Like bloggers everywhere, I cannot help but weigh in on the Geraldo Rivera comment that Trayvon Martin's hoodie was "as to blame" as his assailant, George Zimmerman, for his murder.
I hope it's not really necessary for me to say I disagree.
But Rivera does bring up a point -- albeit ham-handedly -- about the power of symbols in our culture. In sociological terms, everything is a symbol. Words are symbols. They stand for things. What *do* hoodies (and pants worn below the butt, and baseball caps worn backwards, and...) symbolize to many people?
In a word, danger.
It's not fair. As Glenn Fleishman (@GlennF on Twitter) tweeted today: "Hoodies kill kids just like halter tops cause rape."
Indeed. Saying the hoodie is to blame for Trayvon's senseless killing makes about as much sense as saying a girl wearing a short skirt who gets raped was "asking for it."
It's precisely that obvious parallel that gives me pause, because -- as a white mother to a teen white girl -- I am deeply conflicted about what I allow my daughter to wear.
On the point that Rivera made -- that he tells his sons not to wear hoodies, not to wear pants "down to their ankles" -- I find myself nodding my head.
Not my academic, sociological, analytical mind. But my parental, over-anxious self. The part of me that wants to do everything possible to keep my girl safe.
For while I want to say that my child should dress however the hell she pleases (and, she pretty much does), I cannot help but worry that some outfits give different messages.
Different outfits are different symbols.
Jeans, long-sleeved shirt, flats? Nicely dressed teen girl.
Short skirt, bare legs, flats, top that shows a little form? *I* still think "nicely dressed teen girl" but I'm afraid others may see something along the lines of "loose" or "asking for attention."
It's surely a sign of societal sickness that parents everywhere have to worry --- with good reason -- about what their children wear. That parents of minority boys may, in particular, be wary of whether or not their sons are perceived (wrongly!) as "thugs." That parents of girls (of any race) may be rightly worried whether or not their daughters are perceived (again, wrongly!) as "asking for attention."
But make no mistake: a 130 pound kid with a bag of Skittles and an iced tea -- hoodie or no hoodie -- did not deserve to be killed (or even bothered by) by a 250 lb neighborhood "watch" man who carried a *gun*.
And if anything ever happens to my daughter, I'll personally strangle the first person who says that her attire was "as to blame" as her assailant.
But we ignore *at our peril* the kernel of truth to Rivera's worries.
Sometimes, we do need to be aware of how we are perceived.
Even if the person doing the perceiving is -- clearly -- the one who is wrong.
About Me
- Elaine
- My interests include veganism and vegetarianism, health, ethics, politics and culture, media, and the environment. I have three kids; I teach college part-time, study piano and attempt to garden. I knit. I blog on just about anything, but many posts are related to my somewhat pathetic quest to eat better, be more mindful of the environment, and be a more responsible news consumer. Sometimes I write about parenting, but, like so many Mommy bloggers, my kids have recently told me not to. :) Thanks for reading.
Showing posts with label sociology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sociology. Show all posts
Friday, March 23, 2012
Monday, May 2, 2011
Perceived Social Support: A Lesson from Lara Logan's Interview
As some of you know, I'm both a sociologist of mental health and a journalism junkie. A few of you may even know I'm working on two books, one a co-edited (with my husband) volume on immigration and the other on the sociology of mob violence. These three things have come together, in the most unexpected of ways, in the past few months, with the publicity and news surrounding Lara Logan's horrendous assault in Egypt and the gang rape of Iman al-Obeidy by Qaddafi forces in Libya. Both women have shown INCREDIBLE courage in telling their stories publicly. One, because she was able to escape and go home, has been the rather lucky recipient of a great deal of support -- medical care, letters from strangers, notes from colleagues, pictures drawn by school children, stories shared by other women, notes from soldiers, even a phone call from President Obama. The other, however, has been denied the most basic human right of going home and, according to the Free Iman al-Obeidy Facebook page, has suffered greatly by being denied that access to her support system.
Last night, like millions of others, I watched Lara Logan's interview on 60 Minutes. Having followed the story carefully, I have to say I wasn't all that surprised by the details. My first clues to the severity of the assault were actually in the original CBS news statement itself: brutal and sustained sexual assault, on next flight out of the country, four days in a hospital. You don't have to be a mind reader or a genius to have figured out that it was a horrible, possibly life-threatening assault. Nobody -- least of all a war correspondent with 18 years experience working in the most war-torn places on the globe -- leaves a foreign country in the midst of celebration for something minor. Nobody -- even somebody with means -- spends four days in a hospital for the trivial. Hospitals just don't do that anymore. Nonetheless, hearing her tell her own story and seeing her tears made my heart race, my body turn cold, my tears flow. I wish I could do more for her than simply leave the notes of support that I (like hundred of others) have left on her official Facebook page.
In some ways, however, the part of the interview available online at 60 Minutes Overtime was actually the more heart-wrenching. Logan emphasized in that segment exactly how grateful she was for all the letters and cards she has received. She, unlike so many other victims of similarly horrible crimes, has tangible evidence that people care. Not just that her immediate family and friends care, but that strangers care. How unbelievably wonderful. Though Iman reportedly knows that she, too, has supporters, it is unlikely that she has the same amount of tangible evidence that people are on her side.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if all victims of violence could receive abundant evidence that people care?
Conveniently for me, I was already scheduled to lecture today on perceived social support. I used a portion of Logan's 60 Minutes Overtime segment in my lecture; the students were silent and clearly moved. The segment made the point: perceived social support matters. Various sociological studies have shown that it is perceived social support that matters most to people's mental health -- even more than tangible supports that are more easily measured (such as how often people make meals for you or take care of your children). Those who perceive they have more support are better at coping, more apt to seek help if they need it, and have lower rates of both mental and physical health problems. Those with higher levels of perceived social support also report what psychologists call post traumatic growth -- a trend among trauma survivors to report (in retrospect and only after much time has passed) that there was something good that came out of their healing.
We cannot make the traumas go away. We cannot make the traumas themselves "good". The traumas always will be indescribably evil and horrifying and they tend to stay with people in some way or another. But we can, by supporting each other, make it possible for people not only to survive a trauma, but to thrive afterward.
Logan has said she does not want this assault to define her. Of course not. And of course it doesn't. She, like all survivors, is so much more than what she survived. She's an amazing reporter. An incredibly brave, honest, intelligent woman. Somebody who by her courage and brutal honesty has managed to launch herself into my pantheon of heroes.
And now, for those of us who are her fans, it's up to us to do two things: continue to show her our support for as long as she needs it (these traumas don't disappear very fast, I'm told), and keep our promise to her that we won't define her by this event. We might define her by her bravery, however. But I think she'd be OK with that.
And we owe Iman the same thing -- to define her by her strength and not by her victimization. All survivors of the unimaginable are due this.
Got a little free time today? Drop a card to somebody. Remind them how strong they are. Remind them that they are loved. Such things matter.
It's the least we can do.
=====================================
Suggested Readings:
1. Thoits, Peggy. 2011. Perceived social support and the voluntary, mixed or pressured use of mental health services. Society and Mental Health 1 (1): 4-19.
2. Joseph, Stephen and Linley, Alex P. 2008. Trauma, Recovery and Growth: Positive Psychological Perspectives on Posttraumatic Stress. New York, NY: Wiley.
3. Lian, Tam Cai. YEAR. Perceived social support, coping capability and gender differences among young adults. Sunway Academic Journal 6: 75-88.
4. Cadzow, Renee B. and Servoss, Timothy J. 2009. The association between perceived social support and health among patients at a free urban clinic. Journal of the National Medical Association 101(3): 243-250.
5. Wethington, E. and Kessler, R.C.. 1986. Perceived support, received support, and adjustment to stressful life events. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 27: 78-89.
6. House, J.S. 1981. Work Stress and Social Support. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
7. Vaux, A. 1988. Social Support: Theory, Research and Intervention. New York: Praeger.
8. Turner, R.J. and Lloyd, D.A. 1995. Lifetime traumas and mental health: The significance of cumulative adversity. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36: 360-376.
9. Turner, R.J., Wheaton, B., and Lloyd, D.A. 1995. The epidemiology of stress. American Sociological Review 60: 104-125.
Last night, like millions of others, I watched Lara Logan's interview on 60 Minutes. Having followed the story carefully, I have to say I wasn't all that surprised by the details. My first clues to the severity of the assault were actually in the original CBS news statement itself: brutal and sustained sexual assault, on next flight out of the country, four days in a hospital. You don't have to be a mind reader or a genius to have figured out that it was a horrible, possibly life-threatening assault. Nobody -- least of all a war correspondent with 18 years experience working in the most war-torn places on the globe -- leaves a foreign country in the midst of celebration for something minor. Nobody -- even somebody with means -- spends four days in a hospital for the trivial. Hospitals just don't do that anymore. Nonetheless, hearing her tell her own story and seeing her tears made my heart race, my body turn cold, my tears flow. I wish I could do more for her than simply leave the notes of support that I (like hundred of others) have left on her official Facebook page.
In some ways, however, the part of the interview available online at 60 Minutes Overtime was actually the more heart-wrenching. Logan emphasized in that segment exactly how grateful she was for all the letters and cards she has received. She, unlike so many other victims of similarly horrible crimes, has tangible evidence that people care. Not just that her immediate family and friends care, but that strangers care. How unbelievably wonderful. Though Iman reportedly knows that she, too, has supporters, it is unlikely that she has the same amount of tangible evidence that people are on her side.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if all victims of violence could receive abundant evidence that people care?
Conveniently for me, I was already scheduled to lecture today on perceived social support. I used a portion of Logan's 60 Minutes Overtime segment in my lecture; the students were silent and clearly moved. The segment made the point: perceived social support matters. Various sociological studies have shown that it is perceived social support that matters most to people's mental health -- even more than tangible supports that are more easily measured (such as how often people make meals for you or take care of your children). Those who perceive they have more support are better at coping, more apt to seek help if they need it, and have lower rates of both mental and physical health problems. Those with higher levels of perceived social support also report what psychologists call post traumatic growth -- a trend among trauma survivors to report (in retrospect and only after much time has passed) that there was something good that came out of their healing.
We cannot make the traumas go away. We cannot make the traumas themselves "good". The traumas always will be indescribably evil and horrifying and they tend to stay with people in some way or another. But we can, by supporting each other, make it possible for people not only to survive a trauma, but to thrive afterward.
Logan has said she does not want this assault to define her. Of course not. And of course it doesn't. She, like all survivors, is so much more than what she survived. She's an amazing reporter. An incredibly brave, honest, intelligent woman. Somebody who by her courage and brutal honesty has managed to launch herself into my pantheon of heroes.
And now, for those of us who are her fans, it's up to us to do two things: continue to show her our support for as long as she needs it (these traumas don't disappear very fast, I'm told), and keep our promise to her that we won't define her by this event. We might define her by her bravery, however. But I think she'd be OK with that.
And we owe Iman the same thing -- to define her by her strength and not by her victimization. All survivors of the unimaginable are due this.
Got a little free time today? Drop a card to somebody. Remind them how strong they are. Remind them that they are loved. Such things matter.
It's the least we can do.
=====================================
Suggested Readings:
1. Thoits, Peggy. 2011. Perceived social support and the voluntary, mixed or pressured use of mental health services. Society and Mental Health 1 (1): 4-19.
2. Joseph, Stephen and Linley, Alex P. 2008. Trauma, Recovery and Growth: Positive Psychological Perspectives on Posttraumatic Stress. New York, NY: Wiley.
3. Lian, Tam Cai. YEAR. Perceived social support, coping capability and gender differences among young adults. Sunway Academic Journal 6: 75-88.
4. Cadzow, Renee B. and Servoss, Timothy J. 2009. The association between perceived social support and health among patients at a free urban clinic. Journal of the National Medical Association 101(3): 243-250.
5. Wethington, E. and Kessler, R.C.. 1986. Perceived support, received support, and adjustment to stressful life events. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 27: 78-89.
6. House, J.S. 1981. Work Stress and Social Support. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
7. Vaux, A. 1988. Social Support: Theory, Research and Intervention. New York: Praeger.
8. Turner, R.J. and Lloyd, D.A. 1995. Lifetime traumas and mental health: The significance of cumulative adversity. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 36: 360-376.
9. Turner, R.J., Wheaton, B., and Lloyd, D.A. 1995. The epidemiology of stress. American Sociological Review 60: 104-125.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Do I Owe You An Apology?
When I first started this blog, I was blogging pretty regularly -- at least once a week, if not twice. About half of my posts were on veganism or diet and the other half were a combination of news or parenting experiences. Then my kids let me know that they did NOT want to be visible on my blog, so I lost about 25% of my material.
I know this is a common experience among Mommy bloggers, particularly for those whose kids are old enough to know what a blog is and to have a nascent awareness of public and private. I have to respect that. My kids don't want strangers commenting to me about their lives on the Internet, no matter how entertaining (or mundane) the stories may be. (There are exceptions; the recent blog about my daughter's Battle of the Books competition was approved by her. In fact, she wanted me to write that one.)
I've also found myself kinda bored with veganism, so I feel I've "lost" another source of topics. I'm currently thinking most about news of various sorts and have lately been paralyzed by world news (Japan, Syria, Libya, Egypt...and Wisconsin and the generally sad state of the US economy).
I really do mean paralyzed -- I don't know where to start a post about any of it. Japan's situation breaks my heart and worries the hell out of me (nuclear power, IMHO, needs to go). The human rights abuses the world over sicken me. The level of hatred people have for each other stuns (but, sadly, does not surprise) me. Dictators need to go, yes, but I also worry about the uncertainty of who will replace them. The continuing downward spiral of our own economy and the suffering that goes with it....
Of late, I've probably been the most consumed with various stories of abuse toward women: Lara Logan, Lynsey Addario, Eman al-Obeidy, women in our military, and the 11-year-old Texas girl. I've been enraged at thoughts of their personal suffering and also keenly aware of the sociological pattern they're a part of.
I actually have been writing; I just haven't published any of it here. I'm working on a very long, detailed sociological analysis of the Lara Logan case, relating it to other well-known cases often covered in sociological textbooks. Some of you might find it interesting, but it is definitely more academic than "bloggish," and has a ton of footnotes and cites.
I'm not sure it's appropriate for a blog. Let me know if you think I should reconsider that and "entertain" you with a lengthy sociological discussion of bystanders, mobs, and reference groups, of how particular cases are sadly anything but unique. I warn you though -- it's a long piece (20 pages and not at all done).
For those of you who follow this blog because you are particularly interested in veganism, I worry I've let you down. You should know I'm still at it and that I will still write about it from time to time, but I don't currently feel that I have something to add beyond what I've already said, and certainly not beyond what other (arguably more committed) vegans have said and continue to say. In a nutshell, I believe a vegan diet is a healthy one, that avoiding animal products in other areas of life (e.g., clothing, sports equipment, makeup, furniture) is an ethical choice, and that avoiding animal use in general, if done by enough people, has HUGE environmental (and animal) benefits.
So, veganism is a good thing to do, even if you sometimes fall off the proverbial wagon and have to haul yourself back on.
I'm in that category, in case the title of the blog never clued you into that. My biggest downfall continues to be...cheese. How unusual.
If I've disappointed some of you by not writing about veganism as much as I had originally intended, I apologize. Hope you'll still stick around.
I know this is a common experience among Mommy bloggers, particularly for those whose kids are old enough to know what a blog is and to have a nascent awareness of public and private. I have to respect that. My kids don't want strangers commenting to me about their lives on the Internet, no matter how entertaining (or mundane) the stories may be. (There are exceptions; the recent blog about my daughter's Battle of the Books competition was approved by her. In fact, she wanted me to write that one.)
I've also found myself kinda bored with veganism, so I feel I've "lost" another source of topics. I'm currently thinking most about news of various sorts and have lately been paralyzed by world news (Japan, Syria, Libya, Egypt...and Wisconsin and the generally sad state of the US economy).
I really do mean paralyzed -- I don't know where to start a post about any of it. Japan's situation breaks my heart and worries the hell out of me (nuclear power, IMHO, needs to go). The human rights abuses the world over sicken me. The level of hatred people have for each other stuns (but, sadly, does not surprise) me. Dictators need to go, yes, but I also worry about the uncertainty of who will replace them. The continuing downward spiral of our own economy and the suffering that goes with it....
Of late, I've probably been the most consumed with various stories of abuse toward women: Lara Logan, Lynsey Addario, Eman al-Obeidy, women in our military, and the 11-year-old Texas girl. I've been enraged at thoughts of their personal suffering and also keenly aware of the sociological pattern they're a part of.
I actually have been writing; I just haven't published any of it here. I'm working on a very long, detailed sociological analysis of the Lara Logan case, relating it to other well-known cases often covered in sociological textbooks. Some of you might find it interesting, but it is definitely more academic than "bloggish," and has a ton of footnotes and cites.
I'm not sure it's appropriate for a blog. Let me know if you think I should reconsider that and "entertain" you with a lengthy sociological discussion of bystanders, mobs, and reference groups, of how particular cases are sadly anything but unique. I warn you though -- it's a long piece (20 pages and not at all done).
For those of you who follow this blog because you are particularly interested in veganism, I worry I've let you down. You should know I'm still at it and that I will still write about it from time to time, but I don't currently feel that I have something to add beyond what I've already said, and certainly not beyond what other (arguably more committed) vegans have said and continue to say. In a nutshell, I believe a vegan diet is a healthy one, that avoiding animal products in other areas of life (e.g., clothing, sports equipment, makeup, furniture) is an ethical choice, and that avoiding animal use in general, if done by enough people, has HUGE environmental (and animal) benefits.
So, veganism is a good thing to do, even if you sometimes fall off the proverbial wagon and have to haul yourself back on.
I'm in that category, in case the title of the blog never clued you into that. My biggest downfall continues to be...cheese. How unusual.
If I've disappointed some of you by not writing about veganism as much as I had originally intended, I apologize. Hope you'll still stick around.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Gene Baur's Farm Sanctuary
Several weeks ago, I promised a blog on the books I've been reading on animal rights. A few of you might be wondering when the *heck* I'm gonna write about those.
I've been, of necessity, reading about status and health, epidemics and stratification, medicalization of everyday conditions, cultural interpretations of symptoms and the history of medicalizing women's lives. (My fall class is Sociology of Health and Medicine.)
In other words, I *still* haven't finished the pile of animal rights' books I've bought and been slowly reading.
Rather than wait to write until I've finished *all* of them -- my original plan -- I've decided to write about each one separately.
I have now read Gene Baur's Farm Sanctuary (Touchstone Press, 2008). I suspect I read it first because the picture of the pig on the cover is so darn cute. I also LOVE autobiographies, and although this isn't billed as one, you learn an awful lot about who Gene Baur is as a person while reading it.
Who cannot get into the story of a guy, raised in Hollywood, who majored in sociology (!) and ended up being inspired by activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman? A guy who worked as an intern for Ralph Nader and was equally inspired by a talk by Carl Sagan? A guy who spent some time hitchhiking trying to figure out what to do with his life -- something that would "match [his] values"? A guy who stayed in a hotel across the street from the New Holland (PA) stockyard and ended up rescuing a sheep who had been abandoned in the trash? A guy who initially funded his sanctuary by selling vegetarian hot dogs at Grateful Dead concerts? A guy who proves that "you can achieve amazing things even by the humblest means" (p. 41)?
Gene Baur is my kind of guy, and not just because he majored in sociology.
In some ways, the story of his journey starts on page 23:
The book is chock-full of statistics about factory farming, slaughtering practices, the evils of genetic modifications, environmental calamity, diseases, and the reality that animals are treated as simply objects for our use. I'm not going to reiterate all that here (except for detailing the problems with dairy and genetic engineering below), but I will say that if you've been living under a rock and *don't know* how bad the system is for animals, for the environment and FOR YOU, then you should read the book.
If you *don't want to know* you should read it too. Selective ignorance isn't attractive and it certainly isn't an excuse to think that it's OK to keep to traditions just because it's "culture" or "the norm".
If after reading the book you still think that eating a vegan diet a few days a week isn't a reasonable compromise between an omnivore culture and a vegan one, then I'm not sure I can think you're a reasonable person. Honestly. The data is just too strong not to think otherwise.
Though he writes forcefully and convincingly, Baur advocates politeness and reasoned dialogue (p. 65) and a sensitivity to the farmers who, understandably, don't know what life they will go to if they give up what they know (p. 63). Those are two other reasons why I love his book. He is unfailingly polite and sensitive to how hard it is for people to change. But that doesn't mean change isn't possible, even against enormous odds. He proves that it is.
Committed vegans know this, but for my readers who do not, it's worth a few paragraphs.
Few people fully realize why dairy is as inherently violent a food choice as meat. Though I have blogged in the past that there is a distinction between use of animals that involves death (meat) and use of animals that allows them to live (honey, milk, wool), it's increasingly clear to me that, unfortunately, it isn't all that clear. I wish that it were.
As Baur writes, there is NO use for a male calf on a dairy farm (pp. 99-110). Most male calves are taken from their mothers within days of their birth, raised in crates so small they cannot turn around, and fed a liquid diet intentionally low in iron and fiber in order to keep their flesh pale. They are then slaughtered at 20 or 24 weeks. Some are slaughtered even earlier and end up in TV dinners.
I've greatly summarized the story of veal here in order to make clear the same point Baur does: DAIRY IS NOT INHERENTLY NON-VIOLENT. It's a tough lesson, and one that depresses me greatly, not just because I love dairy (I DO!) but because in the days prior to factory farming one, arguably, could have milked one's cow in the backyard and, at least for several YEARS, given that cow and her calves good lives. (Not a vegan position, but an acknowledgement that dairy coming from an old-fashioned family farm would have definitely involved less violence than dairy from ANY source today, including...drumroll please...organic farms.)
If you care about the treatment of calves, you shouldn't eat dairy. It's not enough just to give up veal or meat.
A theme throughout the book is how often the animals at the farm sanctuary suffer from physical ailments. Some of you who eat meat will undoubtedly be thinking "Well, that's why we kill them and eat them first, before they get old and suffer!"
(Clearing throat.) NO, that's NOT the point. As Baur writes,
Need another statistic? Dairy cows now produce 53 POUNDS OF MILK PER COW PER DAY -- three times as much milk as they produced only fifty years ago (p. 113). It's impossible not to see that the cows are treated as machines, genetically modified for OUR -- certainly not THEIR -- benefit.
What about this? Pigs and chickens (and cows and turkeys, too) are bred to grow to "such sizes so that their bodies provide more of the parts people like to eat" (p. 137, regarding pigs). "[B]roilers have been selectively bred to grow twice as fast and twice as large as normal" (p. 149) and have been "genetically manipulated to develop extra-large breasts" (p. 151). Turkeys routinely suffer fatal heart attacks and are commonly lame AND are so big and shaped so oddly that they cannot mount and breed naturally (p. 160).
Because of these realities, pigs at the sanctuary are usually unable to live out their intended lifespan and usually have to be put down at 8 or 9 years old because they are so big that they have trouble moving around (p. 137). (Wild pigs can live much longer and move around just fine.)
Baur writes that
Baur has profiles of rescued animals scattered throughout the book, and many of them end up receiving special care as they age. Perhaps it is telling that three chickens, Tofutti Cutie, Taboo, and Milky Way (p. 175) -- rescued from the carnage of Hurricane Katrina -- only get one sentence instead of an entire profile. I suspect that, due to extreme genetic engineering inherent in chicken farms, they led short lives characterized by difficulties walking (due to heavy breasts) and breathing (also due to genetic modifications). The sentence,
How sad. And all because people like to eat white meat and want it quicker.
****
Ultimately, Baur believes that vegan is the way to go because doing it is environmentally sustainable and because it removes one from the cycle of violence inherent in ALL farming (p. 218).
No review would be complete without a few picky criticisms.
There are a few places in the book where I wish he would have cited better. For example, on page 212, he writes,
"...In 2005, sales of organic foods in the United States were nearly $14 billion.
I don't doubt that last number as much as I wish I knew were it came from. If you divide that number by the (July 2009) Census Bureau US population statistic of 306,861,871, you get an annual per capita food expenditure of $2913.36. For a family of five, that would be $14,566 per year or about $8 per day per person. If you divide $14,566 by 12, you get an expenditure of $1200 per month -- that seems a bit high to me. I wonder how people arrived at that statistic of how much Americans spend on food. What does that number include? Eating out? Groceries AND other stuff you get at the grocery store, such as pet food and cleaning supplies?
It would be good to know, but the info isn't there.
Similarly, he writes that a "noted writer" for The Washington Post has written that the cause of compassion of farm animals is "the moral calling or our time" (p. 190) and that the Slow Food movement began in Italy in 1986 (p. 217). I'd love to read the Post article and know who that author is and I'd love to know where Baur got the date of 1986. Alas, I'll have to do my own sleuthing to figure it out.
When thos are the worst criticisms you can lay at the feet of an author, that is pretty darn high praise.
His sociology professors should be proud. :)
I've been, of necessity, reading about status and health, epidemics and stratification, medicalization of everyday conditions, cultural interpretations of symptoms and the history of medicalizing women's lives. (My fall class is Sociology of Health and Medicine.)
In other words, I *still* haven't finished the pile of animal rights' books I've bought and been slowly reading.
Rather than wait to write until I've finished *all* of them -- my original plan -- I've decided to write about each one separately.
I have now read Gene Baur's Farm Sanctuary (Touchstone Press, 2008). I suspect I read it first because the picture of the pig on the cover is so darn cute. I also LOVE autobiographies, and although this isn't billed as one, you learn an awful lot about who Gene Baur is as a person while reading it.
Who cannot get into the story of a guy, raised in Hollywood, who majored in sociology (!) and ended up being inspired by activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman? A guy who worked as an intern for Ralph Nader and was equally inspired by a talk by Carl Sagan? A guy who spent some time hitchhiking trying to figure out what to do with his life -- something that would "match [his] values"? A guy who stayed in a hotel across the street from the New Holland (PA) stockyard and ended up rescuing a sheep who had been abandoned in the trash? A guy who initially funded his sanctuary by selling vegetarian hot dogs at Grateful Dead concerts? A guy who proves that "you can achieve amazing things even by the humblest means" (p. 41)?
Gene Baur is my kind of guy, and not just because he majored in sociology.
In some ways, the story of his journey starts on page 23:
"One hot and humid Sunday in August 1986, as we walked by the dead pile, we saw
carcasses of a cow, a couple of pigs, and some sheep decaying in the heat
-- nothing unusual.... As we approached, something remarkable happened:
the sheep lifted up her head and looked at us....
we knew we couldn't leave her on the dead pile to linger, possibly for days....
We didn't stop to think about what we were doing.
This is how he and Lorri (then his wife) began rescuing animals discarded by the factory farming industry. (The sheep lived, by the way.) They established a sanctuary for animals in upstate NY (and another in CA) and when they were not rescuing animals, they were documenting inhumane conditions, illegal activities, and putting forth legislation to improve the lives of farmed animals.The book is chock-full of statistics about factory farming, slaughtering practices, the evils of genetic modifications, environmental calamity, diseases, and the reality that animals are treated as simply objects for our use. I'm not going to reiterate all that here (except for detailing the problems with dairy and genetic engineering below), but I will say that if you've been living under a rock and *don't know* how bad the system is for animals, for the environment and FOR YOU, then you should read the book.
If you *don't want to know* you should read it too. Selective ignorance isn't attractive and it certainly isn't an excuse to think that it's OK to keep to traditions just because it's "culture" or "the norm".
If after reading the book you still think that eating a vegan diet a few days a week isn't a reasonable compromise between an omnivore culture and a vegan one, then I'm not sure I can think you're a reasonable person. Honestly. The data is just too strong not to think otherwise.
Though he writes forcefully and convincingly, Baur advocates politeness and reasoned dialogue (p. 65) and a sensitivity to the farmers who, understandably, don't know what life they will go to if they give up what they know (p. 63). Those are two other reasons why I love his book. He is unfailingly polite and sensitive to how hard it is for people to change. But that doesn't mean change isn't possible, even against enormous odds. He proves that it is.
THE PROBLEM WITH DAIRY
Committed vegans know this, but for my readers who do not, it's worth a few paragraphs.
Few people fully realize why dairy is as inherently violent a food choice as meat. Though I have blogged in the past that there is a distinction between use of animals that involves death (meat) and use of animals that allows them to live (honey, milk, wool), it's increasingly clear to me that, unfortunately, it isn't all that clear. I wish that it were.
As Baur writes, there is NO use for a male calf on a dairy farm (pp. 99-110). Most male calves are taken from their mothers within days of their birth, raised in crates so small they cannot turn around, and fed a liquid diet intentionally low in iron and fiber in order to keep their flesh pale. They are then slaughtered at 20 or 24 weeks. Some are slaughtered even earlier and end up in TV dinners.
I've greatly summarized the story of veal here in order to make clear the same point Baur does: DAIRY IS NOT INHERENTLY NON-VIOLENT. It's a tough lesson, and one that depresses me greatly, not just because I love dairy (I DO!) but because in the days prior to factory farming one, arguably, could have milked one's cow in the backyard and, at least for several YEARS, given that cow and her calves good lives. (Not a vegan position, but an acknowledgement that dairy coming from an old-fashioned family farm would have definitely involved less violence than dairy from ANY source today, including...drumroll please...organic farms.)
If you care about the treatment of calves, you shouldn't eat dairy. It's not enough just to give up veal or meat.
GENETIC ENGINEERING
A theme throughout the book is how often the animals at the farm sanctuary suffer from physical ailments. Some of you who eat meat will undoubtedly be thinking "Well, that's why we kill them and eat them first, before they get old and suffer!"
(Clearing throat.) NO, that's NOT the point. As Baur writes,
"People often comment on Opie's [steer rescued as a calf] size...
A few of [the steers whose mothers were dairy cows] weigh up to three thousand pounds.
One reason the steers are so large is that the dairy industry has genetically bred cows
for more and more milk production, which has had
the unintended result of producing bigger animals..." (p. 68).
Need another statistic? Dairy cows now produce 53 POUNDS OF MILK PER COW PER DAY -- three times as much milk as they produced only fifty years ago (p. 113). It's impossible not to see that the cows are treated as machines, genetically modified for OUR -- certainly not THEIR -- benefit.
What about this? Pigs and chickens (and cows and turkeys, too) are bred to grow to "such sizes so that their bodies provide more of the parts people like to eat" (p. 137, regarding pigs). "[B]roilers have been selectively bred to grow twice as fast and twice as large as normal" (p. 149) and have been "genetically manipulated to develop extra-large breasts" (p. 151). Turkeys routinely suffer fatal heart attacks and are commonly lame AND are so big and shaped so oddly that they cannot mount and breed naturally (p. 160).
Because of these realities, pigs at the sanctuary are usually unable to live out their intended lifespan and usually have to be put down at 8 or 9 years old because they are so big that they have trouble moving around (p. 137). (Wild pigs can live much longer and move around just fine.)
Baur writes that
"[b]ecause our society mainly eats the young,
Farm Sanctuary is one of the few places in the country where it is possible
to see the long-term effects of breeding for productivity and industrial confinement.
As they age, the animals need additional care.
Genetic alterations and the industry's standard practices
have compromised their health in irreversible ways" (p. 230, emphasis mine).
Baur has profiles of rescued animals scattered throughout the book, and many of them end up receiving special care as they age. Perhaps it is telling that three chickens, Tofutti Cutie, Taboo, and Milky Way (p. 175) -- rescued from the carnage of Hurricane Katrina -- only get one sentence instead of an entire profile. I suspect that, due to extreme genetic engineering inherent in chicken farms, they led short lives characterized by difficulties walking (due to heavy breasts) and breathing (also due to genetic modifications). The sentence,
"[they] were able to enjoy the rest of their lives with
a degree of comfort denied to their fellow Buckeye layer hens" (p. 175)
suggests that I may be right.How sad. And all because people like to eat white meat and want it quicker.
****
Ultimately, Baur believes that vegan is the way to go because doing it is environmentally sustainable and because it removes one from the cycle of violence inherent in ALL farming (p. 218).
No review would be complete without a few picky criticisms.
There are a few places in the book where I wish he would have cited better. For example, on page 212, he writes,
"...In 2005, sales of organic foods in the United States were nearly $14 billion.
That's about 2.5 percent of the total retail market for food,
still just a fraction of the astounding $894 billion Americans spent on food in 2005."
I don't doubt that last number as much as I wish I knew were it came from. If you divide that number by the (July 2009) Census Bureau US population statistic of 306,861,871, you get an annual per capita food expenditure of $2913.36. For a family of five, that would be $14,566 per year or about $8 per day per person. If you divide $14,566 by 12, you get an expenditure of $1200 per month -- that seems a bit high to me. I wonder how people arrived at that statistic of how much Americans spend on food. What does that number include? Eating out? Groceries AND other stuff you get at the grocery store, such as pet food and cleaning supplies?
It would be good to know, but the info isn't there.
Similarly, he writes that a "noted writer" for The Washington Post has written that the cause of compassion of farm animals is "the moral calling or our time" (p. 190) and that the Slow Food movement began in Italy in 1986 (p. 217). I'd love to read the Post article and know who that author is and I'd love to know where Baur got the date of 1986. Alas, I'll have to do my own sleuthing to figure it out.
When thos are the worst criticisms you can lay at the feet of an author, that is pretty darn high praise.
His sociology professors should be proud. :)
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