Racism at UT? No Way!

As an advocate for animal rights myself, I believe Alice Walker’s short story, Am I Blue?, deters readers from being persuaded to support animals. Instead, this story further polarizes readers into supporters and non-supporters with no grey area. If we are supporting Jeremy Benthem’s idea of Utilitarianism where “the proper end of all action is to achieve the greates happiness of the greatest number,” then this story is contradictory (756). I agree that Blue was not granted the greatest quality of life while living amongst his five acres alone and losing his friend Brown. It was the responsibility of his owners to insure that he was properly cared for daily so that he considered his comradary amongst other people and horses socially satisfying. However, to take the case of horse’s misfortune and apply it to all people of the equine industry is completely insane. Calling members of this industry “people who do not know that animals suffer,” is rather hypocritical coming from people who do not deal with horses on a daily basis (760). Communication and agriculture would never have advanced as it did without the domestication of the horse. Without them, the Mongols in Asia would never have been able to communicate across their vast empire and American settlers would have never been able to efficiently grow crops. One could argue that horses, as Blue, are not able to experience comradary amongst other horses and run free. However, human population has expanded into their territory so that their quality of life is greatest under domestication. You could argue that man has become the new friend to such domesticated animals as we share the same emotions with them as we do with human friends. Frederick Douglas accurately claims that "it should be the study of every farmer to make his horse his companion and friend, and to do this, there is but one rule, and that is, uniform sympathy and kindness" (783). Therefore, under Utilitarian principles, the domestication of horses has led to the greatest happiness.




In the case of considering the University of Texas as a racist campus due to its statues on the South mall is rather unjustified as well. As a visiting A&M Professor, Dale Baum believed that after “a stroll past the statues shaded by live oaks along the South Mall of the University of Texas suggests that the university has a soft spot for the Confederacy” (784). I would like to first ask Professor Baum if he had a complete campus tour to see the other stautes of MLK on the East Mall and Barbara Jordan on the North side of the Union. Although these statues are of African-Americans, it must be understood that associating the Confederacy with slavery is an innacurate and uneducated statement. The south fought for state’s rights and what they believed were individual liverties; however, following the unpopularity of the draft in the Union Lincoln delivered his famous Ghettsyburg address which gave the union a moral cause to fight the war, slavery. Lincoln’s prime concern of the war was to reinstate the union, not abolishing slavery. So to concede that the University of Texas is racist because they erected statues of civil war leaders is not only an insult but rather a statement of ignorance and disrespect. Yes, our founding fathers, such as George Washington, owned slaves; however, his statue is not overlooking the south malll because of that. Rather it is placed there because of his political importance in our nation’s history as the first president of the United States and his role as a revolutionary leader. So according to Professor Baum should Universities only honor leaders whose side was victorious? Would Baum be arguing that Robert E Lee’s statue was racist if he had accepted the Union’s offer to command their army? Should I see Professor Baum on campus one day, I would like to know where he earned his History degree and how he is authorized to teach it at a university level, even if it is TAMU, when he makes such unjustifiable claims.



While reading The Dreaded Comparison, I really thought it was another bleeding heart author using points way to abstract to persaude the reader. His comparison of a dog's quality of life to that of a dairy cow who "despite her years of service, when output drops below a certain point of profitability she is sold and slaughtered" (769). The above complaint that dogs "learn to win approval - and avoid future beatings or other punishments by - by suppressing his own desires and conforming to those of the omnipotent human who legally owns him" (768).





However, should you continue reading on to the section on Vivisection, you will be completely convinced and mortified at the racism and specism that exists not only in this world, but our own country. All examples of vivisection are repulsive to hear about, period. But to hear about the Tuskegee Syphillis Study where "white scientists, working with the racist hypothesis that syphillis affected whites and blacks differently, observed teh course of untreated syphillis in black males for forty years, until the experiment was exposed by a journalist and finally ended with investigtion," is disgusting and embarresing (779). This is an incredible article that could make any Caucasian person in the United States feel ashamed and embarresed. However, if we have learned anything from this class we know that our feelings after hearing, seeing, or reading the cold hard facts mean nothing if they do not lead to action. Rather than crying over these horrific things of the past, Majorie Spiegel uses these examples to persaude reader like you and I to change the cultural and social landscape of this country.