Gary Yourofsky Veganism Speech Excerpt (09:02 - 13:48)
9 minutes 2 seconds, My goal is simple. All I want to do is re-connect people with animals.
9 minutes 8 seconds, Awaken some emotions and some feelings and some logic, that has been buried and suppressed, intentionally, by our society.
9 minutes 18 seconds, And the reason why I say "re-connect" it's because each and every person in this room
9 minutes 24 seconds, used to be a real animal rights person at one time,
9 minutes 27 seconds, a true animal lover, and a real friend to the animal kingdom.
9 minutes 31 seconds, And it's when we were kids!
9 minutes 33 seconds, When we were young . . . When we were kids . . . Man! . . . We used to be in awe of animals.
9 minutes 40 seconds, They used to make us laugh, and giggle and smile.
9 minutes 43 seconds, They made us pretty happy!
9 minutes 46 seconds, And there was a time in our lives, when we would do just about anything in the world to make THEM happy as well.
9 minutes 52 seconds, To protect them from cruelty!
9 minutes 55 seconds, Or to, at least, ACKNOWLEDGE the cruelty they were receiving.
9 minutes 58 seconds, I mean, if somebody was mean to an animal in front of us when we were little,
10 minutes 2 seconds, we would have screamed and cried.
10 minutes 6 seconds, And that's because we all used to understand right from wrong, when it came to the treatment of animals.
10 minutes 11 seconds, Until somebody told us, and taught us differently.
10 minutes 15 seconds, You better believe that somebody told us to ignore their suffering!
10 minutes 19 seconds, To MOCK and excuse, their pain, and their misery.
10 minutes 23 seconds, To make fun of their very existence.
10 minutes 26 seconds, And this is something I want you to focus on - today, tomorrow and beyond . . .
10 minutes 31 seconds, What in the hell happened along the way?!
10 minutes 35 seconds, Who taught us to be so mean, and nasty and vicious and hateful,
10 minutes 40 seconds, or indifferent towards animals when they used to be our friends?
10 minutes 45 seconds, These are innocent beings, who have done nothing wrong to us.
10 minutes 49 seconds, Because I'm pretty sure, we can all agree on at least one thing right now . . .
10 minutes 53 seconds, That hatred, in its purest form, is a learned behavior.
10 minutes 58 seconds, Racism. Sexism. Heterosexism. Antisemitism. Misogyny . . .
11 minutes 5 seconds, These are all learned behaviors! When kids are 2, 3, 4 years old, playing on a playground
11 minutes 10 seconds, they couldn't care less about the color of their friends' skin or their religious background.
11 minutes 16 seconds, I don't think there is any doubt, that hatred, in its purest form, is learned.
11 minutes 22 seconds, So species-ism is no different.
11 minutes 25 seconds, That's going to be a new word to a lot of people, it's up here on the screen, below the word 'vegan'
11 minutes 29 seconds, is the word 'species', with an -ism attached to it,
11 minutes 33 seconds, and I want to define this word as the unethical, unprincipled point of view,
11 minutes 39 seconds, that the human species has every right to exploit, enslave and murder another species.
11 minutes 49 seconds, And all because we believe that our species is so more special,
11 minutes 54 seconds, so more superior than the other ones,
11 minutes 56 seconds, that we're the only ones that count, and we're the only ones that matter.
12 minutes 1 seconds, Now, correct me if I'm wrong,
12 minutes 6 seconds, but that line of thinking, that thought process,
12 minutes 10 seconds, that is the basis of all forms of discrimination.
12 minutes 13 seconds, One group saying and thinking that they're more special than everyone else,
12 minutes 17 seconds, and they proceed to exploit them, oppress them, denying them their right to be free.
12 minutes 22 seconds, They treat them like property, they enslave them in many cases,
12 minutes 26 seconds, and in many other cases they murder them with premeditation, and without penalty.
12 minutes 32 seconds, And understand something essential about discrimination!
12 minutes 36 seconds, It is NEVER OK to be picking and choosing which forms of discrimination to be opposed to...
12 minutes 42 seconds, And which ones to say are evil: Racism . . .
12 minutes 47 seconds, And which ones to say are okay: Speciesism.
12 minutes 51 seconds, Discrimination is evil on its foundation . . . Or it is not.
12 minutes 57 seconds, We cannot have this one both ways, it doesn't work like that.
13 minutes 1 seconds, I want to ask you, to use some empathy right now.
13 minutes 3 seconds, And when I say 'empathy', what I'm saying is: place yourself in the position of the animals,
13 minutes 10 seconds, and start to view this issue from the animals' point of view.
13 minutes 14 seconds, From the victims' point of view.
13 minutes 17 seconds, When you examine any form of injustice, whether humans are victims or animals are victims,
13 minutes 22 seconds, please remember the victim's point of view.
13 minutes 26 seconds, If you are not the victim, don't examine it entirely from your point of view
13 minutes 31 seconds, because when YOU'RE not the victim, it becomes pretty easy to rationalize and excuse cruelty,
13 minutes 38 seconds, injustice, inequality, slavery, and even murder.
13 minutes 44 seconds, But when you're the victim,
13 minutes 48 seconds, things look a lot differently from that angle.