http://sistahvegan.wordpress.com/2010/05/03/compassionate-talke-about-whiteness-in-veganism-farm-sanctuary/#comments

Holly permalink

Very strange… I mean my friends are the united colors of Benneton anyway, but my vegan friends are deverse…. I live in metro Detroit, so it is a cultural and racial rich area. To be honest with you many of the vegans I have had the pleasure of meeting have been African American. Many of the vegan establishments I have visited here in Detroit, Atlanta, Philly and California have been owned and operated by folks of all color. In fact I have found veganism to be Something to unite cultures. As for an Anglo privlege, I see where your coming from being an open minded woman, but it does sound offensive. Generally speaking, there is a smoother path to follow when you look like the majority. As a child I attended a school in the the south where I was one of 3 white students, I feel like I had a glimpse of what it must feel like to be a minority. But “White Privelege” sounds as though we are all born with trust funds and silver spoons… That is a generalization, and I feel generalizations are negative.
The truth of the matter is that our veganism should unite us. We are all a minority in this country…. Tell someone quietly that you don’t eat what they eat, or ask for a dry baked potato… And be prepared to be met with the comments… “I love my meat” “I couldn’t live without cheese.” “Why don’t you eat this stuff” I often feel attacked for my choices. Persecuted for trying to better the environment, live healthfully and ethically. I think coming together might be an answer! I have met many Thai and Indian vegetarians, African American, and Chinese vegans!!! We need to celebrate our differences and be united in our vegan goals!
As for the book Skinny Bitch…. I am White and a skinny bitch I am not… 5’9 and I have curves. I read the book, not really a great weightloss plan. I work out, I can run 3 miles…I eat a healthy vegan diet of many vegtables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains, but living this lifestyle does not garauntee a size 2 dress size…. Maybe instead of looking at it from a negative side, I am sure this book has incouraged people to become vegan which is benificial… I found it funny and interesting about artificial sweeteners ect.
Maybe I am naive, maybe I have my head in the clouds, but as Vegans we have the resposibility to unite, and encourage others to follow in our footsteps.
Please excuse my spelling, It is not my strong suit.
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May 4, 2010
Anazette permalink

To Holly: I’m happy you’ve met vegans of different colors and ethnicities, but I feel that you’re misunderstanding what White privilege means. It’s easy to get offensive first without really giving thought as to what white privilege is. I feel the offensiveness is a hidden guilt and denial that acknowledges on a subconscious level that white folks do benefit from whiteness. It is quicker to deny and get offensive when white privilege is mentioned than to work through understanding it. I recommend looking up some videos on YouTube of Tim Wise, who does lectures on white privilege. It has nothing to do with “trust funds” or “silver spoons” as you’ve stated (although historically, whites have been given things by society simply for being white, such as the FHA housing loans following WWII. This helped create a white middle class and left many folks of color on the wayside who were denied these loans). WP is simply benefitting from what whiteness entails in U.S. society. Plain and simple, there are certain things as a white person that you just won’t have to deal with or even think about because you’re white. Even if you’re not a Skinny Bitch and fall outside the Barbie ideal of beauty. True, we’re both women, but as a Black woman (emphasis on Black), my experience in life is different from yours simply because I’m black. My psyche is different, my reactions to certain things are different because I can see race operating. Even if a woman/man of color and white woman/man were both working class and on the lower rung of the socioeconomic scale, a white woman/man still has racial privilege and does not have as much of a racialized experience as the woman/man of color. There are many types of privileges: heterosexual privilege, able-bodied privilege, male privilege. For example, take male privilege. Maybe you see how this operates in our partriarchial society as a female yourself. Male privilege has nothing to do with “silver spoons” or “trust funds” either; for males, there are things that aren’t going to come across their consciousness. As a woman, I know not to park my car in certain areas at night; I”m conscious of my surroundings when I’m walking in unfamiliar places; when I go out to jog I make sure I have my cell phone. I’m intuitive as to whether or not a male coworker or boss is coming onto me sexually with his words and tone of voice. These are things that women are attuned to because we don’t have the privilege of being in the place of power as men. That’s male privilege. Benefitting from whiteness in a racist Eurocentric society, whether you intend to benefit purposely, consciously or subconsciously, is the operation of white privilege, similar to how men of all colors and socioeconomic positions benefit from maleness in a patriarchial society. Do you ever worry about whether or not you’ll find make up in your shade? (For a period of time, there was no makeup to match complexions of color). That’s white privilege. Do you ever worry about whether you’ll find hair products for your hair type in a Walmart or Target? Ditto again. How often are you conscious of your whiteness on a day-to-day basis? Our society is quick to throw out the word diversity. Yes, diversity is important, but it does not address racism or the operation of white privilege. Even if all your friends are racial minorities and you consider yourself open to diversity, the real issue to tackle is white privilege. Numbers mean nothing if we don’t get to the root of it. Thanks for reading this. Feel free to email me if you’d like.
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o
May 5, 2010
donna permalink

No, the real issue of veganism is protection and care of tortured and tormented animals. the issue of white privilege is irrelevant here and you are making it all too complicated. it’s human privilege that vegans concern themselves with, this is species-ism. putting young black or any other color men on a plant based diet may be very helpful on a number of levels but it does not make them vegan as they are likely still wearing leather shoes and otherwise consuming animal products or perhaps participating in other forms of animal exploitation not related to food. Veganism is ethical at its core, not just for humans to look thinnner or be healthier. i dont see why the middle class white community has to examine iself with regard to privilege and its implications for veganism while you don’t call on communities of color to examine why, in light of their history of oppression, they are not more avidly vegan in huge numbers. shouldn’t that community know firsthand what the animals go through and shouldn’t this make them the ideal empaths for the cause? With all due respect to your scholarship, I’m a scholar too and your work impresses as an enormous distraction from the true aims of veganism, which is to save as many animals as possible. one need not be any particular color to do this. the animals don’t care what color you are, that’s the great thing about animals. concern yourself with them, not with those you perceive as oppressing you because of privilege.
o
May 5, 2010
Holly permalink

Very sad you took offense to my post. Maybe you should read it again, as I don’t think I was negative or offensive in any way. And yes I don’t like the term white privlege. And I did understand what you were talking about before the long explination. I think everyone makes assumptions, when it comes to race and cultural differences. Just as you assumed I could buy hair products at walmart, which I will respond by saying even if I did shop there, I couldn’t. My hair is dark brown and tightly curled. I am sorry that people make assumptions, about things. Maybe we all could look inward, and do some soul searching, after reading your response it sounds like you got very upset and angry over my comment. I think I was just giving you my opinion, I found it surprising that vegans are mostly white and thin and wealthy as in my travels and experiences I have found the opposite to be true. I was just offering my unique perspective on the subject. I wasn’t attacking you.

ALTERNATIVE, Another subversive peace song

The squadies arms is bleeding
the animal’s throat is cut
Dead soldiers in No. Ireland
Dead animals in the shop
consume the shit
imperialist twit
Drown the morals
and crawl through shit

Chorus
Paint your face,now the hunt is on
has he got a car,now give him what he wants
say he’s a man, use words like love
muscels and pride confirms he’s got he lot
he is a master of pain in his world of violence
you’re just another victim he’s picked up on his way
another example man’s voice is law
and woman takes second place in his world of hate and war

The privelaged(?) rape the earth
In this rich man’s ghetto
the armies of democracy
bribe and slaughter
we’re treated as object
oil on the machine
consuming the shit
og Government and Queens

Chorus
Break the barriers that agregate us all
colours class and creed
or you pissing up a wall
the only change that will ever come
Is if you reject all the violence and media scum
it is up to you to live your life
dont accept their morals and rules
fucking up the world by the way we live
and you’re helping to bury it with your hate and predjudice

Hypocrisy, democracy, their weapon named fear
another cross to carry, whos burden do you share
discriminating theories, more ladders to climb
40 years of misery, another wasted life
state imposed disorder in their democracy
state imposed disorder, carried through their law

paint your face, now the hunt is on
has he got a car, now give him what he wants
say he’s a man, use word like love
muscle and pride, confirms he’s got the lot

rpt. 1st verse and chorus

LYRICS VIA Kjell A Sandvik http://www.nopunkhc.blogspot.com/

Dividing groups into races, gender, groups and classes helps us little when we face problems in this world that we all experience individually. And putting the hats of categories over our heads doesn’t reflect our lived inner realities.

What is more important: you face on one hand the problem of an unequalled case of pushing earthlings into irrelevance, and on the other hand you discuss which human group suffers more or most?

Yeah it’s negative to deal with the negativity of life, and yes it’s negative to face reality the way it like it displays itself to our eyes – if we look. Now we can go blindfold ourselves and pretend the injustice that is the worst form of injustice: being pushed into the realm of a complete non-worthiness – does not exist.

That’s exactly what happens if we rationalize the world on the basis of pure reason; we don’t see what we don’t consider, what we don’t think, where the bridges of induction and an deduction won’t take us to …

Instead we need to pull the strings together to get the image of the greater scheme: The scheme that evades the advantages of the plausibility of clear separability.

Rationalizing that sociology is of course laying more directly at our feet is pretty easy. And ignoring the unspeakable is convenient.

Dividing groups into races, gender, groups and classes helps us little when we face problems in this world that we all experience individually. And putting the hats of categories over our heads doesn’t reflect our lived inner realities.

We are in fact beings that love, that seek justice, but from our deepest sense of a more correlating type of reasoning.

It’s to us animal rights proponents to stand for a shared reality. Finally we know that a soul is a soul, a spirit a spirit, a heart a heat and this world the manifestation our alltogheterness.

I’m fucking depressed and listening to THE ACCURSED – “Going Down” EP (1984) http://bit.ly/adohwN .
EVERY DAY TOTAL FUCKING INJUSTICE.
And in all that shite
I keep meeting ppl who don’t f*** see that animals are in a unique situation of total oppression … speciesism.
Comparisons are good but not enough.

Other ppl like to pretend they can continue to totally dismiss the animal rights core issue … they can’t cos even if they pretend that animals are of a lesser meaning, the only thing this pretension creates is INJUSTICE – but not truth!

@veganswines wrote : Vegan craze: be a new vegan, turn normality into flexible vegan animal rights and humans rights embracing status quo. All is inter-chained.

@veganseeds replied : @VeganSwines “Flexible vegan animal rights?” What does that mean? Rights for beings don’t seem ‘flexible’ to me …

and added a motto too : #Vegan is not who you are, but what you do. Vegan is not a lifestyle or identity, but an ethic to uphold. Anyone can be vegan.

@veganswines wrote :  “flexible” – it refers to the political handling of the vegan praxis. It needs felixibility instead of dogmatism. *Life is flex*.

(words often get a connotation which narrows down their usability. I personally use words like a raw material. I reject verbal cliches)

(turn normality into … ) “a flexible human / animal rights status quo” would be the same such as : no set systems (no dogmas), but instead …

rights that pertain to the *value of the individual being*.

Such naturally understood rights basically can’t be framed. they are self-defining.

a flexible status quo (in rights terms, be they human or animal rights) unequals a dogmatic status quo (to have, as a vegan in HR and AR terms … ).

why would I think rights are something flexible when I talk about a flexible status quo in my lifestyle practice versus dogmatism.

I am tired of the biologistic approach in veganism … that keeps out the need of a freedom of critical thinking in ethical reasoning (…)

freedom should always be the freedom to think critical

ok … it

turned out later that @veganseeds or J Muir is against animal liberation in the sense of i.e the ALF and … well see yourself on :

http://veganactivist.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/i-dont-support-alf/

http://veganactivist.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/some-thoughts-about-open-rescue/

BLIMEY … to say the least.

and should veganism mean: reasoning academics and the other “Homines veganes” keep the condition humaine – only in vegan terms.

Understanding and changing the causes of forms of oppression entails human self-emancipation.

I believe the reasons why we don’t accept the freedom of other beings (nature, animals, humans), is exactly the source on which we have built much of our progress for centuries.

Would we accept their freedom, we would also start to get rid of our shackles too.

It’s usually the people who are against animal rights that use their plain personal opinion, whereas animal rights people always seem to believe they have to legitimate any radicalness. Yes, I do think it’s important to add a more radical tone to the debate. Because if we stick to the (assumed and fake) “neutrality” of scientific positivism in our animal rights argumentations, we fall short of making the decisive points.

Think about making the points about your own life and how those points and your life overall relates to animal rights.

I think that’s the crucial thing to get the discussion going. I wished more people would express their constructive opinions about animals rights, and how these opinions relate to their human and individual rights, in creativity.

Scientific positivism is self-circling and it simply never postulates any new philosophical value. Man we have to come up with the newly pronounced values of live, we have to name the values we observe that animals are living. Because it’s their values that we as animal rights people recognize and appreciate and defend. And yes, we really need to create a new vocabulary for that.

Don’t tell me you can explain the miracle of life in organ-talk. Really try to get opinionated about animal rights and justice. We have to derive rights from postulating the value of value.

You’re Worth More Than A Bird – Matthew 10:16-33

I commented in regards to http://thecontinualramblingofaprolifevegan.blogspot.com/2009/09/trouble-with-vegans.html , this blogger conflates a desire for nonrights of women with the life-affirming attitude of veganism, which in return he separates strictly from animal rights. He states: “The rights of the human animal take precedence over the rights of the non human animals”.

My comment about this is:

“The rights of the human animal take precedence over the rights of the non human animals” how can you claim that to be so? I don’t agree with your statement, and I also don’t agree with the doctrines of those (dominant) religions that place human life over animal life. Now what do you want to do with people like me? Bereave me of my rights? Which human rights do you care about? Which humans are worthy, and how do you know that all humans don’t want to care as much about animals as they do care about humans that they respect?

I believe some groups did make the welfarist compromise in order to kindle a public discussion. The question is what a group’s pronounced goal is (policies and mission), and if their tactics override other ethical fundamentals at the same time while losing out on animal rights questions.

Another but somehow related thing is, those who ignore the obvious difficulties some groups had in their pioneering role as the early AP pressure groups, those who ignore the fact that pioneering has its own difficulties, those people should also address their own political shortcomings in animal rights terms.

Should you actively defend the integrity and life of an individual nonhuman animal? Yes you should. But often you can’t. DILEMMA. But that’s exactly a point where the future AR person will ask the pioneer of TODAY: what about animal dignity, what about active defense?

[A] Still today very many people who come from the vegan angle – which already is a most decisive and certainly indispensable progress and prerequisite for any advancement in animal rights concerns – create an output ONLY on diet related / cooking blogs, instead of discussing their opinions about the human – animal problem and situation, while at the same time every other opinion is being discussed from all angles and in all details in order to create a politcal meaningfulness for any so far only HUMAN or human-environmental concern. What about thoughts on the human – nonhuman animal relationship?! Seems there is not as much to have an opinion about, maybe cos we keep asserting ourselves – as AR people – that animal sentience is enough for us to claim liberation upon. A long subject for discussion. I stop here for now at this place and time.

overall politically … we all have to confess “the world is matter to built with” with the absolute rule of the natural sciences, the omniscient gods, the self-centeredness that seeks redemption or a higher state, … the rational human.

http://twitpic.com/h776v An access to Arendt ‘ s critical thought about natural sciences, well phrased (a copy and pasted image with a quotation), source: http://bit.ly/48v6Jo

biologism : the use of biological explanations in the analysis of social situations http://bit.ly/9Hq9Q = reductionist view of other species

It doesn’t matter if someone would say a human is being reduced by a biologism, it works the same way vice versa …

… “Animals” are being reduced through a biologistical approach, because an observer presupposes a human-centered framework as objectivity

No, it seems most people actually are unable to view life without the glasses of the biologist or the physician or any other natural scientifical view on the world. The religions left it up to a god that resembled a human ideal, the enlightened and the scholarly world now leave it to the expert to decide about the only pair of glasses that you should wear to view the universe.

Sounds far fetched to talk about the universe without a reference to a natural scientific observation or finding? I bet. But I rather walk blind than take these glasses that detach one phenomenon from the other. Or how are you gonna bring “life” together? The sun and the moon can be explained, but you can’t create a planet or a star, let alone life.

Life

The geneticist would say, of course we can create life. And there we go about dissecting life into some supposedely seperable constituents that you can plug together like a lego system. WOW. Let’s see where “the whole” of the biologist approach will head to.

Something different …

schizophrenia and ableism, a comment that relates to the following discussion : http://veganideal.org/content/opposing-ableism-rhetorical-tool

why doens’t this discussion / the authors of this discussion question the concept of “schizophrenia” in itself, which is in itself is a problematic classification http://bit.ly/xq7MC , and basically grounded on the ideal of the “rational human” a part produce of Western civilizations’ enlightenment.

It seems people diagnosed as schizophrenic suffer from the stigma itself http://www.antipsychiatry.org/stigma.htm – also people who are wrongly diagnosed.

If the concept of “schizophrenia” is in itself questionable, everybody who is diagnosed as schizophrenic is potentially being wrongly or falsely labeled, only because he or she has a condition he/she suffers from.

If so, instead of getting the adequate help he/she is pathologized.

To assume psychiatry and psychology can handle people’s problems adequately assumes a biologistic position toward humans .

(OH NO NOT AGAIN, you get biologism from every side really … )

finally:

speciesism systematically divides (hierarchically). species differ, but I am actually not distinguishing between lower and higher.