french vegan group picks slave trade commemoration date to protest the “enslavement of animals”

French vegan and animal rights group, 269Life Libération Animale, plans to hold a demonstration about animal rights, on May 10—the day France commemorates the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. The group posted the event on Facebook and describe their missions as anti-specism vegans to push for the ‘abolition’ of “ownership status of animals, as part of the commemorative day of slavery.”

Segments of the vegan community, in the states and abroad, controversially use slavery as a proximation to human use of animals for food and goods. Some groups go as far as to use this to shame POC into veganism or to disrupt conversations about racism to talk about animals. This anti-blackness analogy is hotly debated in vegan communities, but the outright erasure of black diaspora history and the appropriation of a day that’s symbolic to many people of color. Nevermind the calcified racism and systematic disenfranchisement of black people that continues today in the wake of slavery.