This week, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued a tweet calling for all human beings to refrain from using the names of animals as euphemisms for insults directed at other human beings.
“Calling someone an animal as an insult reinforces the myth that humans are superior to other animals & justified in violating them,” the animal rights group said. Using animals as euphemisms can “perpetuate oppression” and such words are “supremacist language.”
PETA lectured that instead of “chicken” say “coward.” Instead of “rat” say “snitch.” Instead of “snake” say “jerk.” Instead of “pig” say “repulsive.” Instead of “sloth” say “lazy.”
Words can create a more inclusive world, or perpetuate oppression.
Calling someone an animal as an insult reinforces the myth that humans are superior to other animals & justified in violating them.
Stand up for justice by rejecting supremacist language. pic.twitter.com/HFmMWDcc5A
— PETA (@peta) January 26, 2021
Senator Ted Cruz had a mocking three-word response: “This is Bull$#&!”
This is bull$#&! https://t.co/PYorNjsIrk
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 28, 2021
PETA has repeatedly made headlines for its unique, animal-focused world vision. Two days after a radical Islamist murdered 49 innocents and injured 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, PETA tweeted that the discrimination against chickens had to stop. “Discrimination is discrimination, and it’s wrong, whether you’re a woman or a chicken,” said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.
“Discrimination is discrimination, and it’s wrong, whether you’re a woman or a chicken,” – PETA President Ingrid Newkirk #StateOfWomen
— PETA (@peta) June 14, 2016
In November 2016, PETA trivialized rape, running an ad “equating innocent women and girls being raped and impregnated to inseminated farm animals,” as The Daily Wire reported. The ad commenced with five different female activists alternating lines, seemingly recounting brutal, painful acts of rape against women and girls:
One man held me down… While another touched me… I was so scared… I didn’t know what I had done wrong… After I felt like I was nothing… They got me pregnant… They use my body… I make them money… To them, I’m an object… They call me bitch… I feel… This is not okay… I wouldn’t wish this onto anyone… This hurts… I feel everything… And I feel worthless
The ad then revealed the subject at hand was not women, but instead farm animals being inseminated: “Because I am you,” proclaimed one woman, tears strolling down her face. “Only different,” said another.
“Every year, billions of animals are born into the meat egg and dairy industries,” read a statement flashed across the screen. “Almost all of them are a result of forcible insemination. Almost all of them are a result of rape. Don’t participate, go vegan.”
No mother should have to go through any of this. pic.twitter.com/DjbWQcFTX3
— PETA (@peta) November 2, 2016
In July 2018, PETA released a video in which actress Natalie Portman compared the killing of animals for meat consumption to the Holocaust. Portman referenced Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Isaac Bashevis Singer as she stated, “Isaac Singer grew up in the same part of Poland as my family. And like them, he fled the horrors of the Holocaust.”
Portman quoted Singer from one of his novels, stating, “We do to God’s creatures what the Nazis did to us.”
“As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony,” the video states. “Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.”
According to the Times of Israel, PETA was banned from comparing meat consumption to the Holocaust by a German court in 2009. The court told PETA that they could not use images of the Holocaust alongside abused animals after PETA launched the “Holocaust on your Plate” campaign.