Nia Long did an ad and a video for animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). She also did a photo ad to help put the T&A in PETA. It’s nice to see the Love Jones actress around again, but naked Nia or naked any chick isn’t going to make me stop anything. Difficult to even remember what the ad is for…or against.

“All living things should have the freedom to live” she said in the interview. She also mentions that animal rights and not supporting the fur trade were things she didn’t consider before becoming a mother. That all sounded really heart felt to me. But I thought her statement about animal cruelty being “no different from slavery or the Holocaust” was hyperbole, though it seems like a popular point of view in some circles. I almost feel like she’s trying to oversell her case to her interviewer. This feels like the type of statement some in PETA were waiting to hear a real live Black person say.

This is actually being called:

Animal cruelty is not like the Jewish Holocaust (I’m assuming that’s the holocaust she’s talking about) nor is it like the Trans Atlantic African Slave Trade. It’s true as Nia said all atrocities listed do involve killing living things, but this becomes an animal vs. people debate, which for a lot of humans is ludicrous. Humans are animals, but humans are different from animals in many ways, one of which is that fact that humans have or take more control over the environments of most animals. Those comparisons aren’t helpful and smack of a lack of understanding of the events and ramifications of the Jewish Holocaust and the Trans Atlantic African Slave Trade. Slavery is not even over I think that’s a great way to make animal rights activists feel more righteous and a great way to turn people, especially Black people, off of advocating for animal rights.

I can’t speak for Jewish people, but I can say for Black people, part of our oppression has involved our oppressors affording more humanity to animals than to Black people. That’s what makes Nia Long’s statement and sentiment offensive and ignorant.

What makes Nia Long’s ad offensive is the fact that a naked woman ad objectifies women and contributes to the system that oppresses us all, including animals. Well that and the outrageous “Photoshop Of Horrors” job that kept Nia’s ribs visible, gave her someone else’s mid section and got rid of her belly button. Hope the check was good Nia.

Be Sociable, Share!

•