I have argued that the "pursestring" point you point you are making is related to the question of how we choose the animals/species that are prioritized for protection. It is what I call palliative animal law,
Original Message:
Sent: 06-05-2021 07:53 AM
From: Sarah Rosenberg
Subject: SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
Gabrielle, thank YOU for creating a platform from which to launch conversations like these.
Absolutely, YES, I see that individuals from marginalized identities don't need saved or rescued. What I see (from my vantage point) that individuals from marginalized identities need is simply freedom from the systemic obstacles that obstruct or downright eliminate their access to the resources that the marginalizers have claimed as their/our own.
The invention of pursestrings has made access to resources scarce even when resources themselves are not scarce. For those of us who have any access to the pursestrings (be it through our vigilance or the very fact of our privilege or social placement), our work can look like snipping at the strongholds that limit access, that create marginalization, and that pit us against one another for reasons invented to maintain the current power structure.
The more deeply we are willing to ask the hard questions and examine the why-things-are's, the more power we reclaim to shift what has become into what we actively choose into being. We might start with questions like these:
- Why do we need to "own" non-human animals?
- Why do we choose some species to serve as pets and some to serve as food? [Corollary: Why is the treatment of one species considered punishable (imprisonable) abuse when the same (or worse) treatment of another is considered an acceptable and necessary part of everyday life?]
- Who gets to codify, adjudicate, and punish the behavior that constitutes "abuse"?
- Whom is the current system actually (not theoretically) benefitting? Whom is the system actually (not theoretically) punishing?
- What is missing from the current system that, if it were present, would make a real difference in what we are seeking to accomplish?
I believe the only way we are going to arrive at the resolution side of these deep issues is by taking the avenue of asking (and answering) the hard questions and by inviting others to join us on the journey. So again, I thank YOU for offering us a place to begin as a collective consciousness.
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Sarah Rosenberg
Paws Between Homes
Original Message:
Sent: 06-04-2021 09:45 AM
From: Gabrielle Chapman
Subject: SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
Sarah ---
From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your thoughtfulness on this topic. It always gives me hope and a sigh of relief to know that other people are processing these topics in a similar manner as I do.
Additionally, it is so important that more people like you continue to share your thoughts, evolving growth, learning and understanding.
The way we create change isn't solely through metrics of success or empirical evidence but it is from listening and allowing the most directly impacted people lead the way. The ability to measure transformation may not be measurable. Furthermore, individuals from marginalized identities do not need saved or rescued, we need resources and the power to growth the health and wealth of our own communities which in turn can elevate the material conditions of humans and non-human beings alike.
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Gabrielle Chapman
The Woodrow Consulting Firm
Original Message:
Sent: 06-04-2021 06:37 AM
From: Sarah Rosenberg
Subject: NEW SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's® Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
Justin, this quote from Tannenbaum via Gruen via Marceau is brilliant in its logic, eloquent in its simplicity. So then why are so many so stymied in this work? So much energy from so many thoughtful, action-taking humans collected in this arena, and we cannot seem to marshal this idea.
Yesterday, I was engaged in a conversation with three friends (we met while we were each employed at "the" local animal welfare organization in our area) in which we discussed our disgust with all the ways in which the current system ("the animal welfare industry," led by NPOs whose very existence relies on their ability to profit from poverty) simply isn't working, for anyone. And we all vowed that we could no longer support it with our work and our energy.
But the question arose, for each of us, "then what can we do?" Some are considering leaving the arena of human-animal work and of non-profit work as a whole, exhausted and disgusted and cynically resigned.
We all agreed theoretically that dismantling the current system seems the only way to empty the space in order to allow something new to present. With the omnipresence of caste-based distinctions imbued in every facet of every system in this (every?) culture, we acknowledge that there can be no laser-surgical removal of these distinctions from each facet individually such that the current system can remain in an altered state, hopefully to function equitably. And yet our lenses are still limited by the frames that hold our gaze, and fear of the unknown obscures the long view and stalls the propulsion of immediate action.
Four people of different ages, backgrounds, academic educational experiences, sexualities, and physical presentations and expressions--in collective search for, commitment to, and determination to create a something-better--and we could derive only this: each ACTION we take in the direction of "something better" matters, and stringing these together in our personal journeys and in the collective that we create as we form cohorts, communities, and coalitions, is one path forward. If we don't have an answer today for what the something-better will look like, we can still take actions that align and connect us.
My most epiphanic takeaway from Angela Davis's seminal piece "Are Prisons Obsolete?" was seeing for the first time that our carceral system was invented by those in power to serve them and their ideals, that its evolution and iteration in our country was not driven by any sort of necessity or truth but rather out of convenience for those in power. The notion of prison as punishment is a capitalist invention that has snowballed over time to feed the beast it serves. Can it not be possible that its dismantling must take a similar form of ongoing action that addresses its underlying reliance on the construct of domination? In Davis's words, "To reiterate, rather than try to imagine one single alternative to the existing system of incarceration, we might envision an array of alternatives that will require radical transformations of many aspects of our society. Alternatives that fail to address racism, male dominance, homophobia, class bias, and other structures of domination will not, in the final analysis, lead to decarceration and will not advance the goal of abolition."
What alternatives can we be creating with every conversation and action in the direction of something less brutal and more useful?
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Sarah Rosenberg
Paws Between Homes
Original Message:
Sent: 06-03-2021 12:57 PM
From: Justin Marceau
Subject: NEW SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's® Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
I often think that for all of us who love animals so dearly, the question is "if not prison, then what?" We have this conundrum whereby it is assumed or imagined that we cannot try something new unless we have a better idea/plan. I don't have any perfect plans, though Gabrielle and I are eagerly imagining some pilot projects, but it reminds me of a quote.
My co-author and co-editor, the brilliant Lori Gruen, drew my attention to a 1932 book in which aColumbia University Professor Frank Tannenbaum wrote i, "We must destroy the prison, root and branch. That will not solve our problem, but it will be a good beginning.... Let us substitute something. Almost anything will be an improvement. It cannot be worse. It cannot be more brutal and more useless."
So just try something. The logic is that it cannot be worse, and it might be much, much better!
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Justin Marceau
Denver Univ
Original Message:
Sent: 06-03-2021 12:51 PM
From: Gabrielle Chapman
Subject: NEW SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's® Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
So much to pack into 45 minutes!
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Gabrielle Chapman
The Woodrow Consulting Firm
Original Message:
Sent: 06-03-2021 12:48 PM
From: Shelly Thompson
Subject: NEW SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's® Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
Great conversation! Thank you so much. Feel it could have easily gone on for hours there was so much!
------------------------------
Shelly Thompson
Maddie's Fund
Original Message:
Sent: 05-12-2021 01:06 PM
From: alison gibson
Subject: NEW SPECIAL EDITION! Maddie's® Candid Conversation with Gabrielle Chapman and Justin Marceau
Mark your calendars for Thursday, June 3, 2021 at 12n Pacific / 3pm Eastern
Join us for a special, 45-minute edition of Maddie's Candid Conversation where we will be talking with Justin Marceau, author of Beyond Cages: Animal Law and Criminal Punishment. The discussion will center around the role of fines and fees, civil penalties, conviction and punishment in achieving positive outcomes for animals - and how current enforcement models can in fact produce negative consequences for companion animals which can hinder the goal of lifesaving. Gabrielle Chapman, a social justice analyst, will facilitate the conversation, moderate your questions about how systemic racism plays a role, and share ways we can more effectively support companion animals and their families.
Register here
The event will be recorded. After the live event ends, join Gabrielle and Justin right here on Maddie's Pet Forum to continue the conversation!
About the speakers
Gabrielle Chapman, Social Justice Analyst, The Woodrow Consulting Firm
Gabrielle formerly worked as a Senior Social Justice Analyst with The Humane Society of the United States' Pets for Life program where she lent her expertise to push forward the conversation about how systemic racism is perpetuated within animal welfare. She has helped to bring forth an increased consciousness about systemic racism and other forms of oppression which can hinder growth and well-being for communities and their companion animals. She uses the knowledge she has acquired across racial justice, food/land justice, and animal rights/welfare to inform her consulting work using a One Health model that strives to develop solutions and build relationships from a socio-ecological perspective.
She was a 2018–2019 Soros Justice Fellow with the Open Society Foundation and serves as a Board of Director for the West Virginia's Center on Budget and Policy and formerly served as a Board of Director for the West Virginia Women's Health Center. Chapman holds a BS in Applied Biology from Russell Sage College.
Justin F. Marceau, Professor of Law at the University of Denver, Brooks Institute Faculty Research Scholar
Professor Marceau is also an Animal Legal Defense Fund Professor and the Brooks Institute Faculty Research Scholar of Animal Law and Policy, and an affiliated faculty member with the Institute for Human Animal Connections at the Graduate School of Social Work.
He serves as the reporter for the pattern criminal jury instruction committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, as an inaugural member of the Colorado Governor's Council for Animal Protection (GCAP) formed by a proclamation of the Governor of Colorado, and he is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Justice for Animals Award and the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar's Gideon Award. He is a member of the American Law Institute, and he was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School where he received his law degree.
Prior to becoming a law professor, Justin was an assistant federal public defender specializing in capital habeas and a law clerk for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before law school, he spent a year living and working in Cairo, Egypt.
#EducationandTraining
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alison gibson
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