There’s no way around it: Talk to just about any animal advocate, and they’ll tell you they’re experiencing burnout or have in the past. The rates of burnout are higher for Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority, because not only do we constantly carry with us the exhaustion that comes from dealing with racism, but nearly all of us experience racism in the movement as we’re advocating for animals.

We created this series to informally share our thoughts on pressing racial equity issues of our day. We call it “All Aboard!” because it takes everyone—in all of our unique positions—to make racial equity a reality. In this session, we heard from Aryenish Birdie and special guest, Paul Gorski.

We created this series to informally share our thoughts on pressing racial equity issues of our day. We call it “All Aboard!” because it takes everyone—in all of our unique positions—to make racial equity a reality. In this session, we had special guests Shayna Rowbotham and Doris Quintanilla.

We created this series to informally share our thoughts on pressing racial equity issues of our day. We call it “All Aboard!” because it takes everyone—in all of our unique positions—to make racial equity a reality. To start the series, we discussed the importance of leadership buy-in to this work because it’s critical in building a race equity culture.

There are copious resources available to better understand race, racism, and racial dynamics today. In this post we offer a very small sampling of resources as a first step to guide your educational journey.

To truly understand intersectionality we have to go back to the creator of the term itself, Kimberlé Crenshaw, who back in 1989 used it to address the dual systems of gender and race, specifically for Black women. Today “intersectionality” is often incorrectly used to explain just about any intersection of oppression.

Progress requires the tireless effort of people who are committed to making our world a more inclusive, equitable, and justice-minded place. Patiently waiting for the animal movement to diversify itself would be a mistake because as MLK noted, social progress is not inevitable. If we hope to see consistent progress in the animal protection movement then we must act on our internal impulse and seek to change the racial and gender demographics of our movement and our leadership.

Amplification is when people support your message or point by referring to it, crediting it, and/or building on it. When each person’s contribution is marred due to explicit or implicit bias, lack of connection or ignorance, the project and the company lose.