Thread:Kirito Rose/@comment-27966940-20171018021255/@comment-4010415-20171022044000

Faunus hate being called "animals" because calling them "animals" means that you don't consider them to be people. That is why it is derogatory and why it hurts.

It's the same exact reasoning for how it is considered derogatory to call black people "animals". In the days of slavery, African Americans were considered sub-human. They were not considered people. They were labeled as "animals" and even sold amongst actual livestock. Even after slavery was abolished, people continued calling them "animals" specifically because it's a way of calling them sub-human and implying they are not people. This is why one of the protest methods was for African Americans to walk around holding or wearing signs that said "I am a man". It was protesting the idea that they were not human beings.

And we have actually seen this in RWBY! The very first episode of RWBY features an image of a Faunus protest, where one of the Faunus is holding a sign that says "We are not animals!"

Faunus want to be considered people. They want to be treated like people. To call them an animal is to say they are not a person, they are not any different from a cow or a pig, and thus they are not worthy of the respect and equality that a person is to be given.