about animals whom you consider above people of color, and yes, I mean that like it sounds and I am saying it because it is true. It's not white people you think of as being beneath animals. You don't discuss white privilege on forums about racism and white privilege, you discuss speciesism you RACIST bastards… Get off of your high white privileged horse and get to really discussing your white privilege because your white privilege IS KILLING PEOPLE! (my emphasis) [28]

Privilege has to do with the (often) invisible unearned power one caries (over others) simply by being a member of a ruling class. In this instance, white “vegans” entered a space and interrupted, thus obstructing, a conversation on white privilege. To the poster, this was an act of silencing people of color (and whites) from discussing the taboo subject of privilege. Not only were the vegans perceived as interfering with a constructive dialogue, they also dismissed the relevance of their privilege (over people of color) by coming in as an outsider to tell black people that they were just as much oppressors as whites.

Vegan Colonialism
Just as (presumably) white vegans had been ignorant or indifferent to the untactfulness of their posts, so to are vegans (even some vegans of color) untactful in some of their efforts to challenge animal uses in “foreign” cultures. For instance, most vegans are at least somewhat aware of the sensitivities surrounding the Canadian seal hunt every year—they know it is primarily done by indigenous peoples who have historically used furs for survival and culture as well as have been oppressed by colonialists. [29] Still, one often hears words being thrown around like “barbaric,” “savage,” “inhumane,” etc. All of these words are adjectives that describe people as sub-human.

Instead of sending an anti-oppression message, which used to be inherent in the definition of veganism before its appropriation [31], many vegans come across as the enlightened colonialist exercising his/her privilege over Other cultures. Johanna at Vegans of Color describes how animal activists come across to many people of color allover the world through the methodologies employed in anti-whaling campaigns:

[W]e in the West feel it's our high-and-mighty duty to go & tell other countries, with which we have had an adversarial & racist relationship, what to do. Instead of listening to local activists & supporting them if & when they request it (& in the manner they request), US activists love to barge in, without thought to cultural ontext or self-determination & autonomy for folks in the countries they're horning in on… There's a difference between not entering "the international debate" & doing so in a way that is helpful, respectful of other cultures & people [32]

Just as vegans had barged into the comments of the post on white privilege, so to does the general animal protection movement(s) barge into other countries telling them how to run things. Instead of respectful, empathetic, and constructive dialogue with people in the communities they are attempting to change, activists instead get on their “high horse” and condemn foreign Others from a standpoint of Authority and privilege. Thus, the issue of institutional racism is not confined to a few white vegan bloggers or PETA members, but is widespread throughout the movement.

Some animal advocates may be quick to respond that nations such as Japan and China should criticize the U.S. when they commit egregious acts against people and animals. Yet, this response perfectly encompasses advocates’ obliviousness to white-American privilege. White cultures not only have a history of trampling all over people of color, they also have the power and privilege of living in the North (aka the ‘First World,’ ‘Post-industrial/Developed Nations’) which dominates over the South with its markets and technologies. As is evident from the war in Iraq, the U.S. can get away with imperialist wars and state sanctioned “terrorism”; this is would not be true of countries in the South if they were ever to do the same to the U.S. Such a belief ignores history and power-relations.

One Word: Empathy
The point of this critique on popular animal defense rhetoric, discourse, and tactics is not to suggest that we be either silent or moral relativists. Single-issue politics and an (uncritical) utilitarian mode of thought are what drive the wedge between vegans and their potential allies. Many vegans, in their efforts to hurry the process along often resort to bullying and coercing people with less institutional power and opportunities. Understanding that veganism is not only a goal, but a process of living with others (as is Health) means that we must remain patient and work it through with Others. Otherwise we seem to be suggesting that oppressive means are justified by an anti-oppression end, which is kind of like “fucking for virginity.”

We must not barge into other conversations anymore than we should barge into the biology departments of universities and yell, “YOU ANIMAL TORTURING ASS HOLE!” One, because it is ineffective because, two, it is disrespectful and obnoxious. In order to cultivate change in other communities, we must sit down and have an empathetic dialogue. Collectively, people will never be permanently persuaded by either attempts to shame, discipline, or reason-through the facts. Cross-cultural communication involves empathy and understanding. This can only be achieved through respectful dialogue and race-consciousness.

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