Attention All Humane Educators, Animal & Child Advocates
Film star Danny Glover needs to hear from you immediately!
Urge Danny Glover NOT to Participate in the Perdue Farms
"Masterpieces In Chicken" Exhibition
Children drawing pieces of dead chickens for
Perdue "nuggets" is child exploitation, not art
| Contact: | Danny Glover
c/o Michelle Bega
Rogers and Cowan
1888 Century Park East, Suite 500
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Fax 310-788-6600
Tel 310-201-8800
email
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The Issue: A December news release from Perdue Farms announced a
children's "art" exhibition January 12th to be co-hosted by
Perdue chairman Jim Perdue and movie actor Danny Glover in New
York City. Kids between the ages of three and twelve are to
receive prizes for their drawings of chicken "nuggets" in
connection with a Perdue marketing project in 2000 aimed at kids.
Actor Danny Glover, hailed by Perdue as a child advocate who
"cares about kids, childhood literacy, and the arts," was quoted
as calling the "Masterpieces In Chicken" exhibition "a
lighthearted art contest" based on "the wonderful designs the
kids have come up with" for Perdue Farms.
Please write to Danny Glover immediately and urge him to cancel
his involvement with Perdue Farms and the "Masterpieces In
Chicken" Exhibition. Urge him not to link his reputation to
Perdue's predatory manipulation of children for profit. A true
child advocate would never be a spokesperson for products and
"art" based on animal cruelty, environmental degradation, and
worker mistreatment--the Perdue legacy. As the director of the
New York City Humane Education Committee, Dr. Sheila Schwartz,
wrote to Mr. Glover:
"Students entering the 'Masterpieces In Chicken' contest are
being asked to draw shapes that may later be used to design
patterns for 'chicken nuggets' to be sold for human
consumption. Children will be drawing replicas of parts of
the bodies of dead chickens as if they were manipulating
clay or some other inanimate object. In the process they
will be rewarded for their internalization of the values of
Perdue Farms, that is, animals as objects."
Additional Information:
- A chicken nugget is made of reconstituted chicken parts,
grease, polyphosphates, and other chemical agents needed to hold
the slop together, reduce "unsightly drip," and disguise a
sickening product that would otherwise cause a child to vomit.
Increasing health problems are now being documented in children
growing up on greasy chicken nuggets and other artery-clogging
poultry products. Chicken nuggets are unwholesome, unhappy, and
unhealthy products.
- Perdue Farms has a record of violence, corruption,
pollution, and dishonorable business practices including denying
estroom access to female employees, thereby forcing them to
menstruate and urinate on slaughterhouse floors or get fired,
worker intimidation, sexual harassment, environmental pollution,
and animal cruelty.
- In the 1990s, Perdue Farms and the poultry industry blocked
legislation that would have added poultry to the 1958 Humane
Methods of Slaughter Act. Chickens are deliberately kept alive
and tortured with electric shocks during the Perdue slaughter
process. No sensitive child would eat or design a "Perdue fun
shape" if the child knew how cruelly Perdue's chickens are
mistreated and slaughtered. The "Masterpieces In Chicken"
contest/exhibition is a betrayal of children's innocent trust.
- Perdue is currently under attack by human rights advocates,
religious groups, animal advocates, legislators, OSHA, and
environmentalists. The Washington Post recently documented some
of Perdue's scandalous behavior on the Eastern Shore, including
the company's criminal politics in Salisbury, Maryland, which
would rather let the local children drink Perdue's slaughterhouse
waste water than upset the "tax base" (The Washington Post,
August 2, 1999, A1+).
- Perdue Farms is using this "art" exhibition partly to
counteract this bad publicity and appear to be a good corporate
citizen that cares about kids, literacy, and the arts. Meanwhile
the children of the single mothers, migrant workers, and other
unfortunates churning through Perdue's trailer camps and
slaughterhouses on the Eastern Shore are not part of Perdue's
"cultural," "pro-kids" agenda.
- In the movie The Grand Canyon, Danny Glover portrayed a
philosophically sensitive man with values the opposite of
everything "Perdue" stands for. Kids need Danny Glover to be a
true advocate for children and for the creative spirit. By
linking himself with Perdue and the poultry industry, Danny
Glover debases the concept of child advocacy and his own
reputation as a child advocate. Surely, Danny Glover will divorce
his good name from this destructive downslide before it's too
late.
- NY Times - They Say Perdue Is Bad To The Bone - December 21, 1999
Please contact Danny Glover now. Thank you!
United Poultry Concerns. December 9, 1999
United Poultry Concerns, Inc.
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405-0150
757-678-7875
FAX: 757-678-5070
www.upc-online.org
(Action Alert - Danny Glover Promotes Purdue Farms)
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