Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor

3 reviews

illtakethenightshiftx's review

informative

5.0

Beasts of Burden by Sunaura Taylor examines the interconnected, yet different, issues of disability rights and animal rights. Throughout the book, Taylor examines this while taking care to highlight their differences by using both historical, contemporary, and personal contexts. Throughout her analysis, Taylor pulls the curtain back on many of the historical and dominant views on both animal and disability rights which are rooted in white supremacy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, ableism, and capitalism.

There were many instances reading this where my jaw dropped and I marked, starred, and underlined passages multiple times because Taylor’s words helped me to articulate things I believe and try to convey to others, but somehow always come up short in my attempts. She dismantles the ideas of human exceptionalism, anthropocentrism, among others, and forces us to think critically about so much - including factory farming, treatment of disabled people, conscious and unconscious biases, language, and the historical and systemic reasons behind them. 

Taylor doesn't shy away from addressing gaps in her analysis and framing and poses thought-provoking questions that are left unanswered, which is something I appreciated. Some questions don’t have an answer, or have an uncomfortable answer, and that’s okay. She challenges us to sit in our discomfort and really think critically about what is being asked.

Beasts of Burden is an urgent call and a critical lens to reframe what it means to be vegan and an intersectional approach to understanding the connections between disability justice and animal rights. This book was published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I think it’s thesis and message need to be spread because the pandemic disproportionately affected the disabled community and is a disabling virus; long COVID is real and the full extent of the effects of the pandemic are yet to be realized.

All of this is to say - read! this! book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Ableism

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, and Racism

zombiezami's review

adventurous challenging informative inspiring reflective

5.0

This is a beautiful and powerful book. I enjoyed it very deeply. It expanded my knowledge and curiosity. I thought that the author balanced personal experience with academic research very well. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Child death, Genocide, Gore, Medical content, Mental illness, Racism, Vomit, and Xenophobia

Minor: Cancer and Bullying

Fainting, Slaughterhouses

reading_between_the_trees's review against another edition

challenging funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Incredible intersectional text. Taylor writes succinctly about the topic, and includes the necessary breadth of the topics in the book (disability, animal activism, feminism, racism). Necessary read especially for animal rights activists/vegetarians/vegans. Taylor provides an in-depth critique of Peter Singer, Michael Pollan, PETA, and the ableism of animal activism that leaves out disability. She also highlights the beauty in the intersection between the two movements, talking about crip time, queer time, and animal time, and writing about her own experience of the world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Violence, Racism, Sexism, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Medical content