PETA: Speciesism Must Stop With Us …
Because Inside Every Body Is a Someone Who Thinks and Feels
Staff at a hospital in Bremen, Germany, knew someone was in trouble when they heard knocking at the emergency room door. They were right: A cormorant with a triple fishhook stuck in her beak was desperately pecking at the door for help. They removed the hook, treated the wound, and released the bird in the hospital’s park. Meanwhile, in the US, a bonobo named Kanzi was showing researchers that he knew how to play pretend, consistently picking out cups and bowls containing imaginary juice and grapes. And in Japan, Yoriko, an Asian sheepshead wrasse, forged a decades-long friendship with a kindhearted diver and visited him for caresses and kisses.
Stories like these prove what PETA has been saying since day one: Humans Aren’t Alone in Having Emotions, Interests, and Ideas.
Throughout history, social justice leaders have stressed that we are all one and that we all matter. The late Rev. Jesse Jackson punctuated his speeches with the refrain “I am somebody” and reminded listeners: “I may be small, / But I am somebody. / My clothes are different, / My face is different, / My hair is different, / But I am somebody. / I speak a different language, / But I must be respected.” This message transcends species – as Jackson’s daughter Ashley illustrated when she laced up her leather-free combat boots for a PETA ad declaring, “Food Justice for All! Go Vegan.” Or when RZA proclaimed in a powerful video for PETA, “It doesn’t matter if we have fur or feathers or fins. We’re not different in any important way.”
Whether we are human or a member of some other species, we are all basically the same inside: We have hearts, eyes, and minds. We must stop pretending that an injustice to “another” doesn’t count: when precious calves are torn away from their distraught mothers for a fleeting taste of cheese, when experimenters burn animals with chemicals, or when workers yank out fistfuls of feathers as geese shriek in pain. PETA has exposed such atrocities, and with your help, we are stopping them – and many more.
Our task, says RZA, “must be to break free from prejudice.” It starts with us. Can we count you in?
