NP Tolkien Picks Up A Few More Bits Of Cultural Baggage

[John Bailey]

>From: "Otto" <ottosell at yahoo.de>
>Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 18:14:02 +0100
> >
> > "Racism" refers to the way humans perceive and treat other humans.
> >
>This mustn't necessarily be the case in SF & Fantasy literature where
>inter-species "racism" as a topic is imaginable, take for example "Enemy 
>Mine" where each side regards the other as culturally inferior.
>

"The term "speciesism" was first coined by Richard Ryder, who noted that 
discriminating between sentient individuals due to perceived species is 
arbitrarily divisive in the same way sex or race discrimination is. "

The Origin of Speciesism
http://www.etsu.edu/philos/faculty/hugh/species.htm
"...This is especially sage advice given the close historical connection 
between speciesism and racism. Historically the two are inextricably 
intertwined, the former being used to bolster, explain, and justify the 
latter.3 Of course, it does not follow that contemporary speciesists are 
racists or that all forms of speciesism are indefensible. It does show, 
however, that speciesism and racism are sufficiently similar so that 
analogies between them cannot be blithely dismissed as category mistakes. "

Speciesism & the Idea of Equality
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/animals/steinbock-text.html

And much more, a quick search will do you well.

Also cf Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (A New York Review Book, 1975).

And a contrasting case:
http://rightwingnews.com/john/speciesism.php

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