The Left Forum, held every year in New York City, brings together activists from social justice movements around the country. This year, due to a congruence of efforts, the Left Forum will feature not just one but several panels devoted to animal questions. The time has arrived, it seems, to bring animal concerns into the (often contentious) conversation about what kind of world we want.
Sebastian, with Rose
VINE Sanctuary is sponsoring a panel entitled, “Queering Animal Liberation, Animating Restorative Justice” (Saturday May 30, 10:00am – 11:50am in Room 3.78). VINE’s Community Engagement Coordinator, Brandie, will speak on “Decolonizing the Dominant Diet”; VINE’s cofounder and Coordinator, pattrice, will “queer” the notion of human rights by considering them as a variety of animal rights; and VINE’s friend Sebastian will offer a talk entitled “Born Wrong,” in which he will show how violence against animals perpetuates anti-gay bullying and hyper-masculinity in American gay culture cultivates speciesism.
Sebastian and pattrice will also appear on a panel organized by AETA survivor (and friend of the sanctuary) Lauren Gazzola. That panel is entitled “Restorative Justice for All? Race, Class, Gender, Disability and Animal Liberation” (Sunday May 31 3:40pm – 5:40pm in Room 1.66) and will also feature disability rights activist Lawrence Carter-Long.
Lauren, giggling with Rose, who is very popular
We also want to give a shout-out to a panel on which United Poultry Concerns founder Karen Davis will be speaking, entitled “Animal Intelligence and its Implications for the Left.” That panel will also feature Josephine Donovan but unfortunately has been scheduled at the same time as the VINE panel. Luckily, all sessions are videotaped.
There’s one more animal-oriented panel that may well turn out to be problematic, but that’s all the more evidence that the question of animal rights is “up” right now on the left. Back in the bad old days, some leftists used to argue vehemently that concern about LGBTQ issues was a decadent diversion from more important issues of poverty and class struggle. We had to have those arguments in order to move forward. It’s time to seize the day, to spark and sustain the kinds of hard conversations that brought LGBTQ struggles from the contested margins to the uncontested center of the progressive sphere of concern.
VINE also will be tabling at the Left Forum this year, selling books and distributing leaflets designed with the concerns of social justice activists in mind.
If you’ll be in NYC during the Left Forum this year, please do sign up and attend not only animal-oriented panels but also panels about social and environmental justice. Restorative justice is one of the themes of this year’s Forum. Given the difficulties that the animal rights movement has had in figuring out how to call for perpetrators of animal abuse to be held accountable without colluding with the prison industrial complex, it might be especially useful for animal rights activists to attend relevant panels to learn about restorative justice and begin to imagine how that principle might be applied in such cases.
If you’re elsewhere, decide now that you will spend one day that weekend educating yourself about a local social justice movement and/or finding out how an animal or vegan organization might table at or provide free food for an upcoming social justice event in your region. If you are able to do the latter, please do let us know and we will share with you the digital file for the new leaflet that we just created to answer common concerns that social justice activists raise about animal rights. We wish we could mail out leaflets themselves, but that’s just not within our budget right now.
Now might be a good time to remind our fans that we have a hard enough time raising the funds to keep the 500+ animals in our care sheltered, vetted, and well fed. There’s very little (and sometimes none at all) left over for our education and advocacy projects.
Next month, we’ll be launching our annual June “Pride Drive” for funds to help us build bridges between animal/vegan advocacy and social/environmental justice movements. It would be great to get a jump on June by taking in at least enough right now to cover the Left Forum leaflets we have to pick up from the printer today. Click the rainbow cow (that’s our Milkshake Moo) to make a gift of any amount today. Every dollar makes a difference!
A few other factors are getting white folks in the movement to not only empathize, but consider the impacts of felony convictions (read The New Jim Crow for goodness sake), and threats of deportation for undocumented immigrants who may be caught up in prosecution efforts.
Of course most readers here know about Food Empowerment Project’s work in these areas, but there are a lot of highly intelligent, hard working advocates that are apparently oblivious to these issues. It’s a matter of getting the word out to those who will listen.
Thanks as always for your work. Looking forward to the videos.
Guests:
Sonya Shah, Advocacy Director, Insight Prison Project.
Dionne Wilson, Survivor Outreach Coordinator, Californians for Safey and Justice.
Jerry Elster, Facilitator, Insight Prison Project.
http://kalw.org/post/today-your-call-how-does-restorative-justice-work-california-1
I suspect the progressive may need some education, though. For example, I heard a discussion on Chris Matthews’ show, Hard Ball, about Matt Bevins of Kentucky, who is running for office. The discussion involved Mr. Bevins’ standing up for the freedom of attending cockfighting. Mr. Matthews and his guests seemed to find it extremely funny, and there was a lot of laughter throughout the discussion. Mr. Matthews is apparently involved with protection of wildlife in Africa but needs some education on the brutality of cockfighting.
So I believe the progressives will be more sympathetic, but many of them will need more information on the cruelty involved in the many ways animals are exploited and abused, including “entertainment” like animal fighting.
I also believe that men are too small a component of animal activism. I have noticed when on conference calls with PETA, HSUS (yes, sad about that organization and Hoofin’ It!), and PCRM. Almost all of the callers asking questions are women, and almost all of the comments on Internet discussions of abuse are also female. Wish we could reach more men and get them involved.
Anyway, it’s a great idea to approach the progressive/liberals with the message.
Dr. Steve Best has been building bridges for many years, in attempts to include speciesism in the conversations happening among leftists.
http://a http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/pdf%20files/psychology f%20vol2/Rethinking%20Revolution.pdf
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/01/18655095.php
I only brought it up because I guess I’d like there to be more effort on every vegan’s part to look past consumerism tactics and the singular lens of treatment and killing of animals other than human. I’d like it to be more prevalent in mainstream progressive ideology, if that’s the right way to put it – think Chris Hedges’s piece in Truth Dig a few months back, think Angela Davis… The deeper sectarian left is tedious and disorganized, not united – so I kind of look to more of a Pacifica Radio kind of level as far as connecting to more ordinary people. That said, I can’t wait to see these talks from LF.
http://youtu.be/DOQYBDF51og