Need help with logo design (Page 2)

FWIW, I'm black and see the parallel, so no worries.

I think people are getting caught up because they think you're comparing the "degree of wrongness" of each, which isn't how I interpret your comment. I assume you are just (accurately) indicating that the same *principle* is involved in both examples. Perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but accurate, IMO...

BTW, I have to admit that a team named the Birmingham Slave Owners to commemorate the heritage of the south made me chuckle...

Not the same, maybe, but definitely comparable. I do eat fish, but not species that have been overfished.

The issue with the whaling industry is twofold: in it's heyday, it decimated many species, some of which still haven't recovered. Also, you're talking about slaughtering, not just intelligent, but sentient animals. That's not even in the same ballpark as responsible fishing. It'd be more like having an entire industry of killing chimpanzees for food.

But the basic premise of my argument is still that just becuase a thing is part of your heritage doesn't mean it by default should be glorified. It's widely recognized today that the whaling that was done was a bad thing, so how do you justify glorifying it? And that's where the parallel to slavery came in. They're not equitable, probably, but they are definitely comparable.

 Ok, so where do you draw the line at sentient and intelligent in the food chain? More importantly, who gets to draw that line? I certainly don't qualify to make that distinction. Eating a species of fish that is not overfished really doesn't give you a pass here either. At one point in time whales were NOT being overfished. Who determines when the fish you eat is being overfished?

I apologize for the harpooned whale I posted previously. It was snarky at best, but tasteless nonetheless.

Here's a question:

is any animal other than man suitable for human consumption, from a moral perspective at least? The Bible talks about all the animals of the land, the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky being under man's dominion. BUt I think the only animal it said specifically not to eat was the pig.

So...is it cool for us to eat whales, dolphins, chimps and gorillas? If Homo habilis were still around, would he taste good? 

 So, we're OK with butchering anything on a massive scale so long as we don't perceive it to be intelligent? You think a codfish left on the deck of a trawler to die doesn't suffer as much as the whale in your photo did? If we don't think he's smart it is OK? Managing the pressure put on fisheries or populations does not alleviate the suffering of the species being harvested.

 How can you measure intelligence in a being that can't communicate with you? Many of the animals we perceive to be intelligent might just be adapting to survive. Keep in mind that every animal on this planet has to eat at some point to survive. We take a chimp out of his habitat and put him in a cage. His instinct is to survive. If he learns to pull levers in a particular sequence to get a piece of fruit, is that intelligence or adaptation to survive? No way for him to forage in a laboratory. Adapt or die. I'm not suggesting animals aren't intelligent, just that survival is a big motivator. The motivation to survive might just be misinterpreted by us as intelligence.

 I'm not  suggesting that it is wrong to eat animals. I'm just saying anything you kill to eat will suffer in the process, regardless of how intelligent we might perceive that animal to be. In that perspective I can't say that whaling is any more or less barbaric than bowhunting for deer. Whalers were just making a living to feed their families. Moby Dick, one of the best books ever written, gives us glimpse into the lives of these people.  That is the heritage our friends in Connecticut are proud of.

Let's break it down into a simple question:

Was decimating whale populations...driving entire species to near extinction that to this day have not recovered...was that a good or bad thing? If you agree it was a bad thing, then how is it proper to glorify and romanticize it?

How about another analogy: today, the South American rainforests have been literally raped. Should that be glorified and romanticized a hundred years from now? If so, why?