I’m racist.
Not only do I not give a cluck about the entire chicken race, but I support colorism. I’m a dark-meat man, although I don’t buy the racist ideology that wings are white meat. If you’ve ever ordered a six-piece lemon-pepper wet with fries from any place that automatically puts hot sauce in your bag, then you know that all chicken wings contain melanin. I’m pretty sure that’s a scientific fact.
But on Friday, when a Perdue Farms truck carrying hundreds of live chickens set to be turned into delicious meals overturned on a Milford, Del., highway, the brave men and women of the armed forces rushed to the scene to rescue some of the victims of the mass tragedy. (And by “armed forces,” I mean volunteers with animal rights group Liberation Philadelphia, all of whom had both of their arms; therefore they were technically an “armed force.”)
“It was just a horror story out there,” animal rights activist and white person (excuse the redundancy) Mary Kate Fain told the Milford Chronicle. “There were just body parts everywhere. It smelled like a slaughterhouse. There was blood and guts everywhere. We were pretty sure no one was left. But there was a patch of woods where we saw something.”
That’s when the SEAL Team 6 of barnyard animals bravely went into the fray (a nearby bush) and found a chicken named June. Although media reports don’t say how the fowl acquired the name, in my experience, white people name everything. I once borrowed a Phillips-head screwdriver from a co-worker and he came back to my desk an hour later asking me if I still needed “Phil.” I was just about to explain why—even though I knew she was out of my league—I still had a crush on Hilary Banks, but I preferred the dark-skinned Aunt Viv, when I realized what the hell he was talking about.
Anyway, Liberation Philadelphia rushed June to a local hospital, where doctors worked diligently to save the bird’s life but couldn’t. At least that’s what the Courier Express reports, although I suspect that a certain veterinarian laughed all the way home to his scrumptious dinner of roast chicken that evening.
Because of the tragedy and to mourn the senseless loss of lives caused by Perdue Farms every day as its employees work to bring us delicious thighs and McNuggets, Liberation Philadelphia held a candlelight vigil and liberation protest at Perdue Farms’ Milford location. Of course, this was after the activists set up a GoFundMe to raise money for June’s medical bills and, I assume, a wreath for her homegoing celebration.
The animal rights group said that the ceremony wasn’t just for June, that they wanted to honor all of the victims of the crash.
“We felt in this situation that it was really important to honor June who fought for her life and tried to escape the crash,” said Maria Kelly, another white-person activist who also believes that Perdue Farms should pay for June’s funeral and the veterinary bill. “We feel like it’s our duty to honor him and show other people that it’s not OK that something like this happened, where a bunch of individuals were injured horrifically, and then the people responsible are just able to go on with their lives.”
Also in attendance at the sad occasion was Gene Baur, president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary. I could probably look up what that is, but Imma just say it’s some white nonsense. Probably a church for Christian farm animals or an after-school program for single-parent roosters. It just sounds fowl.
“We were saddened to hear about the chickens who were injured and killed in Wednesday morning’s transport accident on Route 301 in Delaware. We urge authorities to allow all of the surviving chickens the opportunity to recover from this traumatic ordeal at a sanctuary,” Baur said.
“This crash reminds us that billions of other chickens suffer silently outside of public view,” Bauer continued. “Farm animals endure intolerable cruelty every day in factory farms, slaughterhouses and in transit, and their abuse is largely hidden. If you’d like to help prevent this kind of animal cruelty, please consider decreasing your consumption of meat, dairy and other animal products.”
I honestly wish I could have been in attendance. In all my studies of wypipology, I’ve never had the opportunity to meet one of the rarest subgroups of wypipo: animal fanatics.
I’ve seen the kinds of Caucasians who insist on bringing their animals to museums and restaurants, but I’ve never gotten to converse with them. The closest I ever got was taking my daughter on a college tour with a woman who brought her shih tzu.
But if we were to draw a Venn diagram, I’m sure the people who love animals enough to hire a graphic designer to create a funeral program for wounded hens do not intersect with any person who ever said, “Black lives matter.” Oh, how I wish I had so much privilege and so little turmoil in my life that I was saddened over the death of some chickens that were born and bred to be breaded in buns.
But I wish I could have been there, standing with a candle in one hand and a Big Zax meal from Zaxby’s in the other, wishing June a warm farewell while I desperately searched for a fuck to give. Oh, June and your fellow fowls, you will be missed. These people didn’t love you. I do.
I would have seasoned you with Lawry’s. I would have dipped you in the butteriest of milks and laid you in the hottest of greases. I would have carried you inside me forever.
Well ... not forever, but at least until my next dookie.
When asked if they were going to hold a candlelight vigil the next time a little black boy or girl was slaughtered by a police officer or when a black human being was unjustly incarcerated, members of Liberation responded: “Have you met my shih tzu Amber? Isn’t she adorable?”
Now I know why the caged bird sings ...
He is laughing at white people.
(Dedicated to all my homies upstate in the pen.)