Imagine how you feel about your dog. Imagine how this feeling extends to all dogs; ones you see in the shelters that you know will not be rescued or tethered to chains outside in the cold. The dogs you read about in fights. Get in touch with this feeling. You may feel helpless, hopeless at times. You want to rescue them all. The love and caring and understanding of these creatures is real and tangible. When our pets die, when our beloved dogs pass away, we mourn deeply. Even when dogs that we have never met pass away we feel sad. We never think ‘meat’ when a dog dies. And we never see its flesh as a ‘waste’ if we do not eat it. This is because a dog is not a meat. But then again, no living being is.
We know today that a Black man is a human, not a slave. But there was a time when a Black man was not classified as a human being. The atrocities that occurred as a result are simply beyond comprehension.
Even after slavery was abolished, the atrocities continued.
Anytime we classify someone as something other than the living being that they are atrocities of the worst possible kind will follow.
All men are human beings. Today we recognize this truth but there was a time when it was acceptable not to.
Today we see a dog as an animal. But chickens, turkeys, cows, pigs and lambs we think of as food. Certain baby animals and sick animals are classified as trash, meaning you can bag them up while still alive and throw them away.
We see dogs differently than we do animals farmed for food. We assign them different rights. And we feel differently about them despite the truth which is a cow, chicken, turkey, pig, lamb is an animal the same as a dog is an animal. The same as a Black man and a White man are both human beings.
Today we can imagine what it must have been like to be a slave. The fact that we now accept the truth that all men are human beings helps us to understand how horrible it must have been, because we can see ourselves having to endure something so horrible. We could not see it or understand it when we believed that a Black man was not the same as ourselves. It made what was happening to them acceptable.
And this is the same reason we do not see the eating of animals seen as food as a horrible thing today. This is why we do not understand what they go through. Because we do not see them the same as we see a dog.
The truth is they are not different to a dog.
Imagine if I invited you over for holiday dinner. Imagine the centerpiece of the table will be a delicious dog with stuffing coming out of it’s abdominal cavity. I will take the blood and fat that runs off from cooking it and add flour and pour the dog’s blood and fat over its muscle tissue. I will call this gravy. It will be tender and delicious. How do you feel about my invitation to dinner?
When there is no discrimination in the heart, when there is no culture to speak for morality or humanity, the above is no different to the below. I have spared you the photos of what happens to both the turkey and the dog before they are sold at market. Both suffer equally. Both are atrocities.
When I feel sickened by a traditional holiday meal the truth is I do not feel any differently than you do about it. You feel the same, especially if you Google ‘dog china’ you will know exactly how I feel. Those images will not be any worse than what happens to a turkey or any other animal used for food, even in the best of circumstances, a living being reduced to a food will suffer atrocities. My serving a dog is not different to someone serving a turkey.
I ask you to understand how I feel, why I stay away. Because you would too if I were serving fluffy for dinner. Even if you did not eat fluffy at my dinner, you would be hard pressed to sit there and watch others dig into the flesh and chew all without a care, laughing and having a great time. It would be disturbing; nauseating. As the ‘meat’ was passed around you would not see ‘meat’. You would only see Fluffy. And you would feel the great heartache and despair, the extreme and profound loneliness of being the only there who does.
We are the same. We feel the same. It is only the culture that divides us. But together we can create a new culture. You my friend are important to this world. And to all of the Fluffys.
Peace~
If you would like to learn more about slavery and how this parallels with animals used for food, please click here. If you would like to learn more about turkeys, please click here.
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