PETA Alpha Wolf Unrepentant at Offending African-Americans
I wrote recently about the offensive PETA Animal Liberation Project, which compares lynched blacks with slaughtered cattle and makes other similar implied minorities-are-no-better-than-animals photographic juxtapositions. Civil rights groups are rightly expressing outrage. While an organization spokesperson appeared to be backtracking by claiming the group was reevaluating its advocacy campaign, Ingrid Newkirk, the fanatical head of PETA, remains rigidly unrepentent. She writes in her blog that "we are all animals, so get over it," and derides those who find it a great wrong to lynch blacks but not see an equal injustice in killing animals for food, "selfish little supremacists."
Keep it up, Ingrid. Such displays are finally penetrating beneath the veneer of PETA as a wacky, but well intentioned animal welfare outfit, and exposing the raw anti-human ideology that lurks beneath. PETA's leaders really believe there is no moral distinction to be made between human beings and animals. That is misanthropy, pure and simple.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:42 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
How have we come to a place in time where ridiculous people with silly arguments have been able to hijack public debate? I have never seen anything as goofy as the PETA people and their protests.
How do they get such coverage? Is our media chock full of adolescents?
People like this should be ignored. That is, unless they break the law. Then they should be prosecuted. It is disgusting that they are given a platform for discussion without being labeled the loons that they are.
You can't ignore them. You must expose them. They have political clout, and moreover, are aiming this bilge at the schools. I would be interested if anyone who reads this blog has ever had children come home to announce that the dog or cat is equal to the rest of the family. I have heard that story more than once.
I know, of course, that you are right that we can't ignore them now. I just can't understand how people with such ridiculously ludicrous positions have gained political clout in the first place.
THE PETA ads did misfire and have caused a lot of noise. However, I truly do not believe that PETA meant to offend anyone.
All life is precious.
Human life is the most precious of life.
What has happened to black people with the slave trade, slavery, and colonization in Africa is horrific and on its face value does not compare with animal suffering.
And surely black people are fully human beings and not animals.
However, it is true that there is a point of connection between the mistreatment of animals, the earth and plant life, and human beings mistreatment of other human beings.
How we care for those who are “lesser” than us in the life hierarchy often predicts how we will care about other life forms.
If you look closely at white male dominated racism, one will see how this tyranny has not only injured and murdered people; but look at how the earth is abused; and how so many animals have been killed for sport and some life forms killed to the point of extinction.
There is a thread that sews together all of this hatred, disrespect, and pain.
PETA was simply attempting to illustrate the continuum of pain and exploitation of all living beings on this planet.
Obviously, for many people PETA failed at the analogy that they were trying to make.
But again, I do not believe that PETA purposely intended to offend black people.
I wish that for less media driven issues like hunger in Africa, the epidemic of HIV/AIDS both among black Americans and in Africa, and the crisis of black people being incarcerated at record levels in America received the same energy and response from the black community.
It just seems like the more complex issues that require thought and organization we shy away from, while almost wanting and seeking obvious blunders like the PETA campaign.
Dear benindaker: You state that "Human life is the most precious life." Yes! But animal liberationists don't believe that! This is what I am trying to get across. The philosophy denies that very statement. Literally and explicitly. It is hard to get one's mind around, but it is essential to understand if the difference between animal welfare--pro animal--is to be understood from animal rights/liberation--anti-human. Animal welfare can be a noble cause. It forces us to confront our human duty to animals. But animal liberation would sacrifice human welfare on the alter of human/animal equality.
Thanks for contributing.
Only humans are moral agents. Thus, we have the power to choose right from wrong. Obviously animals cannot do that. Thus, while they can certainly cause harm, they are not accountable for any harm they cause. E
Of course, humans can cause greater harm because we have surmounted natural limitations and have assumed awesome powers of creation and destruction.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home