Firstly, I'm saddened by how traumatized my loved one, a woman in her 60s, is from growing up in an intensely racist society. She was extremely emotional about why she didn't think black slavery should be equated with non-human animal suffering. She kept on talking about how her teachers would call them "animals" during her K-12 schooling experience. She continued remembering being called "dirty", "nigger" , or "animal". For her, she saw the PETA ad as suggesting that blacks are "animals". Her perception of "animal" is connected to being called or seen as "dirty" or a "nigger". It was an intensely hard conversation, because my loved one--- who does not admit it at all--- is stuck in the trauma of growing up as a black poor girl in the inner-city of Hartford, CT in a time of  overt racism in America. It is absolutely impossible for me to explain to her the concept of speciesism because she has been so thoroughly traumatized by racism and what it "means" for someone to suggest that "her suffering" is the same as an "animal".

For her,  "animal" has a different "meaning" than it does for many people like myself. You should have seen the hurt, anger and sadness in her eyes as she tried to tell me why "animals" cannot be paralleled to the experiences of people who have lived through racism, genocide of their people, etc.  

I tried to get her to go deeper into this; to suggest that we look at the meaning of "animal" in a way that hasn't been tainted by her experiences with racism. However, it wasn't successful and she is too damn scarred and traumatized and simultaneously too "stoic"  and most likely  embarassed to ever consider going to trauma therapy so she can move  past her anti-oppression philosophies as "only for humans" and move  

into a philosophy of social justice for humans, non-human animals and  the planet.

 

Though there are many factors that prevent our human peers from embracing the intersectionality of oppressions, I think there is something to be said about the negative power and influence of unresolved and unreconciled trauma of racism and racialization in  the USA. I don't see it solely with peopleof color like my loved one. I also see it with white identified AR people who gained a lot of power and privilege from the "invisibility" of what it means to be white and/or "perform whiteness."  I see many of their reactions as the antithesis of my loved one’s, in which they completely embrace and understand the "logic" and compassion of non-human animals rights but are completely oblivious to the covert (this is not the same a overt) racism they participate in. Many scream and yell that their  "whiteness" does not need to be reflected upon or engaged in for their animal rights activism and outreach to be successful. I hear and see that same hurt and trauma that comes from my loved one's spirit, being shouted out of the souls and hearts of white identified animal rights, eco-sustainability, or "Cruelty free" consumption activists who become extremely angry at the suggestion of understanding the intersections of oppression by first learning about covert structural, systemic and ideological whiteness (KarunaKaran 2006); how to engage in anti-racist praxis; and how white racialized consciousness (Farr 2004) influence the tone and delivery of well-intended messages to educate “other people” about "compassion."

I am not suggesting that my loved one is "right" about PETA or that the white-identified AR folks are "right" about Michael Vick and his "black supporters" as being reduced to "ignorant speciesist." I spend a lot of time having emotionally intense dialogues with people of color who have my loved one's perceptions and pain. They are caught in "trauma and survival mode". My loved one has tried to detached herself from her own emotional hurt and pain that she isn't even able to touch and feel the suffering of the battery cage hen or the dairy cow. It is my belief that this is what absence of healing of trauma from racism (not to  mention heterosexism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc) does to many who have the potential to "see" the interconnectedness of human, non-human animal and environmental suffering. Maybe the same can be said for many white identified people who have experienced intense trauma from witnessing non-human animals and the environment suffer from culturally accepted institutionalized speciesism in the USA, but are unable to "see" past non-human suffering. The result of this particular trauma seems to be an inability for many to reflect on how other traumas--- such as surviving ongoing institutional and overt racism-- prevent a group of other people from sympathizing and  empathizing with non-human animal suffering.

I continue to engage in dialogues with white identified AR and similar folks who are convinced-- even though they have never viscerally experienced racism (i.e. their brother lynched, or their daughter beaten, or they themselves beings called a "nigger" by a  group of whites while walking home alone at night) ---  that blacks  are "playing the race card" with the Vick case. Though I personally do not feel that Vick is a victim of direct racism, it hurts me deeply that so many white-identified people I have met do not  

understand why-- no matter how irrational it is-- so many blacks would support Vick, "because he is black."  Such a response tells me that there is no compassion to understand how and why some black people would be so traumatized, that they would perceive the Vick case as having roots in direct racism. There is a lack of compassion by so many white-identified well intentioned AR folk to learn about the socio-historical context of why a person of color would be fearful when a black man is arrested, period. I find it very  

frustrating when I encounter a white identified AR activist who is not empathetic and sympathetic to the generations of emotional trauma (from racism and colonialism) that a majority of Native American, Latino, and Black identified people have collectively endured and survived ( Please note, I do not support practices of non-human animal exploitation in order for a "culture" or "ethnic minority" to create their "identity" around). I am baffled by the anger and "annoyance" I will encounter if I suggest to a white identified AR person to invest their time in understanding the trauma that racism  and racialization (creating "races" and making "whiteness" the norm) in the USA has caused in which a) black people collectively perceive an event as being drenched in "racism" while b) white people may collectively see that same event or occurrence void of "racism".

Simultaneously, I am also frustrated when I encounter people of color who are fervent anti-racist activists who do not invest their time in understanding the trauma that institutional speciesism and ecocidal philosophy in the USA has caused to AR or eco-sustainable justice activists.

I don't know much about psychology or trauma. I myself am not an expert about what I have just written about; I am all about open-ended honesty to work through and abolish speciesism, racism, sexism, etc. Though my attempt is to understand all sides' perceptions and reactions to "injustice", I too am still healing from the trauma of racism and have A LOT to learn--- or rather unlearn-- about the anger, fear, hate, suffering, etc that drive the fragmentation of justice movements that could come together as one..