Human Supremacy: What Does the Animal Rights Movement Mean?

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What does our movement mean?

This weekend you will attend workshops, hear talks, see films,

and learn about organizations that represent the wide breadth of efforts

taking place under the banner of the animal rights movement.

You will hear about work to spread veganism,

efforts to enact and enforce laws that protect animals,

and campaigns to stop specific abuses.

You will learn how to use certain tools in your activism

from social media to storytelling to virtual reality

and you will have opportunities to debate the best strategies for making change.

You will meet other compassionate and passionate people

who are deeply committed to improving the world for animals.

You will undoubtedly walk away inspired.

As you go about your days at this conference, keep this question in mind:

What does our movement mean?

To an outsider?

To our society?

What does it even mean that there is an animal rights movement?

Does it mean that animals should suffer less before they become food?

That some of the worst confinement, mutilations, and violations of animal cruelty laws should be stamped out?

Does our movement mean that certain uses of animals

like imprisoning them in theme parks and circuses

are simply beyond the pale?

Does the existence of an animal rights movement mean there should be more vegan options?

More vegan products?

More vegans?

Because another thing you will hear about this weekend

is that we are making progress in these areas.

I've been doing animal rights activism for two decades,

and in that time we have achieved many of the goals

that seemed so out of reach when I first joined this movement.

The term factory farming is widely understood,

and the practice is widely condemned.

There is growing awareness that producing dairy and eggs

involves at least as much suffering as producing meat.

We are enacting animal welfare legislation

and forcing other policy changes to stop some of the worst practices.

We are seeing the increasing recognition

of the liberty interest of so-called higher animals

and widespread public opinion that has decimated the attendance and profits at SeaWorld

and forced Ringling Brothers to retire elephants and then close up shop entirely.

[Applause]

I became a vegan 21 years ago this month

and for my first several years I met few people who even knew what the word meant.

Now the diet is widely known,

and vegan food is widely--though not sufficiently or equitably--available.

And public discourse about animal issues is growing.

They are being discussed in prominent publications by so-called thought leaders,

and academic animal studies programs are spreading.

It is not enough.

These accomplishments are notable.

They deserve applause.

They have come about through the extremely hard work,

the tirelessness, the blood, sweat, and tears of people who are ferociously dedicated.

Believe me.

I understand the sacrifices we make to achieve even the smallest gains for animals.

Still, it is not enough.

Because it rests upon a flawed foundation.

We have yet to make the meaning of the animal rights movement

a challenge to the use of species to deny rights,

inflict violence, and cause suffering.

We have yet to make the animal rights movement and anti-speciesism movement.

Every social movement contains a variety of meanings.

It pursues numerous goals and has internal disagreements.

But if we look at movements for equality and justice

that have been organizing longer than we have

movements that are still fighting but which have made more progress than us

we see that they rest upon a firm foundation:

that whatever illegitimate characteristic has historically been used

to treat one group as less than another,

it will no longer fly.

A movement for racial justice has many goals

and seemingly countless manifestations of racism against which to fight.

But at bottom, its very existence means

that race is not a legitimate basis for treating individuals and groups differently.

A movement against sexism and for gender justice

challenges our society in a variety of practical and theoretical ways.

But most fundamentally, the meaning of such a movement

is that sex and gender are not legitimate bases for treating people unequally.

A disability rights movement seeks many concrete changes,

but ultimately it means that no one should be treated

as less than anyone else because of what abilities they do or do not possess.

These movements are not similar in all respects

to the animal rights movement, nor to each other.

There are many relevant differences.

But I think they have at least this much in common:

that in order to be effective in the long run,

the primary message they consistently deliver

is that people ought to be treated equally

independent of their membership in different groups.

Whatever concrete goals and conceptual changes these movements seek,

whatever systems of power we must continue to tear down to actually create a world

in which people are not treated unequally for these reasons,

the demand for equality is clear.

The animal rights movement has yet to do this.

To make the foundational meaning of our movement

opposition to speciesism and a challenge to human supremacy.

To be clear, I am not saying there should be no more welfare campaigns,

no more meat reduction efforts, no more vegan outreach,

no more short term goals.

Other movements have benefited from incremental gains and moderate efforts,

and so can we.

And on the road to animal liberation, we must make as many reforms as possible

to help animals who are suffering right now.

And I believe in a pluralistic movement.

That moderate and radical effort can complement each other.

Rather I am talking about the center of gravity in our movement.

Right now our moderate efforts are the primary idea people associate with animal rights.

The primary meaning of the so-called animal rights movement is animal welfare,

and this needs to shift.

The primary ideas associated with our movement should be the stronger ones,

not the moderate ones.

[Applause]

This is the only way to get at the root of the problem.

Speciesism is the operating principle at the bottom

of exploitation and violence against animals.

And the fact that speciesism is deemed legitimate

is the reason for the extent of that exploitation and violence.

It is because you are not human that we can eat you.

It is because you are not human that we can turn you into shoes and belts and coats.

It is because you are not human that we can lock you in a cage,

pump you full of chemicals, and kill you

to test things like coffee sweeteners and detergents

and drugs to stop compulsive shopping.

It is because you are not human that we can kidnap you from your home,

tear you from your family, and force you to perform for our entertainment.

I could go on.

And of course being a member of the human species

is hardly a guarantee against violence, exploitation, and oppression.

Declaring that certain differences may not be used to deny right

does not make it so.

But failing to declare it guarantees that it will never be so.

Until we vocally, prominently, and unflinchingly demand an end to speciesism,

we are just trimming branches.

We have not yet attacked the roots of the poison tree.

Some will argue the opposite:

that in fact the things we have accomplished came about

because we have avoided showing our true hand.

Because we have moderated our demands and joined forces

with those who would never entertain the idea that speciesism is wrong

but who will support an end to battery cages.

My critics will point out how far we have come

in 20, 10, even 5 years.

They will remind me how back then

we could not have imagined achieving things we have now done.

And they will say again that we have done it

without invoking controversial ideas like speciesism,

without using uncomfortable terms like human supremacy.

Don't get me wrong: I was there too.

Back in my college days, back when I was running the SHAC campaign,

I could not have imagined entire states banning extreme confinement and animal agriculture.

I would have been floored by a New York Times columnist noticing

"a broadening deepening concern about animals that is no longer sufficiently captured by the phrase animal welfare,"

and his declaring that

"an era of what might be called animal dignity is upon us."

I could not have imagined the idea that the circus I protested for years,

which had arrived in town marching its elephants through the streets of my city,

would close up shop because the idea of forcing majestic animals

to perform in a circus was no longer profitable.

And don't get me wrong: we should be very, very proud.

But we must never let what we have achieved

limit what we think we can achieve.

We must never let looking back on our successes

limit our imagined goals for the future.

Yes, we should remember that 20, 10, 5 years ago

we could not have envisioned what we have now achieved,

and that should tell us not to limit our vision now.

And the truth is we don't know.

We don't know what it would mean for our movement

to truly stand for an end to exploitation and violence on the basis of species.

Because we have yet to turn the growing groundswell

of concern for animals in that direction.

At first it may look like the wrong turn.

Make no mistake: when we finally speak up

in a way that challenges a norm that runs so deep,

that pervades our society at every level,

that structures our entire world,

we will get flak.

Whenever we do it, whether it is tomorrow as I am calling for,

or whether it takes another 10 years.

When our movement finally speaks up for animals in this way

we will be dismissed, we will be ridiculed,

we will be subjected to one of the most powerful polices

of behavior there is: social condemnation.

And it will make us feel like we should stop.

We will take those initial reactions,

the immediate feedback we get from our activism,

as a sign that what we are doing is counterproductive.

But this too must be part of our vision.

We must be able to see beyond the initial reactions of those

who have never questioned the things we are raising questions about.

We must see past the abandonment by powerful interests

who claim to be our allies.

We must be able to see even beyond dismissal and ridicule

by our fellow animal activists who will be so unsettled

by how firmly we stand up for animals.

They will want to temper our activism even more than our opponents.

I attended a Superbowl party this year.

As we were watching the game, a fellow party goer joked

"what if animal rights activists ran out onto the field."

This person who has done animal rights activism for decades,

who has been arrested and convicted and jailed for it,

who had their home raided by the FBI,

has faced civil suits, and faced down grand juries

was making fun of our fellow activists

who have disrupted sporting events in the name of animal rights.

Everyone else at the party,

also vegans and animal rights activists, laughed.

But I know if people had rushed the field

to condemn Donald Trump's xenophobic and unconstitutional travel ban,

if they had disrupted the Super Bowl to demand an end to police violence,

if they had done it to oppose pipelines that violate treaties,

destroy sacred land, and pollute our planet,

my fellow Super Bowl partiers

my fellow animal rights activists

would not have laughed.

They would have rightly cheered on those people

who interrupted while the whole world was watching.

Demanded attention to these issues

and an end to oppression and violence.

But when it comes to animals, it looks weird even to us.

We feel ashamed by those who will do for animals

what it seems admirable to do for humans.

In our heads we know that oppression and violence

against animals is no less an emergency,

no less deserving of forcing the issue into everyone's attention

and onto everyone's TV screen.

And yet our stomachs flip.

It makes many of us uncomfortable to see people acting like it.

We have trouble seeing beyond the water we are swimming in.

That we are affected by the very biases we are trying to challenge.

It is as though we are saying:

because you are not human, we will not rush the field for you.

In the course of writing this talk

I thought a lot about why I'm up here.

Why the organizers of this conference felt

I was a fitting person to fill a top speaking slot.

And I think it's because we want to see people

who have been knocked down due to their activism

and have gotten back up and kept fighting.

We want to hear from people who are bloodied but unbowed.

[Applause]

As much as you need to see me up here

still fighting after prison

I need to see you out there in the world

demanding an end to speciesism

and supporting one another in doing so.

Because I do not always speak up strongly for animals.

I stood up here a few years ago and told this entire conference

how I had gotten up from a dinner table and turned my back on my family

rather than eat with them while they are eating animals.

I told you that walking away from them

was harder than walking into prison.

And I will tell you now that it is still hard,

and I do not always succeed.

I work at the Center for Constitutional Rights,

where we do what I believe is some of the most important

human rights and social justice litigation there is.

I've been at CCR for six years

and that entire time I have struggled

to urge CCR to consider whether animal rights

is part of our broader struggle for justice.

My dear friend and colleague Rachel Meeropol

who is in the audience tonight

will remind me that we have made substantial gains.

That while CCR may not yet have confronted

the fundamental issue of animal liberation,

we have for example an acted a vegan policy

for all of the food that CCR provides and pays for.

[Applause]

But even while Rachel is talking me out of my exaggerated sense of failure,

she will concede that I have most often bit my tongue

when something at work sets me on fire for animals.

And I did not speak up at the Super Bowl party.

I did not say to my friends what I am saying now.

That if we think there are different standards of protest for humans and nonhumans,

then we ourselves have yet to escape the very ideas we are challenging.

But I thought about it.

And it has nagged at me.

There were many things that were hard about prisons.

One thing that was not hard was standing behind my actions,

feeling proud of having stood up for what I believed in.

And that is because of the overwhelming support I received

for doing what quite frankly was a hell of a lot crazier

and more foolish than rushing a football field

with a banner about animal rights.

My peers celebrated me.

Let me assure you:

what I'm suggesting we all need to do for animals

is much harder than going to prison.

To stand up and stand strong even when few will celebrate you

and many will scorn you.

It is one of the hardest things in the world

to be virtually alone in saying

that something almost everyone else believes is wrong.

It can be harder to stand up to your peers,

to people you admire and respect,

than it is to stand up to evil corporations and governments.

And it can be next to impossible to do it alone.

When you are out there in the world

and not sitting in a room with hundreds of people

feeding off our shared energy.

We must support the heretics,

those who are ridiculed for most firmly proclaiming our shared beliefs.

We must help them tap into the feeling in the room tonight,

even when they are virtually alone.

And we must join them.

Though I have often been too afraid to speak up at CCR.

Though my conflicting desires have sometimes kept me sitting at a meaty dinner table.

Though I stayed silent in the presence of a friend's super bowl mocking.

I will also say this:

anytime I have had just one other person willing to speak up

or walk away with me,

I have found the strength to do it.

If we do what needs to be done

to make the very existence of our movement a challenge to speciesism

we will be called silly,

we will be dismissed,

we will be condemned.

At first.

But the only way out of that is through it.

We can only challenge what is normalized

by normalizing the challenge to it.

[Applause]

Many of us have had the experience

of being written off as a caricature.

This reflects that we are still relatively speaking

in the early days of our movement.

But the way to push forward is not to back off

when we are written off.

It is to continue to deliver the message

until we cannot be written off.

There will not come a time when people are ready to hear it.

That is not a time you wait for.

It is a moment you create.

Another thing you are likely to hear this weekend

is that we are winning.

We are not winning.

And truly no disrespect to those speaking

on various "we're winning" panels this weekend.

We are indeed setting campaign goals and we are achieving them.

But I mean something different by winning.

We are winning when the status quo must defend its position.

When the point over which we are arguing is the fundamental one.

We are winning when we create an actual debate

over whether we can continue to eat, wear, test on,

capture, confine, breed, mutilate, slaughter,

and destroy the habitats of billions,

simply because they were not born into our species.

The subtitle of this panel is "inspiring messages for our movement."

And I do not mean to uninspire

when I say that it is not enough

or when I say that we are not winning.

But I would rather inspire you by what we can do,

than by what we have done.

And I believe we can win.

Our moral position is strong.

The dominant ideas about animals are not dominant because they are right,

they are dominant because they have never faced a true challenge.

Those who believe these ideas have never actually had to defend them.

If we force this debate, we will win it.

[Applause]

No doubt the industry hacks in the audience tonight

will warn in their publications that I am up here

touting crazy ideas like speciesism,

tossing around extremist terms like human supremacy.

Please, prove them right.

The next time I ask what does our movement mean,

let the answer be that speciesism is wrong,

and we will end it.

Thank you.

[Applause]