Slavery: what did Vegans really learn from the abolition of slavery?

okay so like what is it that we maintain
you know sir so nothing something that we get all the time as well what's your practical solution I got an easy answer for you one word veganism that's the hope that's the only thing you need to know what we need to do you need to be if you're an animal person you need to be vegan once you're vegan then what you do is go out there and educate anybody and everybody you can if every one of us turn one person out to veganism in the next year we could change the world in a decade but you know what i do what i love doing I talk to people all the time you know when I'm at the grocery store and people say wow you a lot of vegetables I said yeah I'm a vegan and you know I have all sorts of conversation I've conversations when I'm getting gasoline at the gas station one of the more bizarre unannounced contrast within the philosophy of Gary Francie ohne is between his seemingly over-the-top radicalism in constantly comparing the future prospects for veganism to the history of the abolition of slavery and very specifically he uses a sort of fabled narrative of how slavery was supposedly abolished in the southern United States without reference to the broader story the British Empire without comparative reference to say Haiti the French Empire Sri Lanka Thailand any other country or cultures experience without slavery was abolished with a very simplified succinct narrative that he uses to justify the rejection of any form of compromise pragmatic cooperation cetera et cetera he uses to vilify single issue causes etcetera but there is a contrast between that and this somewhat ridiculously humble practice of his saying well you took strike up conversations with people at the gas station strike up conversations with people at the grocery store and that's the way he is going to progress is that the way slavery was abolished with a bunch of conversations at the grocery store is it I don't think so bottom line is if slavery's bad you don't promote humane slavery you both the abolition of slavery you know and I don't think it was people who refused to own slaves going to the grocery store and having these polite conversations that Gary francia nave reports he has with strangers that spread the idea of people not only said I don't think I think that skips over a few crucial details even within America's history of slavery was abolished such as you know a civil war you might or might not have heard of with unbelievable body count and a whole political process even before that civil war that changed the American you know political party system etc etc debate that tore the nation apart but definitely tore apart the house of Congress and then as you know resulted in war and death and dismemberment beyond imagining um if the abolition of slavery and specifically the abolition of slavery in the United States only an America centric narrative village if that's your model for social change why do you abandon it now when you switch to pragmatic actions vegans are supposed to take why does it become a bunch of polite conversations grosser this is actually a profound absurdity in his rates it's a profound incoherence but to switch from this somewhat extreme example of how slavery was abolished to an example that I think is much more useful to compare to the current ongoing history veganism how will history of gay rights do you think that's how gay rights in any successful country not every country in the world has gay rights been a success in but easily any country where the gay rights movement has been successful was their method having polite conversations at the grocery store is that what did it what was it a bunch of people at the gas station the grocery store having a play conversation saying hey you know my people have been persecuted we've been literally you know tied to a stick and burned to death by the Catholic Church historically this has been treated as a sin this has been treated as a form of insanity my people have been put into gas chambers my people have been you know strapped down in you know pseudo medical psychiatric institutions mental hospitals and electrocuted to try to turn them from gay to straight we have this amazing history and now I want to strike up this little little chit chat with you at the grocery store and get you to come over to my side it's worth phrasing it that way because it's not even clear in that context at the grocery store what coming over to my side would really mean you know what can straight people do to help gay people in a country where that struggle still ongoing where those legal changes haven't happy and so on no now something I've pointed out again and again in this video the original title is on community and that's the one video where asked my fans translated into Chinese Japanese German Danish Italian spin transit in many languages because for me it is my positive core message on this channel for gay rights I think the factor that's most easily overlooked and its most crucial and that we as vegans need to learn from was that they built visible communities they went from being an invisible minority to being a highly visible one and that included just nightclubs and included restaurants and included bars but yes it also included lawyers offices it also included rights movements explicitly political movements that articulated position of the gay community or geek communities plural very often have a whole bunch of different organizations some representing lesbians some more left-wing some more conservative etc etc doesn't matter they went from being an invisible minority to being a visible minority they went from being a powerless and voiceless minority to being a powerful organized minority with political lobbies yes but also with real community organizations that's how people and gay rights change the world without a civil war that killed millions and millions of people you promote wool you promote leather you promote silk when you when you condemn fur you promote they took the eating of meat of a beef of chicken of fish when you go after foie gras that's the way it works okay that's the way that's how these coalition's function for example race-based slavery in the United States people came to the recognition that if humans were chattel slaves they existed completely outside the more on legal community slavery was wrong all humans should be treated as persons ie all humans whatever their personal characteristics whatever other interests of theirs we protected they should all be regarded as persons I heat beings whose interests mannered morally and who had intrinsic or inherit value and as long as humans were slaves they could not have intrinsic or inherent value they only had external or extrinsic value okay and so we abolished slavery principle one abolitionist maintained in all sentient beings human or non-human have one right basic right not to be treated as the property of others now I'm tempted to leave this video there to keep it short and sweet and succinct it to the point but I think one of the other fundamental misconceptions that Gary Franchione has popularized is that property itself as a legal concept is the problem because property is what the human eyes is a slave and again in this simplified history of just southern United States no interest in slavery in any other culture in the world in either part of the world's history it's problematic property itself becomes demonized and the abolition of this legal concept of property is presented as this overly simplistic solution well I don't know Gary Francie own is supposedly a lawyer but he may be a lawyer with a very narrow interest or you may be intentionally misrepresented things to make its case down stronger that's not the way property works at all if you own an historical building a building of some artistic significance some historical significance you can't do anything without getting the government's permission you can't renovate you can't take down a wall all you can't put in a new window you can't adjust the level of the windowsill you'd be amazed I mean it depends on where you live if you're living in Europe almost anywhere in Europe you'll know what I'm talking about owning property does not mean that you have the right to take that property and throw it in the garbage in fact there are many many categories of property including land itself where the legal restrictions and guidance provided the people the government is extensive if you buy a statue that is of some historical value and then you destroy the statue you may indeed be committing a crime that we had a proposal put to our Senate in Canada it's the Canadian Senate Canadian parliamentary system and ever the recall it was presented as Senate three times and rejected three times to create a special act a special law that redefined animals as living property that a special class of property it is a bizarre fact that in most countries around the world a statue of a cow has more rights than an actual cow but they are both property you can have laws that protect protect cultural heritage cultural heritage remains property I mean again almost every country there will every wealthy country except for extremely poor countries in the world they have some laws that protect architecture as cultural heritage the physical structure of the building decorative elements can be a painting on the wall can be a fresco the fact that you own that with you on the whole building or or or one object like this does not actually give you any of the rights he's talking about here and the reality is that the status of animals is in some ways much more of a problem like cultural heritage in this sense because animals do not have their own voice they cannot go to court and represent their own opinions and interest the way slaves can especially if you liberate slaves and educate slaves slaves can go to court and speak of themselves in fact in the present and the future what we really need especially which over the next ten years next 30 years talk about my lifetime I don't really want utopian solutions that are for 500 ears the future I won't talk about nail once I go with me before I'm in the grave yes we can have pragmatic down-to-earth laws under which animals are still property but we're like cultural heritage there are special legal guidelines our special considerations that make them fundamentally different from a block of wood say already true of many many classes of property and of course in some ways also all of these questions linked to wildlife management habitat conservation and the preservation of a forest whether it's public property or private property we're still talking about property land trees would birds in the forest i I'm sorry I know there's this yearning sort of immature reaction so well the problem is that we use the word property to describe these things and if only we can abolish the concept of property then all of these problems will disappear but it's just not true in reality we're looking at a long slow series of halfway steps and you know laws that adjust and refine the definition of property so that yes you know there's some protection for an ape that has been taken out of the jungle put into a laboratory and tortured for years who is going to speak for that ape the ape can't speak for himself or herself it may seem to you and inherent crime to label this eight property but I've got to tell you my concern is with the pragmatic steps for how that ape actually has rights that can be exercised that ultimately those rights have to be exercised by human beings on that Apes behalf ultimately human beings have to enforce the regulations for a forest somebody has to patrol the forest somebody has to notice the trees are cut down somebody has to take scientific measurements of the water in the river and go to a court and prove that somebody else is polluting it etc etc there is just no sense in which you can remove the stain of this word property and then expect the liberated slaves to speak to themselves it is a false analogy at best it's misleading in the extreme and it also proceeds from a eurocentric and basically America centric notion of slightly history of slavery and one that massively oversimplifies the reality of what property is in our society today I banos yen