Hi everybody. We wanted to share with you
a talk entitled "Womxn, Queers, Immigrants & Animal Rights."
It was originally done at the Montclair university, in New Jersey.
For the Femvolution student club.
Thank you so much for inviting me to come and speak.
Unfortunately it wasn't recorded at the time.
We got some requests and thought we would record it ourselves.
And share it with you.
I hope everyone can feel a little more empowered after this talk.
I know for sure I did when I went to Montclair University and gave it.
So, thank you everybody.
There are some content warnings for this talk. So feel free to do whatever you need to do
to feel okay throughout the talk.
I was born and raised in Brazil and came to the USA through a political asylum petition
based on sexual orientation, became an activist who's involved in many different causes
such as LGBTQ, immigration, racial and animal rights.
I say this because I want to clarify that not only do I understand some of the issues
we're going to debate today, but that I myself may share some of the same struggles
with you.
Last year, the group I'm part of, Collectively Free, disrupted the Easter Mass at St. Patrick's
Cathedral to call attention to the glorified and invisibilized animal violence by the Catholic Church,
with a speakout followed by chants "Easter is a time for love.
No more shedding animals' blood."
The disruption generated huge media attention and one of our former organizers who got arrested
wrote an article, in response to our action, explaining the reasons behind it.
Here's an excerpt from it: "One commenter compared our action in the cathedral to "yelling
'fire' in a theater," implying that we raised alarm about a non-existent emergency.
But in this case, there is an issue at stake that is every bit as urgent as an actual fire."
To understand this urgency, please, close your eyes, if you're comfortable doing so.
Imagine that you were born and instead of feeling the warmth and comfort of your parents,
you were kidnaped, thrown into a cell, with thousands of orphans, just like you.
Your kidnappers come in frequently, to drop more and more people.
Even though you cannot understand a single word they say, you can smell the blood and
violence in every move they make.
You have no idea what you've done wrong, you're scared, hopeless, you have this deep
feeling that your purpose has already been decided for you.
You are a commodity, a product, waiting to be used and eventually killed - the screams
you heard will forever haunt you.
Every night of every day, you dream that you will be able to run free, have autonomy of
your own body, have autonomy to decide who you want to be, and let the world know that
you committed no crime, but that perhaps of being born different, different than a human.
Open your eyes.
This is the life of virtually every animal being imprisoned, tortured and killed for
human use and consumption.
And that's a very mild version of the true horrors that happen behind closed doors, in
farms, either factory farms or family owned farms; fur farms; fishing industry; labs;
and circuses.
If you're like me, who really needs to see "real proof" to believe, simply go
into YouTube and type in "animal violence farms"; "humane myth"; "humane farms";
"fishing industry investigation" (which by the way, the fishing industry is just as
dirty as land animal agriculture industry).
I'm not here to show you any of those footages, this is something you should do on your own.
The discussion of animal rights is usually not an easy and comfortable one to have because
it challenges something we all have - at some extent. And I wan to make that very clear
That is human supremacy.
Human supremacy creates a form of discrimination called 'speciesism', which is systemic violence
against nonhuman animals and particularly benefits white human supremacy as we will see.
Tonight, I am not going to debate, per se, the fact that nonhuman animals are people,
individuals.
That is like me, as an ally, hearing someone debate whether or not a trans woman or man
is worthy of consideration because they are "just" trans, or whether or not immigrants
have rights because they are "just immigrants".
A trans woman or man, an immigrant, or a fish is a someone because it's not their gender,
their citizenship, or species that define their status of moral consideration, it's
the fact that they are all individuals who exist for their own purposes, individuals
who feel.
We know from over 2,500 studies that nonhuman animals are individuals who at their most
basic level seek pleasure, flee from harm, have awareness, feel love and pain.
Just like human animals.
Xenophanes, a pre-Socratic philosopher challenged anthropocentrism (the idea that humans are
the center of the universe), basically. By saying that "if horses or cows or lions had hands to
draw with their hands and produce works of art as men do, horses would draw the figures
of gods like horses and cows like cows, and they would make their bodies just as the form
which they each have themselves."
The fact that thinkers and institutions in the West depict gods as humans, is just one
example of how we, as a species, are placed in the center of everything and that therefore
it is acceptable for us to dominate over anyone else who's not a human animal.
But wait - it really doesn't stop there.
This belief is also damaging to other humans, as we use this same 'lesser than' rhetoric
to justify violence on human minorities.
As Syl Ko so brilliantly points out, "the [whites'] notion of "the animal"- construed
under their white supremacist framework as 'subhuman', 'nonhuman', or 'inhuman' - is
the conceptual vehicle for justified violence..."
She continues. The closer you are to a white, cis, heterosexual, attractive, young, able-bodied, citizen man,
the more "human" you are, and the further you are from this ideal the more "animal"
you become.
This leads people like Trump to justify calling Filipino immigrants 'animals' and 'terrorists';
or police officers to justify racism against People of Color by comparing them to 'monkeys';
or men to objectify women and reduce them to body parts, thighs, butts, breasts and
animalize them through language 'she's a bitch', 'that fat whale', 'what a cow!' in order to
keep rape culture, sizeism and patriarchy unchecked; or Zionists who call Palestinians
'animals' in order to keep the apartheid thriving.
Let me tell you a little story about me growing up in Brazil, and what I learned in the History books.
I learned that Brazil was "discovered" and that Cabral brought great development
to the country.
What we didn't learn was that white colonizers, like Cabral, were terrorists.
They committed genocide against natives and brought oppressions like sexism, racism and
homophobia (it wasn't until colonizers came that homosexuality actually became a crime)
In addition, white terrorists also brought greed and commodification of everything
and everyone.
Gold, silver and copper were extracted by slave-labor and sent to Europe.
And when is the first time ever of record of farm animals being brought to Brazil?
During the colonization period.
By whom?
The Portuguese.
It started with just a few animals but soon enough they requested from Joao III, the king
of Portugal, an entire ship, called 'Galga', just to transport cows.
And just like that, the breeding of animals in Brazilian territory took off.
That is capitalism deeply connected with patriarchy, heterosexism and speciesism.
Are we not replicating that white, colonizer notion when we choose to treat nonhuman animals
like they are inferior to us because of their species?
Should we not be challenging what being 'an animal' means when oppressors call us 'animals'
to try and dehumanize us?
As my good friend, Laura Schleifer says, "animals are not the perpetrators of violence, they
are the victims of systemic violence."
Of course, I do not expect you to simply forget prolonged history of dehumanization of minorities
by equating them to nonhuman animals but rather I'd like to invite you to shift your perspective
and start regarding nonhuman animals as the allies they truly are.
As Carol Adams points out, in her book "The Sexual Politics of Meat", the culture of
seeing women's bodies as 'parts' (breasts, butts, thighs) is inseparable from the culture
of seeing animals as nothing but bacon, ribs or wings.
This culture is evident in advertising, media, everyday conversation and language use.
Check out this racist and speciesist book, called "Why Latinas get the Guy"
by a white dude, that calls it "a no-BS guide to understanding the allure of Latin-American
women and spicing up your love life."
Throughout the text, Bovino describes 14 types, or rather "species," of "chicas," U.S.-based Latinas
It's really more like "a full BS guide on how to control Latin-American women by reducing
them to body parts and by saying that real men must consume meat - literally."
It's important to notice that generally, women with light skin are seen as "appetizing",
while women with darker skin are seen as "exotic" as many ads demonstrate.
It's also really clear on Carol Adam's work and there are a lot of examples in there.
Historically speaking, women and animals have always been seen as the property of men.
Controlling 'livestock' is what gave men a better control over women, who were unable
to become independent.
Then, women started to use cows as a form of independence from men, becoming oppressors
themselves and forgetting that nonhumans had always been victims of patriarchy as well.
To me, it's almost as if women then didn't create an identity of their own but rather
But that's an entirely different topic and it's not as simple as that.
There are many variables taking place. For example, differences between women
of color and white women when it comes to those dynamics, etc.
Just something to point out.
pattrice jones has a powerful essay which tackles some of the points mentioned which
I'll be sharing as well with you.
And check this out, one of the biggest anti-feminist industries out there is the "dairy" industry,
which controls the bodies of female-assigned cows since the moment they were born.
And I think it's important to know a few key-things about what cows in the dairy industry
Let's clarify something: cows don't lactate (aka, produce milk) if they aren't pregnant,
or if they aren't impregnated.
What happens is that cow are violated and forcefully impregnated - all for profit,
which makes the whole process so insidious.
They don't get to decide if they want to have babies or not, nor do they get the chance
to spend time with their babies, (if that's their will) who are removed immediately after birth.
The pain of a broken bond can be so painful to the mothers that they cry for days, nonstop.
They cry so loud, that in Massachusetts, people called the police about it.
But of course, the farmers told the police not to worry, this is all natural and part
of farming practices.
Baby cows are too just another dollar sign (calves assigned female follow the footsteps
of their mothers, and those assigned male don't get a chance to grow up, instead,
they are crammed into a tiny crate and are killed for "veal").
The process repeats itself for about 4 years which is as much as a cow's body and mind
can withstand such violence - by the way, cows could have lived up to 25 years.
And this insidious process is not exclusive to cows - we do similar things to every animal
being used as a commodity to humans.
I'm a survivor of domestic violence and that shit really hits home for me.
The toxic masculinity justifying violence against a "lesser than" individual, turning
someone into a something.
And more: it also convinces other women that what we to do to nonhuman animals is perfectly
normal.
But even if none of this really speaks to you, at least, there's no way denying that
speciesism and patriarchy are intrinsically connected and that adding anti-speciesism
to your feminism or form of resistance will definitely make your advocacy stronger.
Check this article out!
The use of milk by Nazis is actually NOT just because milk is white in appearance.
There's an inherently violent connection between animal violence, in this case in form of animal
agriculture (the dairy industry), patriarchy and white supremacy.
White colonizers (back in the day and modern) control the bodies of nonhuman animals and
and use the same rhetoric of control and dominance to oppress women and other minorities.
Thus, the symbol of masculinity, and yes, 'purity', is tied to controlling nonhumans
bodies as well.
I wasn't surprised at all when I saw this article but I was so happy to see that the author
actually included veganism as a form of resistance and as a big fuck you to white supremacy.
Veganism de-stabilizes what being a man and white mean and also what being an animal means.
Right?
Veganism can and should be used as a tool to reclaim identity and to fight back.
And some of this de-estabilization moments can be studied further on also Carol Adam's work.
There's a movie that just came out called "Get Out", which I highly recommend!
There's one scene in there that you will probably look at differently now
that you know this information. Right. I'm just going to say there's someone
drinking milk. Which is probably going to make a lot more sense to you now.
Continuing on speciesism and its branches, Christopher Peterson points, "the association
with animality and sexuality can be traced as far as Cicero who argued in his 'Moral
Obligations'[…]
Portraying homosexuality as a bestial act allows the homophobe to deny the animality
present in all sexuality."
Homosexuality throughout history may have had its moments of temporary acceptance - then
it was criminalized and stigmatized by religious institutions and white people.
In Jamaica, for example, the anti-gay legislation is derived from the British 1861 Offences
against the Person Act.
The sexuality of both nonhuman animals and human animals are suppressed by society: because
heterosexuality and cisgender-ness are considered the norms, LGBTQ+ folks sometimes feel fearful
to express their sexuality, especially in places where being queer can literally get
you killed.
Like in about 79 countries or in farms, zoos and labs.
In farms, there is absolutely no consideration whatsoever to any of the animals' sexuality,
or gender identity.
They never get the chance to know themselves and express their sexuality.
In addition, a queer animal is considered of no economical value to the industry.
A famous case is Benji, "the gay bull", who was rescued from being killed solely because
he showed no interest in any cows but was much interested in other bulls.
After Benj was rescued, he started showing interest in what we think as the opposite
sex, so totally cool to be bi! Way to go, Benji!
In Russia, prosecutors accused the relationship between Amur the tiger and Timur the goat
to be harmful to children by provoking "interest in non-traditional sexual relations".
By the way, according to humans, Amur was "supposed to eat" Timur. In their case, speciesism
is intrinsically connected with misogyny and homophobia.
We never learn who nonhuman animals are, we are not taught to see them as the individuals
who feel, and love and we never hear their stories.
Especially their stories of resistance!
Yes.
Nonhuman animals fight back.
But the reason why we rarely hear these stories isn't because they doesn't exist.
It's because they exist in a system built to minimize them.
Cages, crates, electric prods, single-file chutes - these are all technology devices
designed and used to disempower nonhuman animals so they don't resist.
Yet they still fight, any chance they get.
Beyoncé escaped from a live market in Brooklyn and hid in a nearby vacant lot surrounded
by a high chain link fence.
She survived there for nearly two weeks until some caring humans brought her to Safe Haven.
They named her Beyoncé because she is from Brooklyn and she is a survivor!
Chickens, like Beyonce, can now be killed at a rate of 140 per minute in the US and
slaughterhouses can police themselves even more, with less and less government interference
making them very efficient killing machines.
And that's just in one facility.
The numbers are so big that's it's really hard for us to even fathom.
51.4 billion individuals artificially hatched, fattened up and slaughtered as 42-day-old
babies every year globally.
These are not just statistics that we have to take seriously, these are lives we have
to take seriously.
Rea Carey, who is the Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force says that: "Leadership
for me is tied to this question of vision… and a desire for wholeness… we can't ask
someone to be an undocumented immigrant one day, a lesbian the next, and a mom the third
day… our vision is about… transforming society so that she can be all of those things
every single day and that there would be a connectedness among social justice workers
and among the organizations, and agendas, if you will, to make her life whole."
This quote summarizes exactly how I feel about activism.
Rea Carey understands that the only way she will be able to completely smash homophobia/transphobia
is by also attacking the relationships that makes homophobia and transphobia strong.
She understands that questions like gender, immigration status, class and so many other
issues make homophobia and transphobia thrive.
(Hint, speciesism also helps those systems thrive).
Speaking of immigrants, when we talk about animal agriculture we have to realize that is an
exploitative industry that profits not just from the bodies of animals - it profits from
the bodies and legal status of undocumented people or people with legal history.
In fact, the industry in the US could not operate if it wasn't for the exploitation
of undocumented immigrants!
Immigrants who often times are escaping poverty, violence only to be faced with perhaps a little
less poverty and a different kind of violence.
High alcohol and substance use, high domestic violence reports and PTSD are only a few of
the consequences slaughterhouse workers have.
The industry also profits from financially insecure communities that don't have the
political power to demand that factory farms, slaughterhouses, etc. not be built near their
homes.
I see a long overdue partnership opportunity between animal rights movement and immigrant rights.
In the book "The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration" David
Bacon interview several people in Veracruz and beyond.
Here's what they had to say: "Granjas Carroll (a massive slaughterhouse)
under a different name in Mexico but very well known in the U.S. as Smith Field Farms
doesn't use concrete or membranes under their ponds," Torres charges, "so the
water table is getting contaminated.
People here get their water from wells, which are surrounded by pig farms and oxidation ponds."
Fausto Limon said: "The granjas came in '94 and '95.
What we experienced at first was the stench.
The air smells like rotten meat.
The wind has a chemical smell.
I can't really describe how bad it smells.
At night we'd begin to vomit, and we'd get into my pickup truck and drive until we
couldn't smell it any longer, and we'd all sleep in the truck."
Let that sink in for a moment.
Why is it important to include anti-speciesism struggles in your fight?
1-) Because it's the right thing to do.
My new phrase is "it's not either/or it's both/and".
Rather than minimizing oppressions we should be highlighting them.
Looking at the past and present of a few movements, let's see how they handled issues of inclusion
of other struggles.
Let's start with the Indian Independence movement.
Gandhi included no women in his original group of 70 satyagraha.
This created a deep resentment from many female freedom fighters who put their bodies on the
line (side note: he was also racist).
The Civil Rights movement, which was mostly male-dominant, and the feminist movement which
was mostly white-dominant, led black feminists to create the theory of intersectionality
to specifically analyze how race and gender intersect.
And let's not forget how the white cis men took all the credit for the Stonewall Riots
when in fact it was trans women of color who lead them!
Or the animal rights movement which imposes its whiteness and pushes people of color away,
still likes to pretend that AR is an invention of the white, erasing such important groups
like MOVE from the animal rights history books.
If this is your first time hearing about MOVE I highly recommend you do some research on
them.
Do we want to replicate the past and for some of us, present, or do we want to do better?
I came across a book called When We Fight, We Win, which talks about how the new wave
of social justice movements is taking a more serious pro-intersectional approach because
they understand the links among oppressions and because they know that together, they
are stronger.
I want to bring one of my favorite current movements and that is Black Lives Matter.
BLM can teach us a lot.
BLM at its core is a queer, feminist movement and it has made it very clear that it will
not tolerate being anything less than that.
BLM has been a strong supporter of Palestine, and endorses BDS.
BLM has connected immigration rights, has showed up for native's rights in Dakota
and has even marched when a white man was victim of police brutality.
In addition, not too long ago, the Chicago Chapter threw an all vegan event.
Yup.
There are tons of BLM folks who are vegan.
And I mean, organizers.
As feminists, I think we can all agree that we want feminism to be inclusive because women
are not static, right?
Especially when we think that historically, white feminism has pushed minorities away,
like queer, trans, Latinx, Blacks, Asians, immigrants, low-income, and disabled women
and yes, nonhuman animals too.
We want to make sure we advocate for all of them.
Why are we stopping at one's species is something we have to ask ourselves and investigate.
Is it maybe because we have that human privilege I mentioned in the beginning of the talk and
we don't want to acknowledge we have it?
Or is it maybe because we enjoy that privilege too much to try and fight for those victims?
Here's a little exercise I'd like to make:
Every time you think the announced privilege applies to you, please raise your hand.
This is not an exercise to call anyone out, or point fingers, it's an opportunity for
all of us to put things into perspective.
When referring to me, by law, the pronoun "it" is not used
The law protects me from being killed for food and/or clothing
By law, my species membership allows me protection against scientific experiments
According to the law, I'm not viewed as property
These are only 4 privileges we have in relationship to nonhuman animals we may not even think
about.
All made possible also because of patriarchal ideologies.
As we've seen, patriarchy becomes stronger with speciesism.
But not just with patriarchy: with white supremacy, in the shape of police brutality, with mass
incarceration and the othering of minorities; with capitalism, by turning someone's into
somethings; with heterosexism, by criminalization; with ableism, by otherization and devaluing
people's lives; with classism, and so on.
Our goal with Collectively Free is to really unite the animal and human rights movements
which we've been doing through several campaigns, actions, open meetings, conferences, and solidarity
work.
I'd like to share a video of a campaign where we do exactly that.
As part of the plan of resistance, we put together 3 series of open meetings to discuss
the various ways in which the Trump administration was going to impact minorities in our communities
(human and nonhuman) and then organized a trip to DC.
We joined forces with the Disrupt J20 and prevented Trump supporters from getting past
a checkpoint for the inauguration.
We brought attention to the systemic violence against animals in agriculture, oil industry,
fashion and entertainment, both now and going forward under this fascist regime.
Our message is simple: all species have the right to freedom, all species have the right
to migrate, all species have the right to water.
[VIDEO]
When we started to be more public about our anti-oppression position, we got bombarded
(by mostly white men) with questions such as what does animal rights have to do with
race/immigration, etc.?
Isn't this an animal rights page?
Rea Carey from the National LGBTQ Task Force talks about her difficulties when they started
supporting immigrants - "why are you helping 'these' people"?
Furious queers shouted.
And in "Freedom is a Constant Struggle" Angela Davis talks about the trajectory of
the Black Liberation movement when the connections with Palestine became obvious and the resistance
and work in bringing that struggle in.
The reason why it may seem very far off for you to include the liberation of nonhuman
animals in your work is simply because it hasn't been normalized, yet.
We rarely see human rights campaigns, or movements include anti-speciesism and on the other hand
we rarely see animal rights campaigns that include human struggles.
We need to change that and normalize anti-speciesist struggles in the media, at rallies, in campaigns,
etc., alongside the struggles of humans.
So, here are some tips on how can you start implementing anti-speciesism in your work/life/form
of resistance
Look at the roots.
I've given a few examples of how speciesism is a fundamental layer that helps better understand
other struggles and also how to dismantle ism's.
But dig deeper.
Amazing resources I learned so much from came from revolutionary people like Dr. A. Breeze
Harper and her book Sistah Vegan (eco-feminism, feminism, black and animal liberation), the
articles and Facebook posts of Christopher Sebastian (focuses on queer, black and animal
liberation, as well as classism and speciesism - and yes, you can friend or follow him) and
articles by Aph Ko.
I'll share more links to resources with you all.
Join a community that's inclusive.
The animal rights movement has a fame for being non-inclusive, I'm not going to lie.
But there's SO much more than PETA and Human Society out there.
I promise!
There are projects lead by Brenda Sanders, from PEP Foods, that make vegan food accessible
to low-income communities.
Or the folks from Chillis on Wheels, who feed the homeless and provide community support,
also Food not Bombs; Food Empowerment Project, who support workers while fighting for food
justice, and a Well-Fed World, an international hunger relief program fighting for both human
and animal liberation.
For a list of more organizations check out our Get Active page.
I can speak from my own personal experience that when I lived in Brazil, I didn't have
a community that helped me connect the dots.
I was much worried about not being harassed at every block on the street for holding hands
with my girlfriends, or actually running away from Skinheads when I thought they were going
to cut my guts out - speciesism, or other forms of oppression that didn't affect me
directly, were not on my list of priorities.
I'm not saying that it was okay for me to pollute the oceans because "oh, heterosexism",
but rather that if I had known how heterosexism oppresses human and nonhuman animals, I could
have used that link as a form of resistance and consequently learned more and more and
just genuinely cared about the animals I once regarded as mere commodities.
Not only that, but a door would have opened to challenge so many other privileges I have.
Think of language use.
Language is one of the many ways speciesism manifests itself.
Avoid slurs, chants, posters and campaigns that use animals to diminish others.
If your friend doesn't want to be arrested in an action, they are not a chicken, chickens
are fucking brave, remember that, ha!
Pigs are our the victims of violence, not the perpetrators of violence, let alone cops!
Hold meetings, events that don't exploit animals.
Perhaps the most apparent, yet one of the most invisible violence against nonhumans
is what we call food.
By holding all plant-based meetings and events we are directly helping the environment as
animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions (more than
all transportation combined!).
I highly recommend the film Cowspiracy to learn more about the impact animal agriculture
has on the planet.
Also, the impact animal-based foods have on our health: all major diseases such as heart
attacks, strokes and cancer are linked to the consumption of animals.
It's not a coincidence that fast food places prey on low-income communities, ensuring that
there isn't a single fresh fruit or vegetable available in their neighborhoods, neighborhoods
which tend to be vastly populated by people of color.
Side note: I'm not ignoring the horrors in the vegetable and fruit agriculture business.
It's also disgusting.
And I'm going to quote Christopher Sebastian on this because it was too damn good.
He says: "Dear Conscious/Woke Allies, I know that eating ethically is an epic task
because exploitation is built into our food system.
I GET that.
But regardless of what else you do, vegan will always be the more ethical choice.
No, I don't always know who picked my strawberries.
No I don't always know how far they had to travel.
But YOU know goddamn well, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that beef is *always* someone's
corpse and dairy is made from stolen breast milk.
So I'mma need you to be just ever-so-slightly more woke."
Create actions and events that reflect a common-goal.
Think about how patriarchy intersects with women and nonhuman rights.
If you're disrupting an anti-LGBTQ meeting and they happen to be serving animals, call
that shit out and make the connection!
I'll share a link in which we've done exactly that.
To conclude Could it be that the system really wants animal
rights activists to focus only on fighting speciesism without acknowledging the fact
the same system treating nonhuman animals as expendable is the SAME system saying "Make
America Great Again," pushing for the deportation of immigrants, shooting people of color, controlling
women's bodies, killing LGBTQ people, and treating disabled folks as lesser than?
In the same way, that they want feminists to focus just on feminism, or racial justice
activists to focus solely on race?
Let's unite, because when we do, we will be unstoppable.
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