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Racism, Speciesism and Suffering

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Animals, Race, and Multiculturalism

Part of the book series: The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series ((PMAES))

Abstract

Racism and speciesism can lead to suffering in many ways. Most obviously, racist and speciesist suffering can be caused by direct physical harm, relational damage or institutional violence. What is less obvious though is that the racial and speciesist causes of suffering also shape our perception of its nature and treatment. A racist or speciesist way to perceive the nature of suffering can become its major source. Although suffering is generally recognised as a pivotal element in speciesism and racism, little philosophical work has been done to explore the nature of their relation that goes beyond moral analysis. This paper enters new, metaphysical territory by inquiring into what seem to be central aspects of racism and speciesism, and how they relate to suffering. Our contention is that common to racist-and speciesist-produced suffering is a characteristic prejudice that the suffering of the other is too different, inferior or unimportant than to matter.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Sects. 3 and 4.

  2. 2.

    Arun Saldanha, “Race”, in John Agnew and James S. Duncan, (eds.) Companion to Human Geography, (Oxford, Blackwell, 2011).

  3. 3.

    Ali Rattansi, Racism: A Very Short Introduction, (OUP Oxford 2007).

  4. 4.

    Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, (Haymarket Books, 2012).

  5. 5.

    Alia Al-Saji (2010), “The racialization of Muslim veils: A philosophical analysis”, http://psc.sagepub.com/content/36/8/875.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr (Accessed).

  6. 6.

    Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Ibid.

  9. 9.

    We come back to the issue of dehumanisation in the section on speciesism. Note, as Elder et al. show, the connotations of the very term “dehumanization” are deeply insidious. “They imply human superiority and thus sanction mastery over animals and nature, and also suggest that violent or otherwise harmful treatment is acceptable as long as the targets are nonhuman beings. Thus dehumanization not only stimulates violence toward people, it implicitly legitimizes violence toward animals”. Elder, G., Wolch, J., Emel, J. “Le Pratique Sauvage: Race, Place and the Human-Animal Divide”, in Oakes, T., Price, P.L. (ed.) The Cultural Geography Reader, (London: Routledge, 1998), 88.

  10. 10.

    Ibid.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Singer, P. “All Animals are Equal, Animal Rights and Human Obligations”, in Clarke Paul A.B. and Linzey, A. (eds.) Political Theory and Animal Rights, (London: Pluto Press, 1990b), 163. See also Singer, P. Animal Liberation. (London: Random House, 1990a), 9.

  13. 13.

    Singer, P. “All Animals are Equal, Animal Rights and Human Obligations”, in Clarke Paul A.B. and Linzey, A. (eds.) Political Theory and Animal Rights, (London: Pluto Press, 1990b), 163.

  14. 14.

    Ibid.

  15. 15.

    This is how most philosophers indeed view animals, see, for instance, Clarke’s and Linzey’s collection of the views of philosophers in the history of philosophy Clarke, A. B. & Linzey A. (eds) Political theory and animal rights, (London: Pluto Press, 1990). See also Nietzsche’s powerful critical discussion Nietzsche, F. W. “Pity for animals”, in Clarke Paul A. B. and Linzey, A. (eds.), Political Theory and Animal Rights, (London: Pluto Press, 1990), 149ff.

  16. 16.

    Barthes, Roland, Mythologies, Vintage Classics, 2009.

  17. 17.

    Note, the USA law can be divided into federal and state law. Federal law is applicable to all states, whereas state law is only applicable to the states where this law exists. In US federal law, there are three acts that refer to animals: the Humane Methods Slaughter Act (HMSA), the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and the twenty-eight hour act. The HMSA is about how animals should be killed. Its official aim is to provide legal protection that minimises the suffering of animals when these are slaughtered. According to this act, only two methods are considered humane: (a) in the case of cattle, calves, horses, mules, sheep, swine and other livestock, all animals are rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast or cut; or (b) by slaughtering in accordance with the ritual requirements of the Jewish faith or any other religious faith that prescribes a method of slaughter whereby the animal suffers loss of consciousness by ischaemia of the brain caused by the simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a sharp instrument and handling in connection with such slaughtering. The 28 hour act addresses the transportation of animals, including those raised for food or in food production, across state lines. This federal law says that no animal can be confined in a vehicle or vessel for more than 28 consecutive hours without unloading the animals for feeding, water and rest. The AWA is about the standard of living of animals in commercial activities. However, this law does not apply to all animals. The animals covered by AWA include dogs, cats, primates and other mammals, but excludes animals used for food, birds, rats and mice.

  18. 18.

    Elder, G., Wolch, J., Emel, J. “Le Pratique Sauvage: Race, Place and the Human-Animal Divide”, in Oakes, T., Price, P.L. (eds.) The Cultural Geography Reader, (Routledge, 1998).

  19. 19.

    Ibid., 85.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., 87.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    See, for instance, the following collections: Armstrong and Botzler, The animal ethics reader (2008); Malpas and Lickiss, Perspectives on human suffering (2008); Atterton and Calarco, Animal philosophy (2004); Clarke & Linzey, Political theory and animal rights (1990).

  23. 23.

    Ahmed, S. “The contingency of pain”, Parallax, vol. 8, no. 1, (2009), 17–34.

  24. 24.

    Wanzo, R. The suffering will not be televised. African American Women and Sentimental Political Storytelling. Suny Press: New York, 2009.

  25. 25.

    Ahmed, S. “The contingency of pain”, Parallax, vol. 8, no. 1, (2009), 18.

  26. 26.

    Wanzo, R. The suffering will not be televised. African American Women and Sentimental Political Storytelling, (Suny Press: New York, 2009), 260ff.

  27. 27.

    Ibid.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 165.

  29. 29.

    Ahmed, S. “The contingency of pain”, Parallax, vol. 8, no. 1, (2009), 19.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 22.

  33. 33.

    Ibid.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 23.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 25.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., 24.

  37. 37.

    Scarry argues that the tortured gradually loses his or her ability to speak, reverting to a state prior to language. Scarry, E. The body in pain, (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 29.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 28.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 31.

  41. 41.

    Wanzo, R. The suffering will not be televised. African American Women and Sentimental Political Storytelling, (Suny Press: New York, 2009), 147.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 166.

  43. 43.

    Ibid., 149.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., 162.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., 148.

  46. 46.

    Note, we confine ourselves to Wanzo’s study of the treatment given by white medical staff and not by black and Hispanic medical staff. Such a comparison might be important but falls outside our scope.

  47. 47.

    Allen, C, Fuchs, P.N., Shriver, A. and Wilson, H.D. “Deciphering Animal Pain”, in Aydede, M. (ed.) Pain: New Essays on its Nature and the Methodology of its Study, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 351–366.

  48. 48.

    Aydede, M. “Pain”, in Stanford Encyclopaedia for Philosophy, The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information Stanford University: Stanford, 2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/pain/ (Accessed).

  49. 49.

    Aydede, M. Pain: New Essays on its Nature and the Methodology of its Study, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 1.

  50. 50.

    Allen, C, Fuchs, P.N., Shriver, A. and Wilson, H.D. “Deciphering Animal Pain”, in Aydede, M. (ed.) Pain: New Essays on its Nature and the Methodology of its Study, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 252.

  51. 51.

    Ibid.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., 353.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., 351.

  54. 54.

    Ibid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Fort Hare, 50 Church Street, P.O. Box 7426, East London, 5201, South Africa

    Abraham Olivier

  2. Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai), Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong, China

    Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai), Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai, Guangdong, South Africa

    Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues

  2. University of Fort Hare, Alice, South Africa

    Les Mitchell

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Olivier, A., Cordeiro-Rodrigues, L. (2017). Racism, Speciesism and Suffering. In: Cordeiro-Rodrigues, L., Mitchell, L. (eds) Animals, Race, and Multiculturalism . The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66568-9_7

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