by Wayne Hsiung

Words from Professor John Sanbonmatsu have been resonating in my mind for the past two weeks. I was speaking with John about how our mission, with DxE, is to transform what most people consider meat (even "humane" meat) into the horrific violence that it actually is. But Prof. Sanbonmatsu corrected me. "It's not just violence. It's an atrocity." 

And he is right. Violence suggests random cruelty enacted upon an unsuspecting and unplanned victim. Atrocity is something very different. It is the deliberate targeting of an entire group that one deems inferior, disgusting, and otherwise deserving of abuse. It is the enactment of such violent prejudice on mass scale. And it requires a different sort of response from those who choose to fight it. Not just minor reforms or friendly education... but full-throated and even desperate opposition. 

Our movement's message and rhetoric must rise to the magnitude of the evils we are trying to contest. It is hard for me to even imagine, but as I write this, thousands of gentle and innocent beings -- just children -- are having their throats slit, one by one, for the crime of being born to a weaker species. When we speak about this, we should never forget how cataclysmically evil that actually is.

It's not just violence. It's an atrocity. And it's time for us to bring that atrocity to an end.