A review by illtakethenightshiftx
Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor

informative

5.0

Beasts of Burden by Sunaura Taylor examines the interconnected, yet different, issues of disability rights and animal rights. Throughout the book, Taylor examines this while taking care to highlight their differences by using both historical, contemporary, and personal contexts. Throughout her analysis, Taylor pulls the curtain back on many of the historical and dominant views on both animal and disability rights which are rooted in white supremacy, heteronormativity, patriarchy, ableism, and capitalism.

There were many instances reading this where my jaw dropped and I marked, starred, and underlined passages multiple times because Taylor’s words helped me to articulate things I believe and try to convey to others, but somehow always come up short in my attempts. She dismantles the ideas of human exceptionalism, anthropocentrism, among others, and forces us to think critically about so much - including factory farming, treatment of disabled people, conscious and unconscious biases, language, and the historical and systemic reasons behind them. 

Taylor doesn't shy away from addressing gaps in her analysis and framing and poses thought-provoking questions that are left unanswered, which is something I appreciated. Some questions don’t have an answer, or have an uncomfortable answer, and that’s okay. She challenges us to sit in our discomfort and really think critically about what is being asked.

Beasts of Burden is an urgent call and a critical lens to reframe what it means to be vegan and an intersectional approach to understanding the connections between disability justice and animal rights. This book was published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I think it’s thesis and message need to be spread because the pandemic disproportionately affected the disabled community and is a disabling virus; long COVID is real and the full extent of the effects of the pandemic are yet to be realized.

All of this is to say - read! this! book! 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings