A.F.A.R.
Wednesday May 17th, 2023 with Carolyn Harris
This week, the animal rights advocate Jeremy Hess and I discuss anti-speciesist language, speciesism in journalism, the problems with Effective Altruism, staying motivated as animal advocates, and providing sanctuary for nonhuman refugees.
This week, the vegan animal rights advocate Jeremy Hess returns to the show for a third interesting discussion! I previously interviewed Jeremy for Episodes 62 and 78 of my show.
Jeremy Hess has been a vegan since 2014 and has been involved in a variety of forms of animal rights advocacy over the years, including working at sanctuaries and doing street outreach to speak to the public about veganism. He was also a co-founder and co-panellist on The Animal Rights Show on YouTube. On his website, VeganInteractions.com, and his YouTube Channel, Jeremy the Ape, he provides resources to help advocates use accurate and non-speciesist language and learn about animal rights theory. He is currently in the process of co-creating a vegan microsanctuary called Respect Animal Sanctuary to provide a safe home for survivors of speciesism in Georgia in the United States.
In this interview, Jeremy and I discuss how we can challenge speciesism in our language use, and we examine a particular speciesist mainstream media article about animal rescuers. We also discuss how we can respond when people ask us about the "breeds" of our dog friends, why Effective Altruism is problematic from an abolitionist vegan perspective, how we can stay motivated to continue advocating for our fellow animals, and what Jeremy and his partner Nisha Taylor-Hess are planning for Respect Animal Sanctuary.
Here are a few more links, based on what we discussed in the interview:
Andy Atkinson's new documentary, Animal Rights: We're Getting It Wrong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPzA2u7vUck
The recently-published book, The Good it Promises, The Harm it Does, edited by Carol J. Adams, Alice Crary, and Lori Gruen https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-good-it-promises-the-harm-it-does-9780197655702?lang=en&cc=us#
Speciesist article from the Daily Mail (2019) (archived version): "Animal Rebellion: They're the militant vegan wing of eco-warriors who shut down British cities and now plan to stop us eating meat, fish and dairy. As this undercover report reveals, HATRED is on the menu" (Correction: When speaking about this article in this episode, I said that there wasn't any mention of the victims of animal exploitation, but I was only referring to the title and summary. In fact, later on in the article, the authors did briefly mention that the activists were holding a moment of silence for a cow. However, the authors referred to the cow as a "beef cow", did not suggest that there was any need to show moral concern for the cow, and were mocking and villifying the activists throughout the article.) https://web.archive.org/web/20221225131019/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7539867/Animal-Rebellion-Theyre-militant-vegan-wing-plan-stop-eating-meat-fish-dairy.html
Speciesist article from Fox News (2023) (archived version): "Animal 'rescuers' wreaking havoc by stealing farm animals: 'These are criminals, not activists'" https://web.archive.org/web/20230509010354/https://www.foxnews.com/media/animal-rescuers-wreaking-havoc-stealing-farm-animals-criminals-activists
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