More on comparisons of human and animal slavery

The Monday, August 22, Los Angeles Times includes an editorial (the newspaper's official editorial opinion) about PETA's animal liberation display, which compares human and animal slavery and abuse. PETA launches campaigns that the general public (and some animal advocates) finds outrageous in order to generate discussion of issues that are otherwise largely ignored. The Los Angeles Times discussion has opened with the editorial staff's condemnation of the campaign. PETA's controversial "Holocaust on your Plate" campaign resulted in a groundbreaking op-ed and then a page of letters in the Los Angeles Times (April 2003) discussing whether or not one should compare human and nonhuman holocausts. (Interestingly, later that month, the Los Angeles Times put a huge story about factory farming and slaughter -- "Killing Them Softly" April 29 -- on its front page.) Hopefully the current campaign will generate similar discussion, and draw attention to the oppression of nonhuman anim als.

The Los Angeles Time piece is available in the Times on page B10, on line at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-peta22aug22,0,2115846.story and I will paste it below.

I also wish to point people to a defense of the campaign, penned by Andrew Christie, which was posted on the "Common Dreams" website on Friday, August 19.

Christie discusses the PETA campaign, then makes reference to the despicable Carl's Jr. advertisement currently on television, which shows us a beautiful live chicken and tells us that the only thing she is good for is being eaten.

On PETA's campaign, Christie comments:
"PETA got it wrong in New Haven in only one respect: Animals are not 'the new slaves.' They're the first ones. They're the ones who got the worst a dominator culture had to offer, and the worst has lately gotten much worse, as a quick tour through a Confined Animal Feeding Operation will demonstrate to anyone in possession of two or three of his senses and lacking a vested interest in the company's quarterly profit statement."

He finishes his piece with a quote from Howard Zinn about and the tendency of the disenfranchised to fall upon each other "with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country."

And finally:
"Thus the good people of New Haven recoil, the NAACP shouts at PETA, and the pundits trot out safe, predictable outrage, using generations of conditioning to studiously miss the point. It's a fight amongst ourselves on a deeper level than usual. It misses not only the fact of our increasing disenfranchisement but the dysfunctional ways in which the disproportionately distributed wealth is produced by a system that is impoverishing the Earth and our ethical sense alike. One of that system's most fundamental control measures persuades people that in their visceral rejection of the truth PETA is laying down, they are standing up for their dignity and humanity, when, in reality, they are defending a system in which commonality of suffering is not on the agenda, the members of only a single species have any right to life, liberty and freedom from harm, a chicken is of value only as a sandwich, and the idea that a chicken might be of value to the chicken is an idea that must not be thought."

Christie's piece, which is available on line at http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0819-25.htm is worth reading, before responding to the Los Angeles Times comment on PETA's campaign.

Here is the Los Angeles Times editorial:

EDITORIAL
PETA's crude analogies

August 22, 2005

WE ALL HAVE HEARD of comparing apples to oranges, but is the burning alive of a black man equal to the burning of a chicken? People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would have you think so.

Known for its provocative ads, PETA has created yet another firestorm; this time exhibiting scenes of some historic atrocities and comparing them to images of animal abuse (http://www.peta.org/AnimalLiberation/display.asp).

The online exhibit, which accuses a "human dominated society" of tyranny over "powerless animals," uses imagery and words to compare lynchings of blacks in the South to the hanging of cows, the Native American Trail of Tears to modern-day cattle herding, as well as forced labor of children to that of caged chickens in chicken farms. The site also employs quotes from Alice Walker, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to reinforce these crude analogies.

We understand the need of groups such as PETA to shock society out of what it considers to be widespread indifference to a moral wrong. But this insulting and shrill approach, while guaranteed to garner PETA attention, does its cause a disservice. PETA already had to apologize this year for making an inappropriate Nazi analogy — a common pitfall of demagogues — when it compared the plight of factory animals to the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust. Another apology may not be far behind. PETA is now "rethinking" its campaign, putting on hold a tour of the art scheduled for 17 cities.

What is especially insulting about PETA's campaign is the heinous historical pedigree of comparisons between slaves and animals. The argument that blacks and Native Americans were inferior animal-like beings was one of the justifications behind human enslavement and forced labor.

If it wants to be more effective at getting its message across, PETA will have to embrace a second meaning for its acronym — People for the Ethical Treatment of Analogies.

(END OF EDITORIAL)

Discussion on various animal advocacy lists tells us that some advocates support the PETA campaign, and some condemn it, feeling it is wrong to make our point on the backs of humans who have suffered so much in this country, and whose suffering is still unresolved. With the Los Angeles Times having written this searing condemnation, I hope those who support the campaign will keep the discussion going by voicing their support with letters to the editor, perhaps pointing out what the editorial misses: It is because of society's "heinous" acceptance of animal slavery that when a group is portrayed as "animal-like," the comparison can be used as "a justification behind human enslavement and forced labor." And letters should seize the opportunity to detail human society's treatment of other species.

The Los Angeles Times take letters at letters [at] latimes.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)