To clarify: I didn't take this quote as undermining of how f'ed up slavery was; I took it as a call for people to think about how mistreatment of animals now is as socially acceptable as slavery was back then, and highlighting how neither are good, without relating one to the other in any other sense. I interpreted it as society being okay with things that should not be okay, regardless of what that is, and not that he was comparing black people to animals.

Paul Watson has had controversy surrounding him, such as when he was recently jailed / released in 2024 for an outstanding 2010 warrant for allegedly damaging a whaling ship. Regardless of what I or others think of him personally, I found this quote thought-provoking.