The idea of 'speciesism' has been virtually non-existent in some of the largest newspapers in the United States during the last four decades, even though it has increasingly become a topic of interest in scholarly discourse across disciplines. The few articles that did engage in the topic were used to defend speciesism and to articulate incongruence between racism and sexism on the one side, and speciesism and animal rights on the other. It seems the aim of this overwhelming and incredible lack of articulation connecting speciesism and racism is to erase the issue from public consciousness.
ETSUKO KINEFUCHI: This study examines the ways widely circulated U.S. newspapers have articulated the idea of “speciesism” and its associated idea “animal rights” in relation to “racism” to understand how powerful news media helps to shape the public understanding of the interlocking systems of oppression that cuts across the human and the more-than-human world. The archives (1987 to 2023) of three U.S. newspapers – The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post – were analyzed, using qualitative content analysis. The ideas of articulation, symbolic annihilation, erasure, and discursive closure served as the analytical guides for the analysis…
What do we learn from the collective discourse about “speciesism,” “animal rights,” and “racism” in some of the largest newspapers in the United States? By way of conclusion, this last section reviews the main findings and discusses their implications. First and foremost, the idea of “speciesism” has been virtually non-existent in the mainstream U.S. newspapers in the last four decades. While speciesism has increasingly become a topic of interest in scholarly discourse across disciplines, it has not been taken up by the major news media. This erasure by non-representation makes it particularly difficult for the public to even begin to conceptualize the hierarchies and oppression of life so normalized in society. Even when articles mention “speciesism,” the majority of them did not bother to explain the concept.
Within the articles that did engage the idea, only few discussed the connection between speciesism and racism, regardless of whether the authors affirmed or rejected the connection. This was also the case when “animal rights” was used as a proxy for “(anti-)speciesism” to look for more articles that potentially articulated the interlocking systems of oppression. The majority of articles ornamentally used “speciesism,” “animal rights,” and “racism.” Both exclusion and ornamentalization erase speciesism and foreclose conversations about its association to racism. If the media’s collective representations set agendas about what is important and how, one can argue that the overwhelming lack of representation also helps to set an agenda by erasing the issue from public consciousness.
Second, when connections were made between speciesism and racism or between animal rights and (anti-)racism, the connections were often left unexplained. This incomplete articulation also contributes to erasure. In a culture where a public discussion of speciesism is missing and racism and sexism continue to be wicked problems, leaving the connection unexplained has a consequence. The link remains unregistered for the public or worse the void will be filled with the dominant voice of zero-sum game. In fact, and thirdly, the articles that outwardly rejected the connection served to fill this void by tapping into the taken-for-granted normative practices and thinking, using mockeries, and framing anti-speciesism as racism. Various discursive closure strategies such as naturalization, legitimization, and neutralization were used to defend speciesism and to articulate incongruence between racism and sexism on the one side and speciesism and animal rights on the other.
This dualism is not just a declaration of difference ontologically naturalizes the difference and assigns power to the difference. Dualism, according to ecofeminist, is a relation of separation and domination inscribed and naturalised in culture and characterised by radical exclusion, distancing and opposition between orders constructed as systematically higher and lower, as inferior and superior, as ruler and ruled, which treats the division as part of the nature of beings construed not merely as different but as belonging to radically different orders or kinds, and hence as not open to change.
This hierarchical dualism characterizes the articulation that denied the systemic connection between racism and speciesism. Plumwood argued that dualism is a central feature of colonization as it naturalizes the master subject’s privilege and domination of the inferiorized. It is with this logic that the subjugation of people of color was justified, and it is with this logic that exploitation of women and sexual others was explained away. Speciesism does the same by using the difference between humans and nonhuman animals as given and as the basis for domination.
The mainstream media has an unparalleled power to influence the public agenda. That power comes with the responsibility to usher in the conversations that elevate the wellbeing of the public. In an entangled world, such conversations must include the interlocking systems of oppression, within humans and between humans and the more-than-human world. The incredible lack of articulation connecting speciesism and racism must be rectified. SOURCE…
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