More than half of dog owners in the US bought their dogs a Christmas present this year. Ninety percent pampered them with treats throughout the year. And common sense will tell you that nearly all of these pet owners mourn the death of their animal. Then what happens? What force nixes this steadfast love for animals when we sit down and eat? We would never think of torturing a dog, yet every time we eat a hamburger, we contribute to a completely unnecessary torturing of another animal. The truth is, we are picky in which animals have a right to live. Some animals are legally allowed to be raped, tortured, and killed, while for other, it is illegal and unethical to leave them in the car for too long. We blatantly assign certain animals higher classes than others.
Assigning these different levels, or ‘class systems’ mentioned above is not a new practice; it has been around for ages. The earlier forms of this ‘class system’ were completely obvious. An example is the feudal system. The ‘lords and ladies’ would rule over the ‘serfs and poor farmers’. Once you were born in these classes, you were stuck at that class level. There was no moving up or down in the class ranks. Over time, society changed and viewed this ‘class system’ as wrong.
Today, we don’t have this blatant class system. The class system society currently dictates isn’t anywhere near as obvious as it was several hundred years ago but it still not desirable and nearly identical in pattern. In the current system, society groups people and things using invisible classes. It puts us morally at rest when we don’t see these classes so what we do is unconscientiously place one class or group in a ‘higher’ group than the others. For the most part, overtime, these invisible groups become visible as society uncovers the once unseen discrimination. Unfortunately, the pattern is ongoing so it repeats itself again and again through time.
As we move through history, we can see the evolution of discrimination. When we look back at United States history, we see that our society taught us that it was completely acceptable to make a distinction between races so drastic to say that if you are white, you are a human and if you are black, you are property. If you killed a white person, you would be put to death. If you killed a black person, which was a piece of property, no one would care. It was also quite convenient to use blacks for cheap labor. Blacks were beaten, starved, raped, tortured, enslaved, and killed without anyone blinking an eye. There was no point to question the ethical purity of this. It was completely acceptable in the eyes of society. Whites have privileges while blacks are merely commodities. Over time, people changed, but it wasn’t until 1936 that they found a word to describe the terrible discrimination of races: racism.
In the close past, we saw the effects of racism. Nazi Germany was a prime example of racism. The society of Nazi Germany taught of a superior race named the Aryan race; everything else was subpar. Those who were a part of this Arian race had no qualms about the mass holocaust on others because of course; they were the superior race. There was no need to question if their actions were right or wrong; their society taught them a holocaust was acceptable.
Presently there are white supremacy extremist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan who are thriving. On the KKK’s homepage, it boasts having over 200 separate Klan groups in America. The KKK will occasionally be seen in marches in the traditional, all white robes. Even the thought of these white supremacy klansmen angers most. It should. Society now sees that giving such supremacy to one race yet disrespecting others is wrong. We didn’t 150 years ago.
On a different discrimination, our society taught us that women were inferior to men. A decade ago, women started to gain equality. Before this time, women didn’t have the brain capacity to drive a car, have a normal job, and they sure as hell couldn’t vote. We all know this was wrong. But it wasn’t even until 1920 that all women could vote.
Even today, women are considered inferior to men. Brothels are still legal. Child porn can easily be found on the internet. Hardcore pornography in which women are completely disrespected and insulted is a multibillion-dollar industry. This teaches us that these types of mistreatments are acceptable. This leads to female movie-stars getting stalked in hopes of getting a shot without their underwear on. On the news, it isn’t rare to see women or young girls get beaten and raped. Increasingly women are gaining equality but surely haven’t reached equilibrium with men yet. The reason all of this still goes on without anyone thinking that it is wrong is because most of society teaches us what is completely acceptable; there was no reason to question it.
Increasingly in the news, we see the issues of heterosexism. Heterosexism is the idea that heterosexuals are superior to same gender-loving individuals. This idea runs ramped throughout America; there is no hiding it. People who believe in heterosexism want to prevent homosexuals from getting married because it is degrading to their morals. They believe that their god, who says to love his own creations equally, would not give same gender-loving couples equal rights. Another one of the more overlooked heterosexism discriminations our society faces, is the ever-evolving pop-culture lingo. Our culture has sculpted words used to describe homosexuals into hateful, offensive, and disparaging slang such as ‘faggot’, ‘gay’, ‘queer’, and ‘homo’. In a typical conversation with a teenager, it would be hard to go through entirely without the use of one of these offensively redefined words. Most of our society says that these discriminations are allowed to go on because not enough people see a problem with it.
Debatably, the most over-looked, belittled, and ignored form of discrimination is the use of non-human animals in food. Paralleling all of the previous trends of discriminational –ism’s, most people don’t think of this as a form of discrimination. This is because in this circumstance, it’s convenient to be discriminate. Each year, Americans torture and kill over 10 billion animalsincluding cows, chickens, and pigs for food when not one of animals needed to be killed. Legally, cats and dogs can’t be tortured in any respect, yet other animals who are equally smart, can and are legally tortured, killed, and eaten every year. If they were to do any typical farming practices to cats or dogs, it would be deemed animal abuse.
The word we use to describe the favoritism toward pets versus food animals is speciesism. This means that humans act discriminatory towards certain animals while favoring others i.e. It is wrong to kill cats and dogs if you don’t need to, but it is perfectly acceptable and legal to kill cows, pigs, and chickens for food. Chances are, you think that this is completely acceptable. Guess what? That’s what the people thought and still think of racism, sexism, and heterosexism; it was what society taught them to be acceptable, why question?
The trends of discrimination have been clear and repetitive. You couldn’t compare humans(whites) with property(blacks), Men with women, or Heterosexuals (the preferred orientation of god) with homosexuals and until recently, you couldn’t compare pets with food-animals. Now, for the first time in history, ‘food’ animals are getting rights. In both Germany and Switzerland, they have changed the wording of their constitution to include animals. Fur farms are illegal in England. These countries started to implement the most rudimentary rights for animals because they are starting to see the most blatant form of discrimination. The idea of discrimination is simple, if you wouldn’t torture and kill your pet if you don’t need to, then don’t torture and kill other animals if you don’t need to? You don’t have to torture and kill animals, it’s just convenient and socially acceptable to do so. In fact, some nutritionists would encourage you to stay away from meat entirely. Society teaches us that needlessly killing certain animals is acceptable and we don’t question it. Neither did any of the paralleling -ists: the racists, sexists and heterosexists.
Be a little independent. Open your eyes to the trends. And stop making excuses for yourself because it’s convenient. If you don’t do this, never call yourself a non-discriminate person; you’ll just be lying to yourself. The pattern is simple; this is the evolution of discrimination.
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