“People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
If you think the money you give to animal rights groups in New York goes to save or help animals, there is a story today that you need to read, it is so offensive and disturbing to me that I am sad to even relay it to you. It is dispiriting to see such cruelty offered in the name of loving animals. But it is important, because it bares the soul of the leading group in New York City seeking to ban the New York Carriage Horses, and it tells us very eloquently what the lives of the carriage drivers have been like over the past years.
It also raises even more questions about the mayor of New York and his judgment and morality in taking so much money from these people and identifying with them so closely.
More than $500,000 has been committed to publish and distribute advertising that accuses anonymous carriage drivers of racist and homophobic comments. The ad is so offensive and insensitive – and unfair – that it has enraged many of the gay and lesbian members of the City Council it was meant to persuade to vote to ban the horses. You can see it here.
It is an awful and profoundly stupid mistake, it has already backfired loudly and quickly. I saw the ad this afternoon, I could hardly believe it, a new low in a long campaign of lies, lows and dirty shots. And it is just plain stupid. I have spent a lot of time with the carriage drivers and never heard a racist or homophobic remark. In seeking the cultural high ground, NYClass has crawled deeply into the muck. They are also exploiting and debasing the very idea of racism and sensitivity by trying so ineptly to tie it to the carriage horses.
It is really the claim of NYClass and its supporters that banning the horses, putting hundreds of people out of work will improve racial tolerance and justice in America and in New York City? Are gays and lesbians seeking the approval of the carriage horses? Will banning the horses and sending many of them to their deaths improve our sense of tolerance? This is the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, they will not change one mind with this drivel, their one skill set seems to be offering cruel and dumb and dishonest statements to gullible reporters and manipulating people into giving them money under false pretenses.
In this case, they have managed to alienate even the people inclined to support them.
It made me furious to see it, but it also made my heart sink. I know so many of the carriage drivers who have done more for people in a day than NYClass appears to have done in it’s entire existence, and it is deeply offensive to the very people it is supposed to persuade. The carriage trade is quite and visibly diverse, there are gay and lesbian drivers, black and white and yellow ones, hard-working people – not saints – from all over the world.
One day, some ambitious and eager prosecutor will ask NYClass to show them what has happened to the money they have collected, and how much of it – if any – has gone to help a single animal, as they claim they will do. He or she will launch a great career.
For all of it’s issues, and to be fair, this ad does not reflect the true heart of many in the animal rights movement, but it will prove an embarrassment for anyone who cares about animals or people. And it will set back the cause of animal welfare and animal rights, this will turn the stomach of so many people. This ad will not help one horse or other animal in the world, this has absolutely nothing to do with the future or welfare of the carriage horses, it is simply vicious and personal, as so many attacks on the carriage trade have been.
There is no way to verify anything in the ad, which claims the carriage drivers routinely call people “faggots,” “whores,” and refer to them as “niggers.” Thousands of these fliers have been mailed out to city residents, scores of whom have called their City Council members to complain. Can you imagine any sane person working in a public space in New York City in 2015 shouting these names at passersby and customers, even if they believed in using them? It would be social and business suicide, it would bring about the very thing the carriage drivers are fighting so hard to protect – their jobs and way of life.
And then, of course, there is the simple logic of it. Could someone who utters ignorant and profane words possibly love a horse? Is every bigot an animal abuser, do they kick their dogs and cats?
What a tragedy, what a sorry spectacle. Every time we think public discourse can’t sink any lower, it does. This controversy could have been an opportunity to have a true dialogue about the future of animals in New York City, instead it trivializes the very idea of civic discourse as well as the rights of gay and lesbian and African-American people. This ad campaign is very much in the context of the campaign in New York City by NYClass and the mayor to dehumanize the carriage drivers, to portray them as crude, hateful, greedy, abusive and dishonest, so that they can be persecuted and banished and so they can justify refusing to meet with them or talk to them.
For the past four years, demonstrators and people who say they support the rights of animals have been provoking the carriage drivers – and the horses and the people who ride in the carriages – and secretly taping and recording their responses to taunts and insults. NYClass, the so-called animal rights group spearheading the drive to ban the carriage horses, is a prominent contributor to and supporters of Mayor deBlasio.
I have no doubt a few drivers said some dumb things when people shouted insults at them and called them torturers and murderers, and so what? This ad represents the worst kind of bigotry and manipulation, it won’t work, it is out of sync with the times and so blatantly offensively transparent as to boggle the mind. New York is our most sophisticated city, but it apparently is home to some of the crudest people.
I wanted to share it with you. And it is beyond patronizing. It presumes the public and the members of the City Council are stupid enough to decide the fate of animals in New York because of a pamphlet like this. The ad is so disgusting to me that I went back to Pope Francis’s wonderous encyclical this week, it was the only antidote I could think of.
It is useful for anyone to contrast the vision of Pope Francis with the ugliness and venom of this organization.
“Everything is related,” he wrote, “and we human beings are united as brothers and sisters on a wonderful pilgrimage, woven together by the love God has for each of his creatures and which also unites us in fond affection with brother sun, sister moon, brother river and mother earth.”
We can only help the animals of the world if we do it together, animals and people, everything is related, we human beings are brothers and sisters on a pilgrimage, we will stand together or face the consequences.
Shame on the people who put this ad out and wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars – $500,000, in this case – given to them in the name of helping animals. Think of how many animals could have been helped and saved with this money. We need a wiser understanding of animals than this, and a greater respect for the dignity of people.