Morrissey
Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can’t help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies.”
Morrissey has been called a racist before for lyrics in songs such as “Bengali in Platforms” and “Asian Rut,” and for the anti-immigration comments he made to NME music magazine in 2007. But he’s apparently standing by these comments, saying later in a statement:
“If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade – animals skinned alive – then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.
(sigh) I confess that I LOVE the Smiths. I perform an acoustic cover of “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” for my partner and my dog in my living room on a regular basis. I, however, AM SO DONE WITH MORRISSEY.
I am furthermore exasperated by the constant conflation of the existence of animal cruelty within a given geographical region or national boundary with ETHNIC CULTURAL PRACTICE. I stay on the PETA e-mail listserve because I don’t mind getting some animal rights schwag every now and then, be it stickers or veg*n brochures (that are not idiotic), but I vomit in a mouth a tiny bit whenever I see a call-out for an action to be staged in front of, say, the South Korean Consulate in order to protest th lax enforcement of laws against the consumption of dog-meat in that country. My nausea only worsens as I imagine the phalanx of white, hipster, petite-bourgeois animal rights activists carrying around fake blood stained placards baring the colors or likeness of the South Korean flag. C’MON NOW! FOR SERIOUS?!
Look, I get that Morrrissey or any other white vegan/animal rights activist is not thrilled about certain practices regarding animal rights situations in certain parts of the world (I’m not either), but to demonize an
entire nationality or ethnic group or refer to an entire nationality or ethnic group pejoratively as a SUBSPECIES. Dude… completely unnecessary, completely uncalled for, SHUT THE F-RONT DOOR!
Probably my two biggest gripes about these near-sighted race politic expressions of animal rights are that:
1) they really perpetuate, particularly amongst people of color, the misnomer that veganism can only be narrowly defined as a white, middle-class subculture and that;
2) vegans of color are further marginalized within the discourse of animal rights whether or not we cry foul at the egregious white-supremacist twists on these representations of animal rights politics.
As with Morrissey as well as the rest of the white animal rights crowd, here’s a itsy-bitsy tip when attempting to articulate a discourse about animal rights: a little nuance goes a long way in figuring out where the root of the problem lies and where the solution can begin. The intersection of race and ethnicity between veganism is much more complex than you might make it out to be.
And oh yeah… Girlfriend in a coma? More like Morrissey’s racist brain in a coma. That joke isn’t funny anymore. It’s too close to home and it’s too near the bone.
Thanks to Angry Asian Man for the link and pic.
Here’s the original article from the Guardian.
Vegans of Color 
Don’t be so hard on him…after all it is not HE who is doing the animal torture!Give him a break…shame sometimes changes folks.
Lets see what happens.
I feel as if you’re attempting to simplify the complex intersection of race and veganism, which completely goes against the point of this entire blog. I’m not going to give a break to ANYONE who is perpetuating white supremacy even if such actions are perceived to be helping the cause of animal rights. If we want genuine liberation for all beings on this planet, it must be achieved through principled approaches. By your line of logic male supremacy should not be criticized in national liberation movements, white supremacy should not be criticized within LGTQI movements, and all other oppressive structures should not be adequately discussed in class based struggles… I think folks get the idea. I apologize if this sounds condescending, but your comment implies an incredibly simple-minded understanding of oppression. Liberation for one group is not liberation at all if “achieved” through the degradation of another group.
No, this is not shaming someone for wearing a fur coat, it’s calling one nation of people subhuman because they treat cats and dogs the way many other nations treat other animals.
Maybe Americans are subhuman beacuse of the way we treat chickesn, foxes, minks, cows, goats, sheep, turtles, wolves, elk, prairie dogs, honeybees, whales, cod, horses…I mean, it’s inexcusable.
But we shouldn’t shame Morrissey to change his racism, because non-human animals are more important than people of colour?
I don’t know why I still find myself gasping when I read this shit. The whole anti-“The Chinese” movement that has come out of the anti-cat/dog as fur/food stuff is not only racist, it’s speciesist, too. Aside from that, the tactical disadvantage of focusing on another country doing awful things to animals from a country doing equally awful things to animals is just silly. It’s a complete waste of resources on top of creating a climate of racism and xenophobia because dogs are for petting- and maybe pigs are, too, BUT DOGGIES ARE BEING EATEN BY “THE CHINESE” OMG.
Sometimes I just don’t understand. Is it just that pointing the finger at someone else is easier than looking at one’s own back yard?
Being Filipino, I’ve had a good number of conversations about “dog-eating” with white vegans. Although I do not support oppression of animals, I do not appreciate it when individuals of privileged backgrounds participated in “othering” by particularizing stigmas of animal abuse to my or any other group of people of color. You’re definitely right about not noticing how when one points a finger, three fingers point back. (I usually reserve finger pointing for singalongs during hardcore shows anyway)
I was appalled when I read about this on VegetarianStar. Thank you so much for blogging about this. I was never a big Morrissey fan, and now I never will be.
And I totally agree about the protests in front of embassies. Or even worse – dog meat protests in front of Hyundai car dealerships. Because in the minds of so many white AR activists, Hyundai=Korea=dog meat.
Maybe some day, there will be protests at Morrissey’s concerts, because, you know, Morrissey=England=fox hunts.
No doubt, as Morrissey is tossing stones of racism at China he seems to forget that the British animal rights house has windows made of glass. (By the way your article’s little side discussion about the term “subspecies” tickled the nerdiest part of my brain. lolz)
I remember getting invited to an anti-dolphin slaughter Facebook activism page. I thought some of the action was appropriate, but they wanted to tweets form Japanese companies about how they wouldn’t buy until the slaughter ended. WTF
Thanks for this post. That’s just totally obscene of Morrissey. I’m tired of seeing similar things flying around FB, too.
One thing, though: I thought the dogmeat trade in South Korea is actually illegal at this point?
Wendy, you’re absolutely right. Sorry, for the oversight. I suppose that I forget that it is actually is illegal since the laws against commercial dog meat processing and consumption are so loosely enforced. I’ll have to put in an edit. Thanks for catching this.
Thanks! I wasn’t sure, either, because it’s not something I’ve been following terribly closely.
WHAT?! VEGANISM IS A RACIST THING?? A WHITE PEOPLE THING?????? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR BIGOT MIND?! I am a vegan and I am not what the rest of the world calls white, I am southamerican. The truth is that you give a damn about animals and their sufferings, agonies, tortures and death. You are one more in that pile of indifferent, unconscious, uncompassionate and shallow people. The world is full of that. Oh, am I a racist because of that commentary? CHINA SUCKS. They are an awful and cruel country. If there was a button to wipe China from the face of the earth, would I push it? IN A HEARTBEAT. The things (the completely and totally useless, horrifying things), they do to animals over there are just UNACCEPTABLE! That is, by civilised and moral people which, aparently, are not majority in the world. But we, the vegans, are here to stay. If you just like the stickers to feel or to make believe that you care you are a hypocrite of the worst kind. CHINA SUCKS and it has nothing to do with racism. I tell you this, me, a sudaca, a latin, somebody who knows one or two things about racism.
To be clear I am speaking from a position of being both a vegan and a person of color who cares very much about animal rights as well intersecting issues of racial politics. I apologize if the post does not make that clear, so I would like to specify a few things.
First things first, I am not referring to veganism in of itself as racist and or exclusively owned by white people. I am making a point about how veganism can be perceived as such, by people of color due to white people in the animal rights scene unfairly painting entire nations, which may have dubious animal rights records, with broad strokes.
A few points about what you refer to as “racism”: White supremacy is not simply about interpersonal interaction. It is a social structure and part of the worldwide culture in the same way that languages, gender roles, and diet etc. are. You yourself may have experienced manifestations of white supremacy, yet your anecdotal experience cannot dictate the rules by which the social structure of white supremacy functions or evolves much in the same way that you alone cannot define the legitimacy of linguistic form of the Spanish language simply because you may speak Spanish. In short, your definition of racism (which I would prefer to be articulated as “white supremacy”) cannot undermine my analysis simply because you have experienced white supremacy and do not agree with me. Sure, you can disagree, but you’re not the authority who wields the wand of objectivity.
About you referring to me being a bigot, I’m not sure about what part of my post that you’re referring too, as I’m not making a blanket statement about white people as a homogenous group of ignoramuses, but am attempting to articulate how white people perpetuate the social structure of white supremacy particularly within the context of the animal rights movement. To also speak again about social structures in this case, all white people benefit from certain privileges as a result of white supremacy, in this case the privilege to define entire nations of non-white people as a subspecies. Some of them are conscious of this privilege and others are not. In this post I am for the most part shedding light on the existence of this privilege as a means to criticize the social structure of white supremacy and not to misguidedly point my finger at ALL white people. White people THEMSELVES are not the problem. White supremacy is the problem. And interestingly enough, your reply to my post further illustrates that white supremacy is not just perpetuated by white people.
I won’t go so far as to label you as a bigot, since I don’t personally know you, but I’m sure it would be difficult for anyone reading this blog to assume otherwise since you’ve taken it upon yourself to imply genocide against the Chinese as a solution for the many problems faced by China including their animal rights issues. I’m sure that you’re a more intelligent individual than that being that if you were to apply that same logic to every nation that has similar issues (I know for a fact that most if not all governments of Latin American countries have dubious human rights records, being that almost all of them are puppet regimes of my Imperialist American government) we should be having a discussion about voluntary human extinction (which as a vegan in the punk scene I am now tired of having THAT conversation). I will say, however, that by making such statements you appear to be a very well oiled gear in the machinery of white supremacy. And to paraphrase Mario Savio (a white Italian American) perhaps you should think about making bringing the machine to a grinding halt rather than helping to increase its merciless “productivity.”
I appreciate your passion about animal rights, but just like in my blog post, I would suggest that you approach your analysis with MUCH more nuance. As someone who labels himself vegan straight edge, I know a thing or two about dogmatic approaches to political views and trust me… when you don’t balance your outlook the scale will eventually tip back in the other direction. People will get tired of hearing from you and just as well you will get tired of hearing from yourself. I’m open to further discussion with you, but please drop the polemics. As fellow vegans (and I AM assuming that you’re vegan) we’re on the same side here.
There are vegans in China. Should they also be wiped from the Earth? (I didn’t say this as if all nonvegans in China should be, but to draw your attention to what you are saying).
Yes you are being racist by making a statement about an entire people based on an industry that exists in their country. Any other questions?
I do not understand how you can advocate the extermination of an entire people under the guise of veganism. Say we were to exterminate whole countries because of their torture and death to *humans*. What would be left?
You made your point into nothing more than nonsense when you said that you wished to kill 1/5 of the human population and all the animals that inhabit in China.
Ah, I see. I guess Caucasian people and non-human animals deserve the right to life, but not Chinese people, who are not only sub-species but also sub-animal.
Really now, how can I respect your animal rights beliefs if they involve putting non-human animals above non-white people?
“utmostlimit” is openly calling for the extermination of an entire nation (China) under the pretext of concern for animals.
That’s called genocide.
And it demonstrates the anti-human nature of some so-called animal rights advocates.
They show more concern for animals than other human beings.
Incidentally, there was another country in history that also feigned concern for animals in order to demonize a certain “subspecies” of humans: Nazi Germany. “Utmostlimit” seems to share ideological sympathies with this idea.
Vegetarians, Nazis for Animal Rights, Blitzkrieg of the Ungulates
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08182005.html
Animals in the Third Reich: pets, scapegoats, and the Holocaust
http://alturl.com/52tiq
And Morrissey’s self-righteous blather about China is a predictable (and highly amusing) example of the “morality” of Anglo imperialist nations like Britain or the USA.
I wonder why Morrissey does not condemn Britain or America as “uncaring nations” for their criminal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, where hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered thanks to these great Anglo-American democracies.
The British Military in Iraq : A Legacy of War Crimes and Atrocities
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20878
These Anglo-American war crimes are predictably swept under the rug by USA/UK citizens and their allies around the world for obvious reasons: they fundamentally discredit the moral legitimacy of the USA and UK as champions of freedom and liberty–whether for humans or animals.
Here’s an example of an organization in China trying to work for change….
http://www.animalschina.org/en/about/
Also, people marched in protest against the government’s idea to introduce bull fighting to China as a tourism idea…there must be lots of people in China appalled by the situations they (and of course the animals) are up against…activists who need our support!
I have a Canadian friend of Chinese descent who has taken on the illegal import of endangered species products from China such as tiger bone, and who I understand has been both demonized AND highly respected by others who identify as Chinese or Chinese Canadian for his role in confronting animal exploitation.
Surely the devaluing of animals as mere commodities by ANYONE is a learned attitude…like sexism, racism, homophobia, etc…which means it can be UNlearned. Seldom does this means rejecting the cultures we were raised in entirely- more often it means spending a lifetime trying to modify or create new cultural traditions at the risk of being totally ostracized by those who remain wedded to the past. Like other countries with cultural practises that involve killing and in many cases torturing animalsiscan continuing to evolve.
Many people think of my country, Canada, as regressive and heartless for our government’s sanctioning of the commercial seal hunt that happens each spring…the largest slaughter of marine mammals anywhere on the PLANET….but countless Canadian activists have been fighting the hunt for decades! Inspite of our efforts, the clubbing to death of these animals continues to ‘represent’ Canada in the global media…even though the presence of large scale factory farms, and fur producers relay a similar message-that many other animals here have little value beyond their perceived usefulness to human beings (not unlike other countries that have banned commercial seal slaughter but continue these other industries unabated).
Although we have a democracy that supposedly protects the freedom to express ‘dissent’, it’s hard to get the media coverage that would tell the story of Canadians who struggle daily for animals and systemic change. In China I’m sure the media is even more biased and certainly more tightly controlled. Of course the same is true everywhere people lack the power to protest the status quo without sometimes life-threatening backlash..but that doesn’t mean there aren’t individuals and groups trying to make a difference.
One thing I’m lead to believe is helping foster change in China towards animals, generically speaking, is the growing urban trend of adopting a companion animal with whom individuals of course often have the opportunity to develop strong bonds. The website link I provided at the onset takes you to an adoption centre in Beijing dedicated to this premise. Surely compassion lies in the heart of every human being, and like a seed it thrives when nurtured.
We know that when people are exposed to different attitudes that help them question their preconceived notions about animals change can happen, but if we aren’t sensitively mindful about cultural allegiances when we communicate our concerns we run the risk of alienating potential allies and impeding progress.
We must nurture compassion within ourselves for one another…look for the good and the beautiful in cultures that also involve cruel practises towards animals in order to help foster the will for change that can only come about when hearts open of their own free will.
Morrisey and others are right to address China’s government, or specific practises that take place in that geographic region, but are wrong to carelessly stereotype an entire people by condemning their country wholesale. Speciesism denies animals their nature and value as individual beings. Condemning an entire country is racist because it similarly disappears the unique hearts and minds of the individuals that compromise it- including those working quietly or otherwise for change from ‘the inside’.
Fireweed,
Thanks for the info on BHAEEC. Maybe Morrissey could be enlightened by learning about that organization in China… or maybe not. Regardless, it helps me to be more hopeful about the situation of rights and welfare for humans and animals in China.
On the subject of bullfighting, wonder why he’s condemning China but leaving Spain alone?
Whoa! Talk about typos changing context! In my previous post the last line should have read:
“Condeming an entire country is racist because it similarly disappears the unique hearts and minds of the individuals that COMPRISE it- including those working quietly or otherwise for change from ‘the inside’.
(NOT “compromise'” it, as I mistakenly typed!)
Also, the last sentence in the third paragraph should have read “…China is continuing to evolve.”
For the record, I’m a fair-skinned Canadian vegan (European dsecendant with North America Mi’kmaq roots) . I prefer not to use the term ‘white’ since I understand it was devised inititially to ‘divide and conquer’…and also disappears cultures of origin. I hope it’s not inappropriate of me to occassionally express an opinion here as a visitor since I do not identify as a vegan of color, but as a sister vegan activist interested in the overlapping issues of privilege and oppression.
[…] Morrissey Calls Chinese People “a Subspecies” | Vegans of Color "Look, I get that Morrrissey or any other white vegan/animal rights activist is not thrilled about certain practices regarding animal rights situations in certain parts of the world (I’m not either), but to demonize an entire nationality or ethnic group or refer to an entire nationality or ethnic group pejoratively as a SUBSPECIES. Dude… completely unnecessary, completely uncalled for, SHUT THE F-RONT DOOR! […]
What’s sad about this shameful outburst by Morrisey is the fact that is was preceded just last week by a post on Girlie Girl Army (in fact, it’s still on the front page) which makes the sweeping generalization that everyone in China eats dog meat. The exact headline is “The vegetarian President of India took her cook to China. We guess it was to avoid eating dog meat.” The blog’s author Chloe claims it was a reader submission and while it set off her ‘internal PC police,’ some (assuredly lengthy) research revealed that some people in China actually *do* eat dog meat so she let it stay as is.
She responded to my friend’s first email with the above rationalization, but has since not responded to anyone’s emails (although I was dying to see how she would respond to a friend whose email includes the surname Chang). She has sadly not taken the opportunity to remove, edit, or apologize for the post either, and it remains on the front page a full week later.
It irritates me to no end that some people, in the quest to end oppression of one group, will gladly and eagerly step upon another. The root of *all* struggles lies in the chauvinistic notion that one class of being is more entitled to autonomy and liberty than another. To use the language or methodology of the oppressor in any sense is to undermine one’s own movement.
Or, in other words: UGH SO FRUSTRATING.
hey, is that article still up? i can’t seem to find it, and i would definitely like to write them some angry letters.
There are links to the original article plus a link to the Angry Asianman Blog where I got the story and picture from. Check the bottom of the post. 🙂
There are many interesting comments (in original post and responses), but most seem to be miss the point that whether some Chinese eat dogs or cats is irrelevant in our animal-product saturated world. Someone even claimed that shaming fur-wearing people is OK, implying that wearing fur is somehow worse than other, more common, animal products (e.g., leather). The reality is that any/all animals are harmed through the animal industry by being processed into “products”.
Not only is the Morrissey statement a gross generalization, but even if it were narrowed to target specifically those people who participate in the cat/dog food industry, it would still be xenophobic and utterly misguided from an animal rights perspective. Morally, dogs and cats are the same as pigs and cows. Eating hamburger is no worse nor any better than eating dog. Yes, the use/abuse of cats/dogs is horrible, but no more so than the types of animal agriculture prominant in the Western world.
FYI, Morrissey doesn’t take the rights of animals seriously as he has long been lacto-ovo vegetarian (and has had ample opportunity to educate himself on the significant harms caused to animals within the dairy & egg industries).
We vegans ought not to elevate certain kinds of animals above others since we [presumably] believe that all sentient animals deserve the right to live their own lives (i.e., not be used purely as resources for human benefit).
“Someone even claimed that shaming fur-wearing people is OK, implying that wearing fur is somehow worse than other, more common, animal products (e.g., leather).”
Just want to point out that while all animal exploitation is horrific (and these words, sadly, start to lose their meanings from over-use), strategically there are some campaigns that may be easier to wage that would reduce the suffering for some animals. I think back in the 80’s it was thought that fur is a good issue to work on because not many people wore it (speaking from a US point of view here), it could be seen as elitist and there was no (mis)conception that fur could be a by-product of anything else (as opposed to leather, though I know that it’s often not a byproduct of the meat industry). So while I understand the point you’re making, I also think that in some cases we need to make inroads. My meat-eating sister abhors fur, for example, and wears leather shoes. To me this makes no sense, but I’m sure the fur-bearing animals at least appreciate this. One might hope that she could be educated toward treating other animals with a similar compassion but sadly that’s not happened.
In any case, the war is so huge that we can’t help but pick certain battles, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. Where if we waged a campaign to stop all animal exploitation (which most of us do in our own ways), that would just overwhelm so many people: they’d have to change so much all at once, you know, and people don’t really like to change.
I think most of us who are active realize that there is no difference between a chicken and a dog, that we create these differences, but there are people who develop affinity for certain animals over others. I hate to say it, but I probably like primates the least (because they remind me too much of humans?). Not that I would ever condone harming a primate, but personally speaking, I tend to focus more on other animals. I do kill fleas, ticks and sometimes mosquitoes, and sometimes ants get washed down the drain or crushed in the kitchen sink, though I try to save most of them; I also feed my cats and dogs other animals after many unsuccessful attempts at veganizing, or at least vegetarianizing, them. That is definitely a prejudice on my part, and difficult the more I’m around chickens the harder it becomes, and I know too I would never feed ground up dog to my cats, so while I agree with you in theory in practice I’m not quite there yet myself.
Oh, and thanks for the info on Morrissey. What a fucking hypocrite. If he eats dairy what does he think happens to the cows???
eeek, re-read imy post AFTER I posted it. Not the best way to catch poor grammar and typos.
I am one of the biggest Smiths fans ever (and a huge fan of Moz’s solo work), but the man himself is a horrible, horrible person, so sadly, this doesn’t shock me as much as it should. Slithers’ comment above (#10) pretty well captures what I would have commented on the matter. I don’t accept this obsession with “dog meat” by some in the veg community as somehow a greater atrocity than, say, ham. Pigs are in fact smarter and in some cases more, or at least just as, personable as dogs, so if you’re using a humanistic rubric to decide who is more “worth” fighting for, this focus on dogs simply doesn’t hold water. As far as the argument that some battles are more strategic to fight than others… I think people have to ask themselves some hard questions about the kind of racism and xenophobia that help make this an “easy” battle to fight in Europe and North America. Sure, it’s easy to get people in the West worked up about how those “Chinese” (or South Koreans, or Vietnamese, or Cambodians…) are eating “dog meat” but isn’t it just because they themselves *don’t* eat dog meat, and have in any case a whole stash of bigotry and paranoia that this discussion can tap? So, I mean, yeah, I could get some middle class white folks really worked up about puppy slaughter in some other country, but the question is, why would I want to? It seems to me that there’s a whole lot of important work to be done closer to home. So how about we let Chinese activists worry about what’s going on with factory farms in China, and we can worry about what’s going on in our own communities and nations? …BTW, I should add that I have first-hand experience travelling in countries where dogs are raised for meat, and I didn’t experience it in practice as one whit different from people raising pigs or chickens for the same purpose. I think the people who claim it’s some unique horror need to interrogate their own speciesist and perhaps ethnocentric assumptions.
[…] Vegans of Color condemned Morrissey’s statement, but they do not go far enough to point out the hypocrisy, irony, illogicality, and complete lack of moral credibility of anti-speciesists calling Chinese people a “sub-species”. Despite the condemnation at Vegans of Color, there are still animal rights activists in their comments defending Morrissey: Don’t be so hard on him…after all it is not HE who is doing the animal torture!Give him a break…shame sometimes changes folks. […]
I love this blog, and love your analysis of this issue. (But some of the comments are RIDONK!)
I see more and more antipathy against the Chinese these days, particularly with criticism of the Chinese government morphing in racism against the Chinese in general. I guess Morrissey’s remarks are another symptom of rising Sinophobia.
I’m a longtime Smiths/Morrissey fan but after this, I’m so done with him. I’m not going to listen to a guy who thinks I’m a subspecies.
and yes, anti-chinese sentiments are all the rage these days. actually, I would argue it’s NEVER been out of fashion to be anti-chinese. Even when china was a superpower hundreds of years ago, the west was anti-chinese (or racist against any non-whites)
Morrissey could probably purchase every dog in china. Twice. Problem solved.
[…] doing a single thing about the oppression in your world. Did we not hear about Morrissey’s racism? What about the indigenous cultural appropriation that runs rampant at shows and events? What about […]
In principle, there’s nothing offensive about calling the Chinese a subspecies. What could be wrong about being in a subspecies? Actually, if the Chinese are a subspecies, then so are the non-Chinese…
But as usual, the offense is in the eye of the offender. What is meant, of course, is that the Chinese are not quite human, and for that to be offensive you have to accept that human = good. So the comment by Morrissey is deeply speciesist. It is based on the idea that, all in all, humanity is something superior. Being a “subspecies” = being a bit of an “animal”, which is inferior.
It’s disappointing; the author of “Meat is murder” should know better.
David
Vegans coming out against Morrissey? way to attack your own…and probably the biggest reason you ever even considered Veganism is because he made it cool…they’d do well to remember that.
Vegans coming out against white supremacy ? HELL YEAH !!!
Morrissey is NOT one of ‘OUR OWN” ~ He is NOT a vegan ~ he eats Dairy and anybody who decides to be a Vegan because they want to be like a celebrity or any other human being doesn’t really get it and probably isn’t vegan either. Being Vegan requires being mindful of ANIMALS ~ not star status
Um. So I don’t know if y’all are still around, but I wanted to point out the irony of Morrissey designating the Chinese a “subspecies,” as in not human, to denigrate them, when that is exactly why animals are fucking oppressed. No. I am getting really tired of this illusory standard for humans where not treating others well automatically renders you as “not human,” which has been one of the historical excuses for fucking over animals. Not to mention a bazillion other human groups.
Cognitive dissonance…
Oy, vegans! Oppression is oppression is oppression. Learn it. Love it. Use it to inform your life.
By othering the Chinese like this—by supporting this tomfoolery—you’re implying that what the Chinese do to animals is so much worse than anything done to animals in the US, UK and AU. That isn’t productive; it makes carnists feel justified in continuing to participate in animal exploitation because well at least we’re not like THOSE people. China isn’t particularly bad; the abuse is just better-hidden in the West.
Holy fuck, I knew vegans tended towards the misogynistic, but seriously? This is fucking blatant racism.
[…] “Morrissey is dreamy!” […]
A few people have asked why Morrissey hasn’t also criticized the US and the UK for their imperialism, as well as fox hunting in the UK specifically….He has, repeatedly.
Great post, I especially found it very useful.