Racism vs Speciesism

When looking at the things that are produce from the deaths of animals we think of the leather and meat and the scientific information gathered from experiments but we rarely stop and think of the experiences these animals face beforehand.



“The death they suffer in our hands commonly is, and always may be, a speedier, and by that means less painful one, than that which would await them in the inevitable course of nature” (757).The truth of the matter is that we really will never know since we don’t allow their natural path of life to take place. And though we see it as necessary to continue our way of life we must ask ourselves if that makes it alright? Is our way of killing animals really faster? The problem with our mentality when it comes to the killing of animals is that we do not look at it in any moral aspect since we consider animals different from ourselves. But time and again, history has shown that if we overlook what is going on it’s bound to happen again and to a different group from before. In the beginnings of our country, Indians were “considered to be ‘like animals’ by the ‘settlers’” (760a) giving justification to the killings and stealing that shortly after took place.



The oppressed have always found a way to make those they wish to oppress, usually those who have resources being seeked, appear less human. Those who aren’t part of the oppressed or oppressors don’t help the situation either as they prioritize victims suffering according to who they see as most related to them. “We are deciding that one individual or group is more important than another, deciding that one individuals pain is less important than that of the next” (766). We help those who oppress keep oppressing and when we choose to fight for one group we allow the oppressors to target another group because we choose not to stand up for all people who might have the possibility of being oppressed. It is easy to not feel responsible for someone’s pain but we need to remember what events can come from that. We must think of slavery and the Holocaust and try to prevent the suffering of other earthlings. We need to remember that “pain is pain, whether it be inflicted on man or on beast” (762). It is our responsibility to look past the small differences that are cited as reasoning for why a certain group should be harmed. In this class, we focus on thinking of those who truly have no way to communicate their hurt- animals. In Am I Blue? by Alice Walker, we are reminded of how an animal who has been oppressed and unacknowledged for so long still has feeling regarding their situation. The author can see the horse’s emotions as he is enclosed in a small property, he has lost all his freedom but upon receiving a partner a difference is noticed by the author.

It is this positive change in the horse that seems to really spark the sympathetic imagination in the author since she feels a “mutual feeing between me and the horses of justice, of peace” (760b). She also is able to see the negative effects that changes and restrictions have on the horse when his partner is taken away. “It gave him, for the first time, the look of a beast” (761). The confusion that this animal has felt devastated him like most traumatic events affect people but he has no voice and no one to talk for him which makes the situation worse.