PETA’s controversial and cheesy traveling “Are Animals the New Slaves?” exhibit showed up on the city Green in New Haven yesterday, and prompted immediate outrage from black passers-by, who were ballistic over pictures comparing slaughtered cows to lynching victims (blacks were also compared to “sheep, an elephant, a seal and a rooster,” reports the New Haven Register – its story on the fracas is a must-read). “I am a black man! I can’t compare the sufferings of these black human beings to the suffering of this cow,” yelled one man. “You can’t compare me to a freakin cow” shouted another. Within minutes of the exhibit’s opening, the head of the local NAACP, Scot X. Esdaile, was in PETA’s face: “Once again, black people are being pimped. You used us. You have used us enough.” By the way, a PETA press release describes the so-lefty/trendy/goofy rationale for picking New Haven:
Because just as it is still considered acceptable for circuses to deprive elephants and other animals of their freedom and parade them before cheering crowds before forcing them to perform out of fear of punishment, it was once considered acceptable to lock up the African survivors of the slave ship Amistad in the New Haven Jail and charge people 12-and-a-half cents apiece to gawk at them.