From the headlines of yesterday's Democracy Now! comes this report of a speciesist and racist "joke" dehumanizing President Obama:

GOP Candidate Jokes About Hunting President Obama

An Idaho Republican gubernatorial candidate is claiming he was only joking when he said he would buy a license to hunt President Obama. At a rally in Twin Falls on Tuesday, Rex Rammell was discussing hunting tags, when an audience member shouted a question about "Obama tags." Rammell responded, "The Obama tags? We'd buy some of those." Rammell says he sees no reason to apologize, because he was joking.

This is not the first time violence against nonhuman animals was employed to communicate a threatening racist message against the president. In February of this year, immediately after a chimpanzee who was being kept as a pet was shot and killed by police, the New York Post published a cartoon depicting the killing with one of the cops saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," in direct reference to President Obama.

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Our biographies matter. That is to say, our race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, cultural beliefs, gender, sex, sexuality, socioeconomic class, citizenship status, (dis)ability, and so forth all matter. The intersection of these biographical characteristics makes up our biographical identity, and our biographical identity matters because it not only gives description to who we are, but it also gives description to our relationships to others. (Read more...)

On Feministe, Latoya Peterson wrote an inspired post about feminism in the context of other issues and intersectional oppressions. She also talks about running an anti-racist blog in the same context.

When Latoya writes, "I don't think there is any kind of shit that pisses me off more than 'Is this really a feminist issue?'" you could replace "feminism" with "veganism" and that is exactly how I feel. In fact, I'd say that everything Latoya wrote about feminism and anti-racism applies to veganism. (Read more...)

By way of Emily's The Partial Muse, I came across a comment Tim Wise left on Racialicious that backlashes against veganism. Now I think White vegans and other White anti-speciesists can learn a lot from Wise about White privilege and anti-racism. In this respect, I'd recommend people read Wise's work, start with his "Animal Whites" article. However, Wise's comment on Racialicious shows some confusion over anti-oppression work and law enforcement, not to mention a need to learn more about human supremacy and the oppression of nonhuman animals.

Chris from Deep Roots makes some critical comments about the Coming Out For Animals call for papers, including some discussion of my thoughts on "animal activists" promoting police violence more than being targeted by it. Chris suggests I might have misunderstood the context of the questions being asked in a call for papers. I also got an anonymous hate comment that more aggressively insists that the misunderstanding was intentional. Chris says that the context might have been that in terms of "activist groups" "animal activists" "bear the brunt" of police violence. (Read more...)

I've noticed that whenever people talk about "humane treatment" they're usually referring to either nonhuman animals or humans who are imprisoned or otherwise institutionally confined and controlled. I guess this makes sense since keeping people in cages and under complete control resembles how nonhuman animals are general treated in our society. Similarly, the term "cruelty" is usually applied to the treatment of nonhuman animals, human children, and human prisoners. In fact, "humane treatment" and "cruelty" are really paired terms, with the former suggested as the remedy to the latter. (Read more...)

A call for papers has been sent out by folks "looking to anthologize the voices of queers involved in animal liberation." I think it would be wonderful to see more interaction between queer theory and veganism. But some of the questions suggested as topics for this book really bothered me, specifically:

Why do queer activists in Uganda but animal activists in the USA bear the brunt of police suppression in their respective countries? Are they similarly subversive of "cultural" practices that turn out to be critical to the maintenance of state power?

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Veganism is a good example of how consciousness-raising about our everyday actions is important to challenging the structure of oppression and exploitation. Veganism takes everyday "personal" actions (e.g., eating, dressing, and recreating) and calls out the political dimensions of these actions. It reveals how eating, wearing, and otherwise using nonhuman animals is not a mere "personal" act, but a dimension of exploitation and human privilege. It makes a connection between the personal action and the political structure of our society. (Read more...)

I came across this disturbing video today called "Spiders On Drugs." It was posted on a blog under the heading "Laughing at Spiders."

My initial reaction was horror at what I thought was perhaps an actual video involving drug experiments on spiders. How could someone think giving drugs to spiders is funny? On more than one occasion I've sat in awe quietly watching spiders just like these build their beautiful webs.

Then I caught on that it wasn't a real experiment. But it made no difference to me that it was actually a "joke." In fact, that someone had intentionally set out to make vivisection into a joke is just as bad.

As the video went on it became offensive on a whole new level. Not only was the video speciesist and anti-nonhuman animals, but it took on wholly racist overtones. (Read more...)