» Dismantling Intersectional Oppression CSAI Resources

Related Prior Social Witness Statements

Economic Justice, Class and Racism:
• Reaffirmation of Commitment to Racial Justice 2016
• Support the Black Lives Matter movement 2015
• Reproductive Justice, 2015
• Condemn the Racist Mistreatment of Young People of Color by Police – AIW 2013.
• Immigration as a Moral Issue – Statement of Conscience 2013
• Deepen Our Commitment to an Anti-oppressive Multicultural Unitarian Universalist Association – Responsive Resolution 2013
• Youth and Young Adult Empowerment Resolution: Accountability – Responsive Resolution 2008
• Congregational Programs on Racism and Classism – Responsive Resolution 2006
• Economic Globalization – Statement of Conscience 2003
• World Conference Against Racism – Action of Immediate Witness – 2001
• Economic Injustice, Poverty, and Racism: We can make a difference – Statement of Conscience 2000
• Working for a Just Economic Community – General Resolution 1997
• Toward an Anti-Racist Unitarian Universalist Association – Business Resolution 1997
• The Civil Rights Act of 1990 – Resolution of Immediate Witness 1990
• Economic Conversion for Peace and Human Needs – General Resolution 1989
• Racism Imperative – Business Resolution 1981
• Self-Determination for Blacks and Other Ethnic Groups – General Resolution 1968

References

On white supremacy culture in U.S. history:
• Ibram X. Kendri, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Nation Books, 2016)
• The Dreaded Comparison – Human and Animal Slavery by Marjorie Spiegel

On Life on earth under threat:
• “Climate change will cause widespread global-scale loss of common plants and animals, researchers predict” in Science Daily May 12, 2013.
• “How a Warming Planet Drives Human Migration: Climate displacement is becoming one of the world’s most powerful — and destabilizing — geopolitical forces.” By Jessica Benko. New York Times, April 19, 2017

On humankind’s false sense of separation from nature:
• Thought Trap 6: Humans Have Lost their Connection to Nature by Frances Moore Lappé in Ecology, August 23, 2012
• “Mourning Ourselves and/as Our Relatives: Environment as Kinship” by Sebastian F. Braun in Mourning Nature ed. Ashlee Cunsolo & Karen Landman.2017 McGill-Queens University Press.

On the interdependence of all life:
• “A Wolf’s Role in the Ecosystem – The Trophic Cascade”
• “Of Ants, Elephants and Acacias: A Tale of Ironic Interdependence” By David Biello on January 10, 2008 in Scientific American
• “How Plants Secretly Talk to Each Other” by Kat McGowan in Wired

On creating a biosphere sustainable for all beings:
• Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch – Rockefeller Foundation Report July 25, 2015
• What Does the Earth Ask of Us? Center for Humans and Nature Questions for a Resilient Future – Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, by Thomas Berry, Broadway Books, 2000.

On Intersectionality:
• Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait
• Animals and Intersectionality – Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation (Counterpoints) Dec 30, 2013 by Anthony J. Nocella II and John Sorenson
• Climate Justice and Intersectionality
• Journal for Critical Animal Studies; Special issue, Inquiries and Intersections: Queer Theory and Anti-Speciesist Praxis, Guest Editor: Jennifer Grubbs
• What is Afro-Veganism?
• Black Vegans Step Out, for Their Health and Other Causes
• Radical Vegan Perspectives on Total Liberation

UU Organizations

• The Center for Ethical Living and Social Justice Renewal
• UU Food Justice Ministry
• UU Women’s Federation
• UU Buddhist Fellowship
• Diverse Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries
• Covenant of UU Pagans
• Black Lives of UU
• Allies for Racial Equity
• UU Animal Ministry
• UU Ministry for Earth
• The First Principle Project

Other Organizations

The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond is a New Orleans-based organization known internationally for its Undoing Racism trainings.

A Well-Fed World is a hunger relief and animal protection organization chipping away at two of the world’s most immense, unnecessary and unconscionable forms of suffering…the suffering of people hungry from lack of food, and the suffering of animals used and abused for food.

The American Sociological Association Section on Animals and Society addresses the increasing popular and scholarly attention being devoted to the relationship between humans and other animals for well over two decades. Philosophers, feminists, anthropologists, psychologists — and, increasingly, sociologists – are examining the complex, profound and entangled relationships of humans and other animals.

The Jane Goodall Institute is a global community conservation organization that advances the vision and work of Dr. Jane Goodall. By protecting chimpanzees and inspiring people to conserve the natural world we all share, we improve the lives of people, animals, and the environment. Everything is connected—everyone can make a difference.

The National Link Coalition is the national resource center on the link between animal abuse and human violence.

Southerners On New Ground envisions a sustainable South that embodies the best of its freedom traditions and works towards the transformation of our economic, social, spiritual, and political relationships. We envision a multi-issue southern justice movement that unites us across class, age, race, ability, gender, immigration status, and sexuality; a movement in which LGBTQ people – poor and working class, immigrant, people of color, rural – take our rightful place as leaders shaping our region’s legacy and future. We are committed to restoring a way of being that recognizes our collective humanity and dependence on the Earth.

The NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program was created to support community leadership in addressing this human and civil rights issue. Environmental injustice, including the proliferation of climate change, has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and low income communities in the United States and around the world.

The Institute for Humane Education (IHE) teaches about the interconnected and pressing issues that impact all life – humans, other animals, and the earth we share – and provides individuals of all ages with the tools to be solutionaries for a better world.

One Health Initiative Mission: Recognizing that human health (including mental health via the human-animal bond phenomenon), animal health, and ecosystem health are inextricably linked, One Health seeks to promote, improve, and defend the health and well-being of all species by enhancing cooperation and collaboration between physicians, veterinarians, other scientific health and environmental professionals and by promoting strengths in leadership and management to achieve these goals.

Conservation International (CI) knows that human beings are totally dependent on nature — and that by saving nature, we’re saving ourselves. Building upon a strong foundation of science, partnership and field demonstration, CI empowers societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature, our global biodiversity, for the well-being of humanity.

The work of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future is driven by the concept that public health, diet, food production and the environment are deeply interrelated and that understanding these relationships is crucial in pursuing a livable future.

The Syracuse Peace Council (SPC) Founded in 1936, is an antiwar/social justice organization. We are community-based, autonomous and funded by the contributions of our supporters. SPC educates, agitates and organizes for a world where war, violence and exploitation in any form will no longer exist. We challenge the existing unjust power relationships among nations, among people and between ourselves and the environment. As members, we work to replace inequality, hierarchy, domination and powerlessness with mutual respect, personal empowerment, cooperation and a sense of community. Present social injustices cannot be understood in isolation from each other nor can they be overcome without recognizing their economic and militaristic roots. SPC stresses a strategy that makes these connections clear. We initiate and support activities that help build this sense of community and help tear down the walls of oppression. A fundamental basis for peace and justice is an economic system that places human need above monetary profit. We establish relationships among people based on cooperation rather than competition or the threat of destruction. Our political values and personal lives shape and reflect each other. In both we are committed to nonviolent means of conflict resolution and to a process of decision-making that responds to the needs of us all.

Food Empowerment Project seeks to create a more just and sustainable world by recognizing the power of one’s food choices. We encourage choices that reflect a more compassionate society by spotlighting the abuse of animals on farms, the depletion of natural resources, unfair working conditions for produce workers, the unavailability of healthy foods in communities of color and low-income areas, and the importance of not purchasing chocolate that comes from the worst forms of child labor.

Wildlife Health Cornell Mission: We strive to develop proactive, science-based approaches for sustaining a healthier world. By improving knowledge, understanding, and capacity at the interface of wildlife health, domestic animal health, and human health and livelihoods, environmental stewardship can be enhanced today, and for tomorrow.

Planetary Health is rooted in understanding the interdependencies of human and natural systems. The Rockefeller Foundation’s investments in Planetary Health are dedicated to the new multi-disciplinary field, and finding solutions to health risks posed by our poor stewardship of our planet. Through advocacy, partnership and awareness raising, the Planetary Health Initiative seeks to influence both international and national approaches to health. Additionally, we hope to create policy change that better balances human advancement with environmental and biodiversity sustainability.

Beyond Carnism is a US-based, international organization dedicated to exposing and transforming carnism, the invisible belief system that conditions people to eat certain animals. Carnism causes extensive suffering. Animal agriculture is responsible for the unnecessary slaughter of 77 billion land animals worldwide per year, and it is a major contributor to environmental degradation, human disease, and human rights violations. However, the majority of people who eat animals are unaware that they are contributing to such destruction. Beyond Carnism seeks to empower concerned citizens and vegan advocates through education and activism, to help create a more compassionate and just world for all beings, human and nonhuman alike.

The Humane Party is the U.S.A.’s first political party committed to: 1.Rights for all animals—not just the human kind, 2.Full realization of an ecosystem-neutral, sustainably prosperous economy, and 3. Support and election of only those candidates who have committed to humane values both personally and politically.

Our Planet. Theirs Too. is a non-profit animal rights and planet conservation organization, that promotes a new vision for planet Earth and all of the species of beings who live on it: human and non-human animals sharing this planet in peace and harmony. We believe that this Earth belongs to ALL who live on it, and they should be able to share its resources equally. The human race, rather than dominating and harming all other species and the planet itself, should take full responsibility and protect them. Because it’s our planet, and theirs too!

Afro-Vegan Society is empowering our community by using veganism as a tool to overcome systemic race-based oppression shared among those who have a common African ancestry.

HEART (Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers) mission is to foster compassion and respect for all living beings and the environment by educating youth and teachers in Humane Education. HEART’s services are specially designed to provide a combined focus on human rights, animal protection and environmental preservation. Our direct services to educators and students, as well as our advocacy efforts, enable us to significantly impact the way young people think about their responsibility to one another, animals and the natural world.

Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty. With 70 years of experience in more than 90 countries, Oxfam takes on the big issues that keep people poor: inequality, discrimination, and unequal access to resources including food, water, and land. We help people save lives in disasters, build stronger futures for themselves, and hold the powerful accountable.

Rainforest Action Network preserves forests, protects the climate and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns.

Dr. A. Breeze Harper’s work focuses on how systems of oppression- namely racism and normative whiteness- operate within the USA. She uses food and ethical consumptions cultures, within North America, to explore these systems. Her favorite tools of analysis are critical whiteness studies, decolonial world systems theory, Black feminisms, critical race feminism, critical animal studies, and critical food studies. She is known for using engaged Buddhism as the choice method to explain her research and broach these often difficult topics of power, privilege, and liberation.

Lisa Kemmerer, professor of philosophy and religions at Montana State University Billings, is a philosopher-activist working on behalf of nonhuman animals, the environment, and disempowered human beings. Graduate of Reed, Harvard, and Glasgow University (Scotland), Kemmerer has written/edited nine books.

One Green Planet is a platform for the growing compassionate and eco-conscious generation. Our goal is to help create a world where we eat delicious food and use amazing products that provide us with maximum benefit and have minimum impact on the planet. With over 6 million visitors, we are the fastest growing (and largest) independent publishing platform focused on sustainable food, animal welfare issues, environmental protection, and cruelty-free/green living.

Quotes from Articles

“Q: Isn’t it insensitive to be talking about veganism and animal rights at a time when the conversation should be about systemic racism?

A: No. We aim to highlight the intersections of animal oppression and Black oppression within the context of a white supremacist culture. These oppressions are not mutually exclusive. For many of us, veganism is a tool to fight systems of oppression. Here at BVR we firmly believe that veganism and animal rights efforts are (or perhaps should be) an integral part of dismantling white supremacy.”
http://www.blackvegansrock.com/faq/

“The divide between “human” and “animal” seems to mirror the racial divide between “white” and “black.””
https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/black-folks-animal-rights-mvmt/

“Ultimately, black veganism is not just about animal rights: It’s part of a much larger activist project to promote antiracist and feminist politics.”
https://mic.com/articles/127821/the-surprising-way-these-activists-are-using-veganism-to-fight-white-supremacy#.xeuVy1ecy

“How can you consider yourself a person against all forms of oppression while participating in the brutal mistreatment of nonhuman animals?” https://www.herbanistic.com/posts/2017/4/29/how-black-feminism-lead-me-to-veganism

“Remember that intersectionality is intended to deconstruct the binaries and hierarchies of assuming liberation means one issue or community comes before another. Remember that intersectionality is about recognizing the big picture, to help identify where oppressions link and how different identities inform our experience. Remember that intersectionality is not perfect, and that in challenging some oppressions may be upholding other privileges or marginalizing others in a solution. Remember that intersectionality is a way to help us all work in better solidarity with other communities in different struggles. Remember that intersectionality is for helping us become comfortable with contradictions, in accepting that we can experience privilege and oppression across our different identities. Remember that intersectional animal liberation means that all layers of our identities are valued and respected, that all earthlings are honored and included.”
https://humanrightsareanimalrights.com/blog/oppression/why-animal-rights-fails-at-intersectionality/