Betty White and The Golden Girl Cats.
The Betty White reputation for animal advocacy rewrites history
LOS ANGELES––Betty White, 99, a radio and television actress, producer, talk show and game show personality whose broadcast career began at eight years old in 1930, died on December 31, 2021, just 18 days before what would have been her 100th birthday.
Most of the many obituaries for White published immediately after her death uncritically mentioned her approximately 50 years of active involvement with animal charities.
Exploring the apparent paradox that White continued to eat animals all her life, Andrew Krosofsky of GreenMatters.com concluded that, “In the end, it matters very little whether Betty White was fully vegan, partially vegan, or not vegan at all. In my opinion,” Krosofsky wrote, “her passion, dedication, and her actions on behalf of the animals she loves are proof enough of her sincerity, and she will be dearly missed.”
Betty White with her poodle in 1953.
Never ahead of majority public opinion
But even Krosofsky overlooked how much of White’s work conflicted with the prevailing perspectives within the animal rights community.
PETA, after the 2009 death of Bea Arthur, who co-starred with White in the Golden Girls television situation comedy (1987-1992), mentioned that the Golden Girls in 1987 “did an anti-fur episode and Arthur, Rue McClanahan, and Betty White filmed a PETA anti-fur public service announcement on the set of the show.”
Except for that, though, which came more than 20 years after many other prominent actresses began speaking out against wearing fur, White never appears to have been ahead of majority public opinion on any controversial animal issue.
Betty White as a child.
Fact-checking
White liked dogs and usually kept one or several, but the same could have been said of people in most U.S. households throughout her life.
Most White obituaries mentioning her contributions on behalf of animals accepted at face value her own statements, some of which could have been fact-checked.
White, for instance, in a 2009 interview and again in her 2011 book If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t), supposedly recalled that her parents, Horace Logan White and Christine Tess White, engaged in animal rescue during the Great Depression.
But was it actually animal rescue, or was it dog brokerage?
Summarized Fraser Moore of Associated Press, “During the Depression, her dad made radios [assembling crystal set kits] to sell to make extra money. But since few people had money to buy the radios, he willingly traded them for dogs, which, housed in kennels in the backyard, at times numbered as many as 15 and made White’s happy childhood even happier.”
How did a man who assembled and sold radio kits to make ends meet, but did not actually sell many radios, feed as many as 15 dogs at a time, unless he also sold some of the dogs?
Betty White as a teen.
Forest ranger?
White recalled in the same 2009 interview in which she said her parents were dog rescuers that upon graduating from Beverly Hills High School in 1939, she hoped to become a forest ranger, inspired by camping with her parents in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
This ambition, White said, was thwarted because the U.S. Forest Service did not then hire female forest rangers.
That story also might have been true in part. The U.S. Forest Service ranger corps, existing since the Forest Service itself formed in 1905, did not then hire female rangers, although housing was provided to the wives and families of married rangers.
However, the starting salary for a U.S. Forest Service junior ranger in 1939 was $125 a month, equivalent in purchasing power to $2,326 per month now. Competition for the 400 openings for junior rangers in 1939 was fierce, requiring a combination of rural skills, experience usually gained through prior service with the Works Progress Administration or Civilian Conservation Corps federal job creation programs, and education in forestry and biology that the 17-year-old urban-raised White just plain did not have.
Betty White, Smokey the Bear, & the Lone Ranger.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Smokey & the Lone Ranger
Nonetheless, the U.S. Forest Service in November 2010 made White an honorary forest ranger. Noted TV Guide, “Now she has a ranger hat, a badge and a bear-hug from Smokey the Bear.”
Said White, “In my heart I’ve been a forest ranger all my life, but now I’m official.”
NewspaperArchive.com, however, shows her name paired 1,293 times with the Lone Ranger on newspaper pages, and never with the phrase “forest ranger” before 2009.
Television game show host Allen Ludden, who married White in 1963 and remained her husband until his death in 1981, mentioned in a 1966 interview that White’s “love of animals” was known to her fans.
Betty White with husband Allen Ludden.
The Pet Set
Be that as it may, NewspaperArchive.com also indicates that White was seldom mentioned in connection with animals until she and Ludden in 1971-1972 co-produced 38 episodes of a syndicated series called The Pet Set, spotlighting the pets of show business celebrities.
Controversial Hollywood animal trainer Ralph Helfer appeared with exotic pets in 14 of the 38 episodes, receiving far more exposure than any other guest.
Founder of the Marine World Africa USA, Enchanted Village, and Gentle Jungle theme parks, as well as the Gentle Jungle Affection Training School, Helfer was a pioneer of reward-based animal training, but left the exhibition business after nearly bankrupting himself fighting Animal Welfare Act citations––mostly successfully.
Also in 1971 White joined actor Richard Basehart and his wife Diana as a founding member of Actors & Others for Animals.
Morris the cat advertises the 9 Lives brand.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Morris Animal Foundation
Further, White in 1971 became a trustee of the Morris Animal Foundation, which funds veterinary research benefitting companion animals. White served as board president emeritus from 2009 until her death. The Morris Animal Foundation in 2010, after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, in the Gulf of Mexico, used an endowment from White to create the Betty White Wildlife Rapid Response Fund.
Reported Jen Reeder for Today, “The fund supported studies on the spill’s impact on bottlenose dolphins.
“The fund, now called the Betty White Wildlife Fund, continues to fund research and address wildlife disasters,” Reeder continued. “For instance, in 2020, the fund provided $1 million to support the rescue, rehabilitation and release of animals after the devastating wildfires in Australia.”
Robert Culp (1930-2010) was initially among the plaintiffs in a 2007 case brought against the Los Angeles Zoo on behalf of the resident elephants, but died two years before an injunction against the zoo was issued.
Betty White’s “Life at the Zoo”
White in 1974 joined the board of directors of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association, serving for eight years as a zoo commissioner and according to the Los Angeles Zoo & Botanical Garden newsletter, donating nearly $100,000 to the zoo in April 2008.
“Hollywood stars Betty White and Allen Ludden are enthusiastic supporters of the Gladys Porter Zoo,” in Brownsville, Texas, “and frequently travel to Brownsville to help with special fundraising projects,” reported Lubbock Avalanche Journal travel editor Ted J. Simon on September 15, 1977.
That connection apparently developed through White’s longtime friendship with actress Amanda Blake, whom Simon identified as “a close friend of Gladys Porter.”
Gladys Porter (1910-1980) was the heiress daughter of Earl C. Sams, cofounder of the J.C. Penney department store chain.
In addition, recalled Sue Manning of Associated Press when the Wildlife Waystation sanctuary near Los Angeles closed in August 2019, “Betty White has been a supporter from the beginning,” in 1976.
These experiences informed White’s 2011 book Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo.
(See Wildlife Waystation closed & to be dismantled, after 43 years.)
Betty White.
American Humane’s PATSY since 1974
White, alleged American Humane Association president Robin Ganzert to Reeder of Today, was “involved with American Humane for over 70 years — that’s nearly half of our 145-year existence. That makes her the longest living supporter of American Humane in our history,” Ganzert claimed.
ANIMALS 24-7, aware of several people whose involvement with American Humane was as long or longer, including at least one still alive, combed our collection of the American Humane periodical National Humane Review, 1933-1978 (missing the years 1913-1932), finding no mention of White predating her service as presenter at the 1974 American Humane PATSY Awards gala.
The PATSY program, short for Performing Animal Top Star of the Year, began in 1950.
Betty White and Sean Hawkins.
(Facebook photo)
Hero Dog Awards
White subsequently was involved with several other American Humane media events, including as a judge and co-presenter with Whoopi Goldberg and Wendy Diamond at the 2011 American Humane Hero Dog Awards ceremony, broadcast by the Hallmark Channel.
Remembered Sean Hawkins, a career humane professional who has served with many organizations, “One of the highlights of my animal advocacy career was working with Betty White when Stacey Candella Baum and I created the Hero Dog Awards, and produced that show for television with Matt Brady and Karen Rosa.
“That’s the first time I learned of ‘second career dogs’ as Betty called her beloved Kitta, a golden retriever who flunked out of guide dog school,” Hawkins said. “Kitta needed a place to go and Betty [in 2005] adopted him! She was the real deal,” Hawkins opined, “and a tireless voice for animals.”
Gail Eisnitz (far left) with Betty White & others.
Front for animal use industries
But American Humane, founded in 1877 as the collective voice of the U.S. humane movement, had by 2011 degenerated into little more than a front for the animal use industries.
Hosting the start-up of the farmed animal product certification organization that in 2003 split away to become Humane Farm Animal Care, American Humane subsequently introduced American Humane Certified, requiring producers to meet some of the lowest standards for farmed animal welfare of any certifying body.
That history notwithstanding, gushed longtime Humane Farming Association field investigator Gail Eisnitz, author of the 1997 exposé book Slaughterhouse, “Betty White was a true trailblazer and had a heart of gold. I’ll never forget how she came up to me at a conference and asked if she could give me a hug, because I had done something for the animals. She was a beautiful soul, and she’ll live on in the hearts of those––humans and animals––whose lives she touched.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Endorsed spay/neuter
The American Humane Association and the Humane Society of the U.S. maintained a bitter rivalry for pre-eminence in the animal sheltering community from 1954, when former American Humane Association publicist Fred Myers broke away to found HSUS, until early 2010, when the AHA fired the last five staff members who headed programs rivaling HSUS programs.
Betty White, however, crossed the no-man’s-land in March 1989 to produce a pro-spay/neuter public service announcement for the HSUS “Be A Pal” campaign––a topic which was no longer controversial, if it ever was, thanks in part to many years of pro-spay/neuter campaigning by Bob Barker, host of The Price Is Right television game show.
White often remarked in interviews that she loved “Anything with a leg on each corner,” a statement which would also include tables, chairs, and sofas.
Betty White meets Koko, February 7, 2011.
Gorilla Foundation
White on February 7, 2011 met Koko the gorilla at the Gorilla Foundation headquarters in Woodside, California, and made a fundraising video for the Gorilla Foundation on that occasion. Gorilla Foundation founder Penny Patterson identified White at her death as a “long-time supporter/board member.”
But in context that may have been damnation with faint praise, since the Gorilla Foundation has actually published scant if any verifiable research based on the 45 years that Patterson kept Koko, has done little to help gorillas in the wild, has a long history of accountability issues, and long kept another gorilla, Ndume, in severely substandard solitary confinement after Koko rejected him as a potential mate.
(See Death of Koko, 46, raises question what will become of her rejected mate Ndume? and Gorillas in solitary: Ndume wins parole. Now what about King?)
Michael Mountain. (Beth Clifton collage)
Michael Mountain on Betty White
Best Friends Animal Society cofounder Michael Mountain was among the few people to note some of the discrepancies between the legend of Betty White as animal lover, constructed and amplified over 50 years by generations of publicists, and the more troubling reality.
Wrote Mountain in “Coming Out Against Betty White,” posted by All-Creatures.org in November 2011, “Betty White clearly believes herself to be an animal lover. She’s just written a book about it: Betty & Friends: My Life at the Zoo. I don’t doubt her sincerity, but the book is a major setback for wildlife. The only friends that zoo animals have are the people working to bring the era of zoos to an end.”
Recapping some of the many conflicts between the Los Angeles Zoo and animal advocates during White’s Los Angeles Zoo board tenure, Mountain mentioned that “Many of the photographs in Betty White’s book are of her petting the animals at the zoo – Betty with a giraffe, Betty with a gorilla, Betty with a beluga whale.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Always about business”
“While Betty White insists (and doubtless believes) that keeping animals in captivity is helping to protect them,” Mountain observed, “the people who own [captive animal exhibition] facilities have no such illusions. For them, it’s always about business.
“Several years ago,” Mountain continued, “I sat at dinner with Betty White at the Genesis Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. After a couple of hours, as the ceremony was beginning to drag, I stepped out of the hall to stretch. She followed me and started talking about her anger at a case of animal cruelty that had come to light through a newspaper investigation. ‘I’m an animal lover, through and through,’ she said. And there was no question about her passion, her dedication and her energy.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“More about her own feelings than about the animals”
“So I’d love to say,” Mountain concluded, “that her passion and dedication are making a difference for the animals. But I can’t. I don’t doubt her good intentions, but Betty White is a classic example of the kind of love that’s sometimes more about one’s own feelings than about the true needs of the animals.”
ANIMALS 24-7, in light of the Best Friends Animal Society’s catastrophic influence in eroding the role of animal shelters in protecting both animals and humans, including pit bull advocacy contributing to 30,000-plus fatal and disfiguring animal and human maulings per year, takes much the same view of Mountain that Mountain took of White.
(Beth & Merritt Clifton)
It is nonetheless difficult to find any example of a human use or abuse of animals that White deplored which was not already illegal and socially unacceptable before White’s public debut in animal advocacy, almost exactly halfway through her long life.
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Many thanks Merritt & Beth for helping to clarify the record about Betty White and the general ways in which our movement gets infiltrated and diluted by the forces of animal exploitation!
True. We can appreciate her contributions to companion animals and spaying. That is a small step.
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. It always irked me a bit that White, when being interviewed, frequently mentioned that she was an animal lover who still ate animals, and seemed to have no qualms or even nuanced thoughts about it. I recall reading an interview with her in which she said, “I’m sorry, but some of my best friends are carnivores,” referring to dogs and cats. I thought to myself, “Well, those friends also drink water out of the toilet bowl, would you?”
In the end, Betty White was an animal lover in the manner of most mainstream people: meaning she loved pets and charismatic wildlife, and dismissed and ignored farmed animals. I’m not saying there is no value to cat and dog advocacy, these animals certainly need help too, and there are still people who mock and oppose even the most basic pet welfare measures. At the same time, there is no need for pet lovers to put down and speak in opposition to those who care about farmed animals as well, as if there is some kind of war between compassions.
Perhaps White’s legacy may pop up a different way in the future. Did her words and activities influence a new generation of animal protectors? Will her estate endow a real animal protection organization? Or, will PeTA, HSUS, and American Humane simply milk her image for fundraising?
I don’t appreciate the bad treatment you tried to give Betty White just after her death. Totally uncalled for and way beneath you two and Michael Mountain. You all can go jump in a very cold lake as far as I’m concerned.
Agree — this seems to be designed to attract clicks, nothing more. Everything they bring up here is either something that was a product of the times (selling dogs to feed a family during the Depression? The horror! And she was a child when this was going on — her *dad* was the one doing the selling, for pity’s sake) or an error that cannot even be attributed to her (the AHA claiming she’s been involved longer than anyone else).
Leave Betty alone and let her lie in peace.
Time to wake up to reality instead of the fantasy you chose to believe, Albert. You may not like the truth, but ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.
It is ignorant supporters like you, Albert that do more harm than good for the animals. Step outside your programmed bubble – learn the truth and act accordingly. Animals are dying while you choose to do otherwise.
Kudos to Merritt and Beth for their bravery to speak the truth and educate the deceived!
This article legitimately looks beyond the cliches to provide a fuller picture of Betty White’s commitment to animals and animal wellbeing. Betty White is a public figure who constructed a persona for public consumption. The fact that she died does not exempt her public doings from examination, including criticism. No doubt she honestly cared about some animals (the kinds of animals it is socially “safe” to “love”). At the same time, the animals she was constantly photographed with were props for her celebrity image. She and her publicists knew that the public loved her twinkly face snuggled up to captive creatures who were made to appear to “smile” for the camera.
Karen Davis, PhD, President, United Poultry Concerns. http://www.upc-online.org
This article answers a question I had about Betty White: did she eat animals even though she was an avowed “animal lover”? Apparently, she did.
I never followed Betty White’s career and knew her name only through popular media mentioning, but last week, scanning a tribute to her, I saw she provided a front for the American Humane Association and AHA’s seal of assurances that “no animal was harmed in the making of this movie.”
Actually, the term “animal lover,” attributed to a celebrity or anyone else, is a virtual guarantee that the “animal lover” is more cloyingly sentimental than truly sensitive toward nonhuman animals, their needs, feelings, and miserable frustration in institutional captivity.
It’s high time to retire the term “animal lover,” which is as demeaning and patronizing toward animals as this same attribute would be in being used to characterize someone who “loves” an oppressed human population.
The fact that Betty White has been gushed over, almost universally, by celebrities, media, and other high-profile people and organizations signals that she was indeed a patsy for “humane” animal abusers, a “lover” who ensured the status quo would not be disturbed.
Most likely, she sincerely considered herself a “lover” of animals, but her love is reminiscent of white people’s professed “love” for cute little “colored” children, as reflected for instance in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Such “love” is quite compatible with an approval of enslavement of the “loved” objects of affection.
Karen Davis, PhD, President. United Poultry Concerns. http://www.upc-online.org
Many in the entertainment industry claim to love animals, and appear at galas “for” them. It may be rather superficial; it may not. For many people, personal feelings are what matter. Activism is quite another matter. One can appreciate a kind heart for what it is. And one can recognize true activism as being a force that truly effects the change those with good hearts want.
We may be taught not to speak ill of those who have passed away; but Betty White was a human being and as far as I know, there has never been a perfect human being. There may be those who wish to ignore this fact; I am not one of them, and I can still love and admire fellow human beings without assigning false perfection to them.
Sharing with gratitude, confident that you both will always publish and disseminate the facts.
Brave to take on an American icon! However I agree 100% with your statement about Best Friends Animal Society and though cynical I have come to believe that dead children and adults along with other people’s pets have become mere collateral damage in the quest to “save them all”. In the time of Ms White’s advocacy it was pre Michael Vick, pre Katrina, all of which helped begin the avalanche of dangerous dogs that now populate our shelters. There is nothing humane about that!
I appreciate that Betty used her high-profile status to increase awareness and to promote compassion towards dogs and cats. However, as we so often see even among the less famous, there are folks who practice selective compassion. They may go all out for certain species, but not the entire animal kingdom. I could never understand this as one would assume they’d eventually make the connection.
Thanks for the comprehensive bio of Betty White. She did show a concern for animals that seemed to be quite a bit higher than most of her generation, with the unfortunately still common ability to discriminate over which animals are “loveable”, and which are to be conveniently ignored. But your discussion reminded me why I usually cringe inwardly when anyone tells me “Oh, you’d just get along so well with so-and-so. They love animals, too.” This usually turns out to be someone who either hoards animals or profits off them in some way. The very last type of person I’d “get along with”.
She made a big point of her love of hot dogs, crediting her longevity to eating them (and drinking vodka).* At that point in her life, and with all her associations with animal advocates, she no doubt knew how cruel meat production is.
“’Betty White helped launch one of our [hot dog] locations at City Walk ten years ago, by eating a hot dog in front of Pink’s and said, “I like it naked! I like it with nothing on it – just the beef and a bun.”‘”
**
“Pink’s Hot Dogs owner Richard Pink told CBS reporters why Betty White meant so much to him, and why he wanted to pay special honor to the Hollywood icon, “Betty White helped launch one of our locations at City Walk ten years ago, by eating a hot dog in front of Pink’s and said, ‘I like it naked! I like it with nothing on it – just the beef and a bun.’”
**
“[O]ver the next several days the franchise plans on donating 100% of the proceeds earned from White’s namesake [hot dog] to the Los Angeles Zoo, to honor the known animal rights activist and one of her favorite causes.”
https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2022/01/02/pinks-hot-dogs-honors-betty-white/
An “animal rights activist” Ha!
* https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/2155223/betty-white-99th-birthday-hot-dogs-fries/
and (includes video): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/betty-white-hot-dogs-long-happy-life-1235068750/
In her comment, Annoula Wylderich mentions “selective compassion.” That term applies perfectly to Betty White. It also applies, I suspect to every single one of us, myself certainly included. I’ll be happy to supply examples upon request.
Beth and Merritt were right to chronicle White’s life, and point out flaws and inconsistencies, but we should never forget that we all have them. Albert Schepis didn’t care for the article, and I can understand that gut reaction, but the question should be less do you like it, than, is it accurate?
That Betty White was a less than perfect animal lover is not something we need focus on. Would we prefer her to have been a female Ted Nugent? If a regular steak eater draws a line at eating veal, I welcome that, because that means that perhaps the line of compassion can move some more. Someone with Ms. White’s celebrity undoubtedly made people consider humane treatment on some level, as opposed to if she stood for, and spoke about, nothing having to do with animals. Remember also that she was a generation older than most of us.
Betty White, as well as most celebs, unquestionably factored animals into their image. William Shatner claimed to care about animals, and then went to the infamously cruel Calgary Stampede. I must admit I was truly incensed about that, having investigated rodeos for decades, but I’ve seen Shatner play a chameleon many times. Betty White was much more sincere than Shatner.
Joan Jett claims to be an animal activist, but she performed at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, which is in the experience of SHARK investigators the most cruel and deadly rodeo in the world. We knew of her schedule in advance, and asked her to withdraw. She wouldn’t. We asked her to make a statement about rodeo animal abuse. She wouldn’t. We asked PETA and Ingrid Newkirk to give her a push in the right direction. True to form, Ingrid was nowhere to be found, and PETA did nothing. Nevertheless, Joan Jett is still on PETA’s website. So if you want to talk about hypocrisy…
(See Rock star Joan Jett: vegetarian animal advocate or rodeo clown?)
In my estimation, Betty White was more a positive than a negative. She wasn’t perfect, but she never claimed she was. She was an actress – a performer – not a vegan activist. It is fine that the Cliftons pointed out Betty’s contradictions, but I’ll bet I can point out more inconsistencies among our community. In fact, I will indulge myself with regard to one that is particularly upsetting.
Where in God’s name are you vegans from Pennsylvania – especially the ones in Philadelphia? If you are in Philly, you are a stone’s throw away from the infamous Philadelphia Gun Club, which has been holding live pigeon shoots for longer than any of you have been alive. But you are not there to protest those disgusting slaughters, nor are you at other pigeon shoots in Pennsylvania. You have no right to point fingers at anyone.
I wrote a piece recently called, “We’re fine; the problem is with everyone else.” The Cliftons wrote a piece about Betty White because she passed. It was not an attack, but rather a factual account of her life relative to animal issues. I’ll leave it at that, other than to say that I’m glad she took the pro-animal positions she did, conflicted or even tortured that they may have been. Betty White’s flaws were no more serious than many of the biggest groups and supposed leaders of the animal protection industry/racket. Again, I can supply examples upon request…starting with myself.
And the “Animal Welfare Community” continues to eat it’s young. 🥲 She wasn’t perfect but she definitely made a difference and for that I personally am grateful.
Hi Nicky,
I never saw Betty White as anything
but a nice, old Hollywood star. If Betty White had been a leader in animal welfare, animal welfare would not have advanced in 50 years.
Your opinion. Your right. I disagree. There are many ways to support animals. She made the average person think a little more about treating animals better.
If those of us do what we can for animals including adopting and fostering them, converting my profitable farm field into trees, ransoming cats from the locql pound for others to adopt, paying $1200/yr to a family to adopt three cats which I took in but couldn’t keep, giving to numerous animal and environmental chaarities, including some whose officers are trashing Betty White, are to be vilified for eating meat, I questtion how well those spokespeoplr are doing their jobs. Some might say, “if that is the thanks I get, I’ll just quit donating.” Now, I don’t donate so the bureaucrats will like me. In fact it irritates me that they waste my donation on calendars and other unsolicited “gifts.” I’ve been eating meat for over 70 yrs and come from a culture which considers a meal “meat and potatoes’. I wish I were not raised that way, but I was. I also know that if I hadn’t been eating meat all of my life, not a single victim of the system would have lived an hr longer. I sign the petitions to crack down on slaughter houses and poultry farms and am all for anything that imaproves the lives of the victims, no matter how much it may cost me. I hope the time will come when I can always use fake meat and am willing to pay a premium for it I appreciate Betty’s efforts, no matter how imperfect,and don’t think much of those who make their living helping animals trashing one whom they seemingly feel does not do enough in her daily life for animals.
“The system” did not eat those animals who went into your belly, Lawrence Conrad; you did. According to a “Vegetarian Calculator” cited by Jessica Durando of USA Today on March 11, 2015, “The average person will chomp down on 7,000 animals during their lives,” amounting to “11 cows, 27 pigs, 2,400 chickens, 80 turkeys, 30 sheep and 4,500 fish.”
Have you been responsible for rescuing 7,000 animals?
Since Betty White lived about 30% longer than average life expectancy for her generation, her toll of animals consumed was probably upward of 9,000. Was she responsible, either directly or indirectly, for rescuing that many?
By promoting spay/neuter a few times, Betty White may have prevented that many births. But you could heave a water balloon into the crowd at the annual Genesis Awards in any given year & splatter a dozen stars who could claim the same, or much, much more, & very likely some of them, even over age 70, will have quit eating animals long ago as well.
(Note: ANIMALS 24-7 does not actually advocate heaving water balloons at the Genesis Awards––that’s a metaphor.)
The sarcasm (e.g. “White often remarked in interviews that she loved ‘Anything with a leg on each corner,’ a statement which would also include tables, chairs, and sofas.”) just turns me cold, almost as much as the demanded purity of purpose.
Instead of educating (and there are many great points here), there is an equal attempt to use words to discount and discredit a person whose sincerity (according to many quotes) wasn’t questioned, but didn’t live up to your notion of being a fully “evolved,” perfect animal rights person for the 21st century. This is the sort of extreme dogma that is discouraging to so many who are confronted by the uber-orthadox among today’s vegans. The fact remains that, IN HER TIME, Betty White, however she may well have evolved (hopefully educated by the less dogmatic among us!) if she could have lived another 50 years (!), her heart was in the right place and she DID DO some very good things. E.g. Being part of the reason for “$1 million to support the rescue, rehabilitation and release” of koalas is no small deal.
Extensive investigation preliminary to writing our obituary for Betty White turned up, to our surprise, astonishingly little evidence of sincerity on her part, but found a great deal of successful manipulation of public opinion while taking the path of least resistance. For example, the author of the above is crediting Betty White with an action of the Morris Animal Foundation board of directors, undertaken ten years after White left the Morris Animal Foundation board, albeit that she did leave this completely noncontroversial foundation a great deal of money.
EXACTLY. She DID do SOME good. Better than most. You can continue to vilify people for not living up to your idea of perfection. I stand strongly by my comments. As President Obama (also an imperfect human who did SOME good, no doubt!) said last week, in referencing Harry Reid, and I’m slightly paraphrasing: “Perfection is the enemy of Progress.”
I have NO doubt that if your lives were examined as carefully, we would all be shocked. Because we ALL have done things that were just awful before we perhaps became “woke.” I was a big-time meat-eater for the first half of my life; I was clueless about factory farming, etc. My compassion for animals was limited to pets. Forgive me Lord…
ANIMALS 24-7 detailed Betty White’s positive deeds for animals, but as previously pointed out, you could heave a water balloon into the crowd at the annual Genesis Awards in any given year & splatter a dozen stars who have done as much as White did, some of whom will have quit eating animals long ago.
It is sometimes claimed that 19th century slaveholders of African Americans can be excused for their slaveholding behavior and attitudes because of their “time.” Meanwhile, an increasing number of white Americans did “get it” despite their “times.” The Abolitionists worked, with ultimate success, to evolve society to a higher standard of ethics toward their fellow human beings, at least to the point where the enslavement of nonwhite people was no longer acceptable and was finally illegal. That Betty White did some positive things for some animals does not excuse her from not only consuming animals but parading her taste for their dead bodies in the public domain. She DID know better, but she chose otherwise. Not only was Betty not a vegan activist; she was a virtual anti-vegan activist in her public life. She actively contributed to the suffering and death of countless farmed animals and to the view that these animals don’t matter, that they are just tasty dining pleasure in the making.