Building an inclusive and equitable animal protection movement

The anxiety and angst people across the United States feel about the state of our country and the 2020 presidential election is palpable. At Encompass, we want to emphasize to animal advocates that the work to fight racism and to create a racially equitable movement is essential to our work for farmed animals.

If we plan to make strides towards dismantling speciesism, we must care about our fellow humans as we work to fight for non-human animals. It is not sufficient for white, middle/upper class people to feel comfortable in the movement while everyone else feels like they don’t belong in this cause. We must be able to encompass the whole of humanity in order to create change that is lasting.

We have been heartened to see many animal protection advocates, organizations—and even some plant-based food companies—making public statements in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, against structural racism, racial inequity, police brutality, and more. However, we need to go beyond public statements. We need to challenge the ubiquitous “stand in solidarity” trope and become proactive—not merely reactive—against systemic racism.

The novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, is affecting all of humanity around the globe. What is the role of the farmed animal advocacy movement at this time?

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.

Before launching the Caucus, we had several internal conversations about what we should name the space. We landed on “POC Caucus” because “POC” is widely used in the U.S.; however, there are a number of critiques for this term that we believe apply to the caucus so we have determined that POC is not the best descriptor. We are now choosing to harness the globally inclusive spirit of a new term: People of the Global Majority.

As an animal protection group that focuses on racial justice, part of what Encompass does is shine a light on the connections people in our movement may not see. Specifically, we spotlight institutional racism because it is typically couched behind the veil of “how things are” and it deserves to be disinfected by sunlight. We care deeply about animals and the people who fight for them, and we also care deeply about those who are stuck in exploitative jobs in the food industry with no other options. The overwhelming majority of these are people of color and/or recent immigrants.

Incorporating DEI into an organization’s culture requires a paradigm shift. It requires everyone in the organization—from top to bottom, no matter how they racially identify—to be willing to grapple with how race affects our work for animals and our movement at-large. DEI work can take many forms and for some, it may be a brand new concept. We created this fact sheet to summarize how we help organizations realize their DEI goals.

Activists are special. They choose to work in service of others, at a time when most people choose to work in service of self. Encompass supports activists and activist organizations, helping them create the conditions that will allow them to focus on their work, reach their goals, and thrive.

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.