If you’re black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, male, female,
androgynous, transgender, gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, old, young, rich, poor, furred,
feathered, scaled, hooved, clawed, finned, whatever. You feel, you hurt, you desire,
you love. And you deserve life.
Hi it’s Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. Today’s video is
the final installation of my interview series with vegan activist, Gary Yourofsky. I saved
this for last because this is the message I want to leave you with at the end of this
series. Gary’s words are so powerful in this session. So let’s get right to it.
Let’s talk about speciesism. Speciesism is the concept of discriminating against other
beings based on their species. It’s primarily meant to apply to humans, and how we discriminate
against other animals, as well as our tendency to put some species above others. We love
dogs, but we will eat cows. You advocate for the complete eradication of speciesism, correct?
Correct.
A question that comes up when looking at this concept is what is the ultimate outcome
of this look like? Because there are species who are discriminatory against one another.
You know, looking at carnivores will eat other animals. So what do you say to the logical
outcome of speciesism?
First and foremost we have to focus on the worst discriminators. That’s the
two-legged kind. Before we get to lions eating zebras, hyenas attacking antelopes. It’s
humans attacking cows and pigs and chickens and turkeys especially in the food industry.
Remember we are the oppressors, we are the murderers, and we’re the abusers, so we
need to stop our form of speciesism first and foremost. After that, the joke I make
to crowds: “listen when my species stops killing every species on this planet, I’ll
fly to the jungles of Tanzania and try to convince lions not to kill zebras” but until then
that’s not my focus and that should not be anyone’s focus. But interesting that
you bring it up, because I am talking about the circle of life, which is really the circle
of death in the new speech, because so many people are claiming that humans have the right
to eat cows because lions eat zebras. But you’re not looking at it logically. Look
at it from zebras point of view. The zebras are not willing participants in this circle
of life. Stop acting like that’s the way it is. Zebras are trying to run away from
lions when they’re being attacked. That means they don’t want to play along. Think
about this too; every time a bear kills a hiker, we don’t turn around and go: “hey,
he was being a part of the circle of life” and tell his folks: “well, he just wasn’t
fit enough to survive”. So I’m actually calling out the circle of life as being a
complete and utter bullshit. It’s discriminatory, it’s written by the dictators. Written by
the victimizers, not the victims. So stop focusing on what lions do and I’ll point
this out too - if you really want to live like a lion, you’ve got to get rid of your
cell phone, your computer, you can’t have clothes, you can’t have a car, you can’t
go to school, you can’t read books, you can’t have air conditioning in the hot Orlando
weather, you can’t have heat in cold Michigan winters. So if you want to get naked, go outside
and sleep underneath a tree and let bugs and bacteria crawl in to your orifices - be my
guest. Actually you’ll have Gary’s blessing to act like a lion, but since you’re not
gonna do that you can’t base your behavior on lion behavior anyways. Human beings are
herbivores, human beings claim to be compassionate, claim to be know better, but then we turn
around and do the same horrible things to the animals that we’ve done to each other,
that logical people now condemn. What we’ve done to blacks, what we’ve done to woman,
what we do to homosexuals. It is time to eradicate all forms of discrimination once and for all.
From speciesism down the line. But let me point this out too; you’re never gonna get
rid of racism, sexism, heterosexism, antisemitism until you destroy discrimination at it’s
root and that root is speciesism, it’s the first form of hatred human beings are taught.
Before any white person is ever taught to hate a black person, if they are taught that,
before any man is ever taught to hate and dominate a woman, if they are taught that..,they
are taught to eat the cow, eat the pig, eat the chicken, disregard this animal, love the
dog, love the horse, be sad for rhino, love the elephant, but fuck those fish. It’s
all backwards. If you want to get rid of all the forms of hatred - get rid of speciesism.
‘Cause think about this, you’ve got a two year old kid in your house and there is
a spider in the house, I mentioned this earlier. I don’t like spiders either, they freak
me out, but I don’t want to kill him, so when the little girl or little boy starts
crying because the spider’s on the wall, say: “hey ok. we’re going to catch him
in the cup, we’re gonna move him outside ‘cause that spider has every right to live
just like you and I have every right to live”. You teach them justice and teach them respect
the weakest, even the most insignificant of creatures. A mouse, a chicken. Think about
this; if you teach that to a child, when child grows up and sees different sizes, shapes
and colors of human beings. How do they learn to hate them, because that’s what it boils
down to. Discrimination, speciesism. It’s all based on sizes, shapes and colors and
you want to treat certain sizes. shapes and colors better than other ones. No you treat
everyone equally, that’s all vegans.. that’s all animal rights people want is equality.
If you’re doing things to animals that you would never do to humans, then it’s bullshit.
For instance last week I got the hunting question “but the deer’s starving to death” which
by the way is near complete bullshit, but even if they were starving to death, how is
your solution to murder them? Wouldn’t you feed a starving being? That’s what you try
to do to humans who are starving, so if you’re not gonna treat humans the same way you treat
animals? You have speciesism, you have injustice. So it’s time to treat everybody the same
exact way that you would want to be treated. Do unto to others. The golden rule, something
that meat, dairy and honey eaters never do. They talk a good game, but they don’t walk
that talk.
I hope you enjoyed hearing Gary speak about speciesism. It really is the original
form of discrimination. We’ve been discriminating against animals for ages, and certain individuals
have been fighting against this injustice for ages as well, with the words of Pythagoras,
born in 571 BC ringing prophetic. He said, “as long as Man continues to be the ruthless
destroyer of lower living beings, he will never know health or peace. For as long as
men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder
and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
We cannot learn to live in peace and love one another truly until we learn to live in
peace with and love all sentient beings. Regardless of your race, your creed, your religion, your
gender, or your species, we all hurt, we all bleed, we all feel, and we all deserve respect,
love, and safety. Pain is pain, blood is blood, and suffering is suffering. Just look into
the eyes of any animal in the food industry and you will see terror, pain, and sadness.
These beings are not as distant from us as we like to think.
But our falsely-created divisions, our painfully maintained beliefs of separation, and our
stubborn insistence that these creatures, these beings, these sentient, conscious lives
with families and concerns their own, are nothing but things, objects, machines, placed
here for our use and our needs- these culturally ingrained and socially hardwired unrealities
are creating an ever-growing cognitive dissonance within our collective psyches that will eventually
tear us apart.
Because at our core we know that what is on our plate, what is on our coat rack, what
is in our glass, was once alive. And that life is no longer there because of us. And
that- the reality of taking the life of another, is too much to bare.
But that is the reality. No matter how humane, free-range, cage-free, or local- animal products
are lives cut short. And though we may not wield the blade, we are complicit.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to take off the blinders. And it’s time to end this
insanity called speciesism.
Please share this video around to spread this message far and wide, and give it a thumbs
up if you’re ready to take out the greatest form of discrimination on this planet. And
to support this message, please consider joining the Nugget Army on Patreon to keep Bite Size
Vegan educating. You can click on the logo there, or on either of the support links in
the video description below. Thank you so much for watching this series with Gary. It’s
been quite a trip. The whole series is available in a playlist on my channel, also linked in
the description below. And if you’re new here, be sure to hit the big red subscribe
button for more awesome vegan content every Monday, Wednesday and some Fridays. I’d
love to have you in the Bite Size family. Now go live vegan, crush speciesism, and I’ll
see you soon.
So Gary, I just wanted to thank you so much for giving us some of your time today. And
I've also been asked, on behalf of many of my viewers, to thank you for everything that
you do, so thank you so much.
I love your work, Emily, keep rocking the world.
[both laugh]
Let's do that one more time.
You pulled away...
It was kinda awkward. Alright, ummmm...
It was fantastic Chicken Marsala
It was delicious..I had broccoli that was not steamed very much.
[both laugh]
Crispy green beans. the Crispy green bean was amazing
Free sausage rolls.
Brian [off camera]: Gary, go ahead and say something.
Gary: Ah, free sausage rolls.
[both laugh]
Just stick with that... Free sausage.
Robert Halford, Judas Priest.
[off camera]: Actually, Gary, go ahead and say something.
[whispering] breaking the law, breaking the law...
Actually talk. Breaking the law, breaking
the law.
[both laugh]
Good afternoon, everybody, my name is Gary Yourofsky, and I am sleepy.
Yeah...
Never good doing this when I'm sleepy
Yeah...
Subtitles by the Amara.org community