FREE ESSAY ON ANTHROPOLOGY OF LAW ANIMAL RIGHTS

ANTHROPOLOGY OF LAW ANIMAL RIGHTS

Anthropology of Law Animal Rights Protests: Is Radical Chic Still in Style? Over the past
fifteen years a powerfully charged drama has unfolded in New York's Broadway venues and
spread to the opera houses and ballet productions of major cities across the country. Its
characters include angry college students, aging rock stars, flamboyant B-movie queens,
society matrons, and sophisticated fashion designers. You can't buy tickets for this
production, but you might catch a glimpse of it while driving in Bethesda on particular
Saturday afternoons. If you're lucky, Compassion Over Killing (COK), an animal rights
civil disobedience group, will be picketing Miller's Furs, their enemy in the fight
against fur. These impassioned activists see the fur trade as nothing less than
wholesale, commercialized murder, and will go to great lengths to get their point across.
Such enthusiasm may do them in, as COK's often divisive rhetoric and tacit endorsement of
vandalism threaten to alienate the very people it needs to reach in order to be
successful. The animal rights idealogy crystallized with the publication of philosophy
professor's exploration of the way humans use and abuse other animals. Animal Liberation
argued that animals have an intrinsic worth in themselves and deserve to exist on their
own terms, not just as means to human ends. By 1985, ten years after Peter Singer's
watershed treatise was first published, dozens of animal rights groups had sprung up and
were starting to savor their first successes. In 1994 Paul Shapiro, then a student at
Georgetown Day School, didn't feel these non-profits were agitating aggressively enough
for the cause. He founded Compassion Over Killing to mobilize animal rights activists in
the Washington metropolitan area and throw animal exploiters out of business. Since then,
COK has expanded to over 300 members with chapters across the country, including one at
American University, which formed in the fall of 1996. COK organizes protests as a
primary activity of the group, although some chapters may choose to expand into other
areas if they wish. COK's focus on direct-action protests and demonstrations is just one
way that the animal rights movement has mobilized to end the fur trade. The larger animal
rights organizations have conducted attention grabbing media blitzes with the help of
stars like Paul McCartney, Melissa Etheridge, Rikki Lake, Naomi Campbell and Christy
Turlington. Lobbying efforts by animal advocacy groups have resulted in trapping
restrictions in numerous states and an end to federal fur industry subsidies. People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has persuaded several fashion designers including
Calvin Klein and Donna Karan to stop using fur in their clothing lines. In addition,
anti-fur concerts, videos, compact discs, t-shirts, drag revues and award ceremonies have
been used by animal rights groups to advance their cause. Each side of the conflict over
fur coats has an entirely different way of conceptualizing and talking about the issue.
Animal rights groups bluntly describe fur as dead...animal parts and emphasize that
animals are killed to produce a fur garment. Those involved in the fur industry
consistently use agricultural metaphors and talk of a yearly crop of fur that must be
harvested. Manny Miller, the owner of Miller's Furs, refused to describe his business in
terms of the individual animals; I don't sell animals. I sell finished products. I sell
fur coats. These linguistic differences extend to the manner in which both sides frame
the debate over fur. COK refers to the industry in criminal terms; fur is directly
equated with murder and those involved in the industry are labeled killers. Industry
groups like the Fur Information Council of America (FICA) always describes fur garments
as objects and clothing; it is the ultimate cold weather fabric that is your fashion
choice. On Saturday, April 12th, Compassion Over Killing demonstrated outside the White
House, protesting the Clinton administration's opposition to a European Community ban on
the importation of fur coats made from animals caught in the wild. In addition, the
demonstration called for the release of several Animal Liberation Front (ALF) members
imprisoned for vandalizing property and liberating animals from research labs and factory
farms. Several dozen high school and college students turned out for the event, but the
protest attracted a handful of thirtysomethings and an elderly woman as well. Most of the
young people there seemed to dress in a similar style; baggy pants, piercings and
t-shirts advertising obscure hard-core rock bands adorned most of the activists. The
organizers of the protest provided more than enough signs for everyone to carry. Each
sign had a slogan stenciled on the cardboard in boxy black letters, including Abolish the
Fur Trade, Fur is Murder, Stop Promoting Vanity and Death, and Fur is Dead- Get It In
Your Head. Some of the signs displayed graphic photographs of skinned animal carcasses.
In contrast to the dramatic messages they carried, most of the activists were subdued as
they slowly trudged in a circle. The inclement weather seemed to dampen their spirits a
bit, as for most of the three hour protest it alternated between drizzle and half-hearted
rain showers. The few passersby seemed intent on getting through the rain, and quickly
walked past while giving the protesters wide berth. In periods when the precipitation was
less intense, the majority of people passed by with expressions of studied indifference
or disgust and seemed to have a visceral reaction to the bloody, explicit posters. It is
not necessarily bad to show people what you are against; no one in COK likes to look at
those photographs. At the same time, it's important to try to reach people at a level
where your message can resonate. Using words like murder may attract attention, but it
has just as much potential to turn people off. The fur industry is trying its hardest to
paint groups like COK as a radical fringe; one FICA press release said, the more bizarre
the activists look, the better we look -- and what they had outside were freaks. COK's
choice of words might just be playing right into the other side's hands.
Environmentalists would appear to be natural allies of animal rights groups; after all,
they both profess concern for the Earth's varied inhabitants and passionately organize to
protect other-than-human species. But while animal advocates generally call themselves
environmentalists, the reverse is not true. Jim Motavalli writes that environmentalists
tend to see the animal movement as hysterical, shrill and Oone note.' They're often
embarrassed by the lab raids, the emotional picketing and the high-pitched hyperbole. If
the rhetoric of groups like COK alienates groups with a natural affinity for animal
issues, how can it change the mind of a 55 year old wealthy white woman who's always
loved the look and feel of a fur coat? Although the White House simply stood silently in
response to COK's sidewalk activities, the scene was quite different when Compassion Over
Killing picketed Miller's Furs in early April. Slightly less people turned out, but the
makeup of the crowd was similar to the one at the Pennsylvania Avenue protest; many of
the faces were the same at both events. However, a certain contrast was clear; this
protest was targeting a finite business operation, while the White House demonstration
seemed to address the entire United States legal system as well as foreign policy. COK's
call for the release of ALF members convicted of various felonies had an air of futility
about it, as the activists claimed the right to break all sorts of U.S. laws in the name
of their cause. The Miller's Fur protest was more of an even fight. This time the
activists seemed more powerful, as if they were in reach of their goal to close down the
Bethesda fur salon. Their signs had a few more incendiary phrases than those at the
presidential protest; Boycott Murder- Don't Buy Fur and Stop the Killers Boycott Miller's
appeared in addition to those used at the White House protest. The activists excitedly
talked about a recent ALF action; the underground group had recently spray painted animal
right slogans over Miller's windows and canopy. As they circled the group broke into
chants directed by COK leaders, which seemed to add energy to the protester's message.
Passing cars beeped their horns as their drivers waved in support, in contrast to the
tepid response from the pedestrian traffic at the protest downtown. However, with one or
two exceptions those who passed by the fur protest on foot in Bethesda seemed to be just
as hostile as those in D.C
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