by Jenny Palmer
Jenny Palmer is president and co-founder of the Princeton Animal Welfare Society (PAWS). She can be reached at animals@princeton.edu. Check out the PAWS blog at http://princetonanimals.blogspot.com.
How do you get a school—seemingly full of self-focused, wannabe investment bankers—to stop for a moment and think about the plight of animals? You strip down to your undies, cover yourself with stage blood, and lie in human-sized meat trays right outside the dining hall windows.
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Princeton Naked Demonstration
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At least that’s what we, the Princeton Animal Welfare Society did this May with the help of PETA and PETA VP Dan Mathews. The human meat tray demonstration shocked passersby into realizing that animals' flesh and bones are the same as ours. With the paint melting off their bodies and forming puddles of "blood" and sweat on the trays, the Princeton students looked disturbingly like the chicken breasts you find in the supermarket.
After seeing 11 nearly-nude students baking in these trays under the hot sun, one student told us, "You'll be pleased to know that I can't look at meat the same way anymore. Your demonstration produced a visceral change in my viscera: My gut churns sometimes when I see bloody flesh in shrink wrap at the stores. I consume much less meat, only sandwich meats if anything. I'm gradually phasing it out of my life."
Of course, not all the reactions were positive. It's easy to dismiss a provocative demonstration as just a publicity stunt by crazy animal rights activists. We worked hard to back up our demonstration with strong facts and reasoning by handing out informative leaflets, hosting a talk by Dan Mathews that evening explaining why these tactics are unfortunately necessary, and talking to people one-on-one about why we believe so strongly that "meat is murder."
I would encourage all of you who care about animals to do a similar demonstration on your campus. Organizing a demo requires work, but if you want to make an impression, it's well worth the effort. All it takes is coordination of everything from the props to the human chickens, an administration that is willing to grant permission, and, most importantly, brave students who will put themselves on display for a cause they believe in.
