A Letter to my Non-vegan Friends: Why Animal Rights is a Social Justice Issue

“As we talked of freedom and justice one day for all, we sat down to steaks. I am eating misery, I thought, as I took the first bite. And spit it out."

-Alice Walker, "Am I Blue?"

[Image Description: A close-up of an orangutan, looking at the camera]

I consider myself a social justice activist. I advocate for the dismantling of a variety of oppressive systems, and I admire many of the individuals I have met through this work. However, I’ve noticed that animal rights activists have a certain frustration with activists in other movements. I certainly do. (I also realize that activists of other movements have a long list of justified frustrations with the animal rights movement. I actively work to address the issues in the animal rights movement, and have done so in essays such as this one. However, this article will specifically address activists who are not part of the animal rights movement).

The reason for my frustration is this: I admire so many of the activists I've come across. I admire their willingness to speak up about uncomfortable topics. I admire their willingness to risk arrest and put their bodies on the line for the sake of making the world a better place. I admire their willingness to be called out on any problematic behavior they may display, and their willingness to immediately change their actions based on the feedback they receive. Perhaps most of all, I admire their willingness to deconstruct and reconstruct their language and actions to dismantle oppressive systems. In other words, I admire how hard they work, and I have high expectations because of it.

However, when it comes to issues of institutionalized animal abuse, I repeatedly watch these dedicated individuals do exactly what so many other people in positions of privilege and power do: they cover their eyes and ears, unwilling to see the problem. They loudly insist that the problem isn’t important, or that we should focus on something else, and often even insist that there isn’t any problem at all. Sound familiar?

I'd like to present a quick list of terms before continuing. Social justice movements describe work aimed at deconstructing oppressive systems set up in our society. They recognize that some groups are subordinated by no choice of their own, while other groups are given undeserved amounts of power. They recognize the harm done by these injustices, and strive to dismantle them. They aim to create a society where everyone has equal opportunities. Countless movements currently work for social justice: feminism, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the LGBT rights movement are just a few examples.

Institutionalized animal abuse describes the daily acts of unnecessary animal cruelty that are widely accepted within our society. Most people see the cruelty in beating a dog, but hardly blink an eye when their coworker mentions he went hunting over the weekend. This is because many types of animal cruelty are normalized and deeply ingrained in our society. Cruelty and violence exist within our food system, in the production of our cosmetics, our clothing, and even in the way many people get their pets. People who reject this violence refuse to use the products of animal exploitation, and are known as vegans.

Now that we're on the same page about some of the terms I'll be throwing around, let's continue.

I have no doubt that our current treatment of animals can be accurately summed up as a series of horrifying injustices. Billions of innocent creatures with desires, emotions, and the ability to feel pleasure and pain are denied natural lives. Many live in spaces only marginally larger than their own bodies. They do not see the sun. They are mutilated for the sake of efficiency. Their reproductive systems are violated repeatedly. They die horrific deaths at fractions of their normal lifespans, despite the fact that they want what any living creature wants—to live. We use them and abuse them, and for what? In our modern society, it is no longer necessary for most of us to consume their bodies or secretions. We no longer need to use them for fabric or entertainment, or even run tests on them. We willingly contribute to all of this pain and suffering for the sake of trivial things—pleasure which could easily be found in other sources, convenience, tradition… none of them justify our decision to torture innocent beings when we could easily just not. This is an injustice.

I am by no means saying that we ought to value animal lives over human lives. I am also not suggesting that vegans are perfect in their activism. We can all do a much better job of creating inclusive, safe spaces for people of all identities (Yes, vegan readers, each and every single one of us needs to work on making our movement safer for all. Even you, and even me). Finally, I’m not saying we should all drop whatever we’re fighting for to defend animals. We’re all needed in our areas of greatest skill and passion. But we can easily stop feeding into this particular oppressive system, and in doing so, take the first steps to dismantle it. Many people can do this without even skipping a beat in their other areas of activism. It’s just as easy to organize a protest after an oatmeal breakfast as it is after a scrambled egg breakfast.

I’m sure that some of those reading this may protest my ideas because “veganism is for the privileged” or “it’s a rich white people thing” or something along those lines. This is a somewhat common misconception, but quite frankly, it is wrong. Plenty of poor, disabled, and PoC vegans exist in the world, and they’re wonderful people and wonderful activists. They are an important part of the animal rights community, and I know that some of their work has shaped my own ideas. I’ll include links to their work with the links at the bottom of this article so you can read what they have to say. Listen to them. Disagree if you like, but do not erase their existence for the sake of your arguments.

Before I finish, I’d like to take a moment to note the intersection of animal rights and human rights. Intersections exist in nearly every area of oppression (for example, how can we talk about sexism without also discussing how race causes white women and women of color to experience sexism in a variety of different ways?) Animal rights is no exception to this, and animal rights and human rights do not exist in separate spheres. Factory farms tend to be disproportionately located near low income communities primarily populated by people of color, and the pollution from these factory farms disproportionately affects these communities (1). Slaughterhouse workers, who work in some of the most physically and psychologically dangerous conditions of any workers in the US, are primarily immigrants and people of color (2). And according to Dr. Richard Oppenlander, “82% of the world’s starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals that are then killed and eaten by more well off individuals in developed countries like the US, UK, and in Europe”(3). As if our disgusting cruelty toward non-human animals is not bad enough, animal agriculture also causes harm to humans.

Social justice is about protecting the most vulnerable members of our society. It is about protecting those who constantly have their oppression justified by the assertion that they are somehow less important than those who hold dominant identities.

Animals are vulnerable members of our society, and they deserve our protection. However, all but a few members of the dominant group (humans, in this case) insist that our abuse of these beings is justified simply because they belong to another species. It’s true that they are not human, but our differences are no excuse to cause harm when we could easily avoid causing harm. Using differences as a justification for violence has caused a large number of atrocities throughout history, and we would do well to end the violence we currently inflict on animals.

One of the facets of oppression is that it gives some of us unfair advantages by systems out of our control. This isn't necessarily our fault, but when we have those advantages, it is our duty to use them to deconstruct the systems oppressing our fellow beings. Each of us has been born human. Will we use that privilege to profit from suffering and death, or will we reject it to create a more just world for all?

I’d like to challenge my non-vegan social justice friends to do what you already do so well: recognize the problem, educate yourselves, and do better. Join us. Extend your fight for justice.

Links for further learning:

List of written work by Aph Ko

Lauren Ornelas: The Power of Our Food Choices (Ted Talk)

Collectively Free on intersectionality

1. http://www.foodispower.org/environmental-racism/

2 http://www.foodispower.org/slaughterhouse-workers/

3. http://comfortablyunaware.com/blog/the-world-hunger-food-choice-connection-a-summary/#sthash.EKvcUSSi.dpuf

#animalrights #humanrights #vegan #socialjustice