Speciesism/Racism

"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" (698) An animal cannot be faulted for not having the ability to speak for its interests and communicate with us humans. They cannot beg for their lives when they're being slaughtered. So we must fight for them and speak against the unnecessary brutality behind the mass slaughter of animals for meat in a society obsessed with consumption. "The hierarchy of meat protein reinforces a hierarchy of race, class, and sex." (p.700) This quote was interesting because I had never come to recognize those connections on my own. Still it is strikingly similar to the mass killing of humans. I am not comparing the supposed "value" of the different species but the actual right to life that I believe every life on earth deserves.

Racism is "a belief that human races have distinctive characteristics" that make them superior to other races. (p.701) While speciesism is "a belief that different species of animals are significantly different from one another" enough so that one species has the right to rule the others. These definitions are shockingly similar and it strikes me as odd that a majority of Americans and people across the world ignore the blatant abuse of animals due to the false belief that humans are rightfully superior beings. Even if this belief were warranted, just because one may hold this belief it gives them no right to inflict pain on an innocent life.

"I am eating misery, I thought, as they took the first bite. And I spit it out." (p.726) Before I became a vegetarian I would eat meat regularly because that's what was common in my household. I would eat what my mother cooked for me, or what was customary to get at restaurants. I can bravely say that I did not like the taste of beef, but I quit eating beef completely after seeing a cow for the first time at my uncle's ranch. Ironically, the same ranch was where I kept a baby goat that was later sold for meat. That is when I stopped eating every other kind of meat and since this time I have felt stronger and happier in my own way.