PETA’s Monkey Business: Racism and White Supremacy

Editor’s Note: The succinct summary of the entry is as follows:

PETA puts forth an idea which they call “speciesism” – that the superiority of humanity is something to be abhorred and eliminated – and to that end, they misappropriate the remarks of the late civil rights icon the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding equality of humans and apply his remarks to lower animals, brute beasts.

On their website, they bluntly state that,

“We are taught the Golden Rule as young children, and all major religions teach principles of nonviolence and kindness. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Ethical treatment—the Golden Rule—must be extended to all living beings: reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, birds, amphibians, and crustaceans.”

–and they further state that–

“PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview … We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals.”

By so doing, by holding that perspective, that humanity is no better than a bug, a mosquito, housefly, or some disease-infested vermin, a rat, venomous viper, or spineless jellyfish, they not only denigrate humanity, but the end result of such thinking – that humanity is no better than brute beasts – is that Blacks are the intellectual and moral equivalent of monkeys.

As evidence of that fact, that they make the moral and intellectual equivalency of Blacks with apes and only obliquely draw that parallel, on their website’s several pages are images of Black men and the great apes, along with other wild primates, and their discussion “seamlessly” segues into a conflation of lower primates and humans, and combine those images in conjunction with their asinine claims of “monkey slavery.”

Slavery is an exclusively human institution found nowhere else in nature.

NOWHERE.
– Ed.

---

PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – is widely known to have gone off the rails a long time ago. Their crazy train took a dirt road.

That is to say, they’ve completely lost their bearings, and in the process, have become not just a victim of circumstance, but their own victim.

Once a somewhat respected group with some degree of legislative sway – as evidenced by an amendment in 1985 to the Animal Welfare Act based upon their work – PETA has now become nothing but an international laughingstock. One only need read the news to see how far they’ve fallen, and how bizarre they’ve truly become. Yet their devolution didn’t happen overnight. Not by a long shot.

PETA’s most recent “issue du jour” is prima facie evidence of their misdirection, and alleges that at some locations in Thailand, monkeys are kept as “slaves” and are “forced” to pick coconuts.

Seriously.

It’s just too bizarre-sounding to be even remotely believable – “monkey slaves forced to pick coconuts.”

And here’s another equally bizarre kicker:
On one of PETA’s pages about the matter, they write in part that a brand named “Ape Snacks” tops their list of “brands that have confirmed that they source only from farms that don’t use monkey labor.”

Here’s how easy it is for any company to confirm to PETA that they source only from farms that don’t use monkey labor:

PETA: Do y’all use slave monkeys to pick coconuts?

Company: No, we do not – and we certify that.

PETA: Okay. Sounds good. We’ll help promote your brand.

Because that’s what it really is – monkeyshines and monkey business. At the most fundamental level, it’s an ethically questionable, and quite possibly illegal collusion, perhaps even conspiracy – to destroy certain businesses, while propping up and supporting other competitors… that do the very same thing. Fundamentally, it’s a type of market manipulation – oblique, but manipulation nonetheless. It’s certainly not an expression of a free market, neither is it a fair market. And it begs the question of whether, or not – and if so, to what extent – PETA is involved in markets, whether directly, or indirectly, because they’re obviously attempting to influence them by their actions.

But PETA’s weirdery doesn’t stop with ethically questionable activity. For not only is there hypocrisy, but there’s abundant evidence of racist White Supremacy. And it doesn’t even need to parade around wear a pointy white hood and robe at a Trump rally – it’s in plain view upon their site, for all the world to see.

Originally started as an American-based group which advocated for and promoted laws that punished animal abuse, and sought prevention of abusive practices of animals in laboratories, they have completely morphed into some now-unrecognizable whacked-out international group, bordering on the almost completely insane, which themselves are now resorted to using deception and questionable tactics to achieve their objectives.

For example, it wasn’t uncommon not too long ago to read or see news stories about PETA activists throwing blood, feces, or other excreta or detritus upon individuals wearing fur or leather coats as a form of “protest.” Some of their shenanigans have gotten their members arrested, and for good cause – because those such actions are called “assaults.”

Screenshot of the PETA website Saturday, 07November2020, depicting a Black gentleman as the equivalent of an ape – the gorilla. They further make their own cultural misappropriation of the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by quoting him in an effort to anthropomorphize animals as equivalents of human beings.
They write: “We are taught the Golden Rule as young children, and all major religions teach principles of nonviolence and kindness. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Ethical treatment—the Golden Rule—must be extended to all living beings: reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, birds, amphibians, and crustaceans.”

On a separate, though related ancillary note, anti-abortion activists have practiced the very same tactics.

Occasionally as well, PETA’s members have deceitfully, clandestinely and surreptitiously made their ways into the employ of various animal husbandry and processing facilities where they have videotaped a few “bad actors” who have maltreated the animals in their care. In the course of PETA’s publicity of those “bad actors,” they have deliberately mischaracterized an entire industry as being abusive. That is no accident. It’s part and parcel of their strategy, and they have made no secret of it.

Their utopian vision of the world would not have omnivores – and if they could, they’d outlaw wild animals killing and eating other wild animals. Exactly how they’d enforce that law is pure speculation.

Would the honeybees write a law forbidding bears from robbing their hives, and eating their honey? Would the salmon protest that bears ate them? Would the leaves of grass complain that cows and buffalo trampled them under, defecated upon, and then ate them?

Would that be part and parcel of the “Law of the Jungle”? Would it be written in “The Jungle Book”? Would Rudyard Kipling know?

Perhaps the animals and vegetation could find some enforcement authority among the wild kingdom. And maybe Marlin Perkins would be their judge. And maybe Steve Irwin would be the associate judge.

This is NOT to say, of course, that the few abusive actions which they have documented are good, nor is it to say that it represents the totality of all such facilities or people – for it does NOT. But PETA intentionally paints with a very broad-stroked brush in order to accomplish their objectives and goals.

The longtime globally renown and internationally respected Animal Husbandry and Animal Behavior expert Dr. Temple Grandin, PhD, who also has autism spectrum disorder, is also a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, and she in no way tolerates abusive practices of animals.

But PETA…

PETA is extremist in their views, and makes no bones about it. Their mission statement in part reads that, “PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview … We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals.” They state further that, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”

PETA makes no differentiation between human and animal, and they state as much by writing in part that, “Ethical treatment—the Golden Rule—must be extended to all living beings: reptiles, mammals, fish, insects, birds, amphibians, and crustaceans. We are taught from a young age to discriminate among beings. We are fooled into eating the flesh of some beings, ignoring the cries of hunted beings, and cuddling with furry baby beings.”

“Speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview…”

Yeah.

That concept is self contradictory, because humans ARE superior to other lower level animals.

What animal ever wrote a book, or a play, or a song, or designed a building, or created any garments, or solved any equations, or cured any diseases?

Animals are… well… animals are animals. Many of them would just as soon kill you, as look at you. Go play with the sharks if there’s no difference in any animals, and they’re the same as humans. Go hug the killer bees, or the murder hornets. Go play with the rattlesnakes and cobras, or cuddle the bear cubs, or play “catch” with the bison.

To do any of those things would be almost certain death. And yet PETA thinks that disease-infested rodents in India are not a problem, that bubonic-plague-carrying fleas are somehow not a pestilence, and that malaria-carrying mosquitoes are blessings and deserve legal protection, that rabies-infected raccoons should be treated like the Queen of England… all these and more are the ultimate positions of PETA.

Simply re-read their ideological position:

“We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals.”

But look also at this: PETA thinks that our Black brothers and sisters are less than human.

No kidding.

Just as above, look also at this image on their most recent “PETA issue of the day” page – “monkey slavery” – I kid you not.

The screenshot of the PETA website below shows a Black man in a coconut palm tree, and immediately below it appears the headline “Take Acton for Chained, Abused Monkeys.” The page is about their “issue du jour” allegedly being monkeys kept in slavery and forced to pick coconuts. The photo itself follows the conclusion of this article.

That is whacked. Seriously. And very seriously whacked. To assert that our Black brothers and sisters are the equivalent of apes is the very heart, and crux of the matter of the racist views of White Supremacy.

But, there are also several problems with that page, not the least of which is that the picture which is “borrowed” from Flickr, is time/date stamped as having been processed by Adobe Photoshop Elements for Windows, version 2.0 on 2007:08:20 16:11:16 – and is in an album entitled “Belize,” an island nation on the opposite side of the globe, an entirely different hemisphere from Thailand, where PETA is alleging that these matters (monkeys being “enslaved” to pick coconuts) occur.

Why, the very idea of it sounds just plain kookie – monkeys “enslaved” and forced to pick coconuts. Exactly how does one “force” a monkey to pick coconuts? Seriously. How?

“…terrified young monkeys in Thailand are kept chained, abusively trained, and forced to climb trees to pick coconuts that are used to make coconut milk and other products (not coconut sugar or coconut water), including some sold in the U.S. Many of these monkeys are reportedly illegally abducted from their families and homes when they’re just babies.”

Kinda’ sounds like what the current U.S. Presidential administration is doing with children at our Southern Border – snatching them from their parents’ arms, and throwing them in cages.

PETA Founder & President Ingrid E. Newkirk with “imprisoned” animals. This image similarly exposes their hypocrisy, that they believe all animals should be “free,” i.e., outside any physical constraints, such as pens (seen here), zoos, or cages.

But you know, we’re talking about ANIMALS, not people. And yet, PETA makes NO DISTINCTION between humans an animals, and they state as much, only not as bluntly, pointedly, or explicitly.

On its face, “speciesism” would deny compassionate care and treatment for disease by veterinarians. Why? Because if a “human-supremacist worldview” is a bad thing, it acknowledges that genuine “equality” is obtained by being the equivalent of the animal, and therefore veterinary education and veterinary medicine is a thing to be eschewed, and avoided.

But in practice
– at least as practiced by PETA Founder & President Ingrid E. Newkirk –
“speciesism” acknowledges that “all animals are equal,
but some are more equal than others.”

But what is speciesism?

Let’s examine PETA’s statement about it, and then, we’ll examine another non-biased source for another perspective.

PETA’s page on “speciesism” states in part that “Speciesism—like sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination—is an oppressive belief system in which those with power draw boundaries to justify using or excluding their fellow beings who are less powerful. A human supremacist line of “reasoning” is used to defend treating other living, feeling beings like research tools, fabric, toys, or even food ingredients—even though they share our capacity for pain, hunger, fear, thirst, love, joy, and loneliness and have as much interest in freedom and staying alive as humans do.”

The Cambridge Dictionary writes this about “speciesism”:

The idea that one species (= set of animals with the same characteristics that can breed from each other), especially human beings, is more important and should have more rights than another.
Examples:
They call the assertion of human superiority over other animals “speciesism.”
-and-
It is sheer speciesism that very few humans campaign to Save Our Slugs.

I suppose using that guiding philosophy – the equality of animals with humans – that the animals should go on strike for better wages, and working conditions, especially, and form a union to have their interests represented. Perhaps they should register to vote, as well!

Naturally, they should choose one of their own to be their spokesperson, and should have their own lawyer from one of their own law schools.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy writes this about “speciesism”:

“To say that a being deserves moral consideration is to say that there is a moral claim that this being can make on those who can recognize such claims. … The view that only humans are morally considered is sometimes referred to as “speciesism.” In the 1970s, Richard Ryder coined this term while campaigning in Oxford to denote a ubiquitous type of human centered prejudice, which he thought was similar to racism. … human exceptionalism can be understood in different ways. The most common way of understanding it is to suggest that there are distinctly human capacities and it is on the basis of these capacities that humans have moral status and other animals do not.”

That same article on the SEP website also quotes a renown philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) – about whom Encyclopedia Britannica writes in part that he was a “German philosopher whose comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the various schools of Kantianism and idealism.”

In their article about “speciesism,” the SEP website wrote in part that,

…every rational being, exists as an end in himself and not merely as a means to be arbitrarily used by this or that will…Beings whose existence depends not on our will but on nature have, nevertheless, if they are not rational beings, only a relative value as means and are therefore called things. On the other hand, rational beings are called persons inasmuch as their nature already marks them out as ends in themselves. (Kant [1785] 1998: [Ak 4: 428])

“If a man shoots his dog because the animal is no longer capable of service, he does not fail in his duty to the dog, for the dog cannot judge, but his act is inhuman and damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show towards mankind. If he is not to stifle his human feelings, he must practice kindness towards animals, for he who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. ([1784–5] 1997: 212 [Ak 27: 459])”

Now again, in its treatment of the topic of “speciesism,” which they entitle as “The Moral Status of Animals,” the SEP website also wrote that,

“Animals are individuals with whom we share a common life and this recognition allows us to see them as they are. Eating animals is wrong not because it is a violation of the animal’s rights or because on balance such an act creates more suffering than other acts, but rather because in eating animals or using them in other harmful, violent ways, we do not display the traits of character that kind, sensitive, compassionate, mature, and thoughtful members of a moral community should display.”

The greatest problem with the perspective of “speciesism,” is that it ascribes to lower animals the traits and characteristics of human beings. That is called anthropomorphism.

At its heart, anthropomorphism is a theological matter, for the word itself is derived from two separate words – the Greek word anthropos (meaning “human”), and morphe (meaning “form”). The term was first used to refer to the attribution of human physical or mental features to deities. Humans create their own god(s), just as they always have. It was only later that the term anthropomorphism was applied in a broader context and ascribed to animals, or other inanimate objects.

Again, as understood in the broader, modern context, “anthropomorphism” is the term which describes the phenomena in which humans attribute human characteristics or traits to animals, or inanimate objects. And at its root, anthropomorphism is a theologically-based matter, in which humans ascribe human traits to a god, or some deity – because most all of us feel comfortable with that which we know. And if we know something, we understand it, and if we understand it, we can identify with it. And yet, familiarity breeds contempt – so wrote Publilius Syrus (c.85-43BCE), an ancient Syrian writer and contemporary of Cicero who composed in Latin, and is thought to have first originated the aphorism, now considered an axiom.

It is not uncommon for children to anthropomorphize, to talk to animals, per se, (ex. the motion pictures Dr. Doolittle – both of them, first starring Rex Harrison in 1967, then later, starring Eddie Murphy in 1998), and pretend that the animals, or dolls understand them, and vice versa.

A reminder, that once again, PETA’s most recent news noise making claim is… wait for it…

Enslaved monkeys.

Yes, enslaved monkeys.

No joke.

Slavery is a uniquely human institution, and it is an evil one, at that, but it is wholly, fully, and exclusively human.

Examining one of the pictures on their page, you’ll see a HUMAN in a coconut palm tree – NOT a monkey – even though they write about monkeys. And it is a Black human being, at that: https://www.peta.org/living/food/coconut-brands-no-forced-monkey-labor/

Yup, sho’ nuff looks like a monkey to me!</sarcasm>

What an insult to humanity!

And to top it off, that picture was made in Belize most likely in May 1997, though it was posted to Flickr August 2007. The processing software used upon it (Adobe Photoshop Elements for Windows, version 2.0) was copyrighted in 2003.

PETA’s complaints were in Thailand.

PETA is not merely “two bricks shy of a load,” they’re crazy on a ship of fools.