Tag Archive for 'vegan'

Color, Race, and Our Furry Friends

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 21, 2008
in Activism, Environment, Race and Racism and Vegan/Vegetarianism
. 0 Comments

Thank you “La Chola” for this post that deals with the use of comparing people of color to animals—we see this in the testimonies at Winter Soldier and from PETA activists. As someone who also tries to be vegan, but wants to critically engage with the problem she addresses, I agree that it serves no purpose to rank oppressions. Unjust killings of people and animals is done to reinforce the power of a few. At the same time, I do not appreciate campaigns that compare the treatment of people of color to the treatment of animals or the use of women’s bodies to inspire veganism.

For me, personally, my veganism is the result of many things; I justify it for many reasons. I do not believe in a Vegan Utopia and therefore do not believe we should all become vegan. I understand that I am privileged because this diet works for me, for my lifestyle, and for my budget. I am lucky enough to live in a city that has many vegan resources (although I wish we had a veggie restaurant), and I can find support groups very easily. It makes me feel healthy, which only came after educating myself through books such as Becoming Vegan and speaking to nutritionists. I believe that our abundant use of cheap meat is involved in polluting our ground water, using up nature’s resources, the mistreatment of animals, and unfair labor practices against those working in slaughterhouses (which is predominantly an immigrant labor force).

people of color, animals

A long time ago, I began collecting the testimony of soldiers who had participated in genocides. I had been studying the My Lai massacre, and noticed some similarities between the testimony of one of the soldiers there and the testimony of one of the soldiers who had participated in Abu Ghraib violence. The soldier at the My Lai massacre had said killing Vietnamese people was like shooting dogs. The soldier at Abu Ghraib said being in Iraq was like going on a turkey hunt.

The comparison of brown people to animals–the justification of the murder and torture of brown people because they were considered animal like was a disturbing idea that I have continued to explore for almost two years now. It’s brought me to some really dark places, places I’m not really all that sure I wanted to be.

I admit, it is really hard for me to talk/listen to the many white vegans who insist on defending PETA’s comparison of human slavery to the violent treatment of animals in today’s society. I’m very empathetic to the cause of veganism–but the defense of the PETA campaign is often not a defense of veganism so much as it is a defense of seeing nothing wrong with comparing black people to animals. Many white folks are perfectly happy to insist that *they* have no problems at *all* being compared to animals–but it is not white folks that are being killed on genocidal turkey shoots either.

For me, those people who are interested in animal liberation (as I am), must realize, this comparison of brown human beings to animals/insects, is not something in the past that is occasionally drawn on to make a point. The comparison of brown human beings to animals is something that exists in the very fabric of our current society and as such, carries very real repercussions for the people of color that are compared to animals.

The first mission that we had when we got to Iraq was at this place called Al Assad, and our job there was basically to run a prisoner of war camp. And at this prisoner of war camp, our job was basically to keep prisoners who had been deemed enemy combatants sleep-deprived for periods of up to seventy-two hours in order to, quote-unquote, “soften them up for interrogation.” And the way we did that was by yelling at them.

So my first question to the people who were training us on how to do this was, you know, “How do they understand? I mean, they don’t speak English.” And he said, “Well, they’re just like animals. They’re just like dogs. If you keep yelling at them, it doesn’t matter what language you’re yelling at them in, they’re going to get the point. If you yell at them, ‘Get up!’ enough times, you know, just like a dog gets up, they’ll get up. If you tell them to move left, eventually they’ll get it and they’ll move left. And they said, “But that’s not going to always work, because they’re so tired.” By the way, they were hooded with sandbags, and they were tied with plastic restraints, barefoot, and circled around with concertina wire. So they were not only being deprived of sleep, but also of light and sense of space.

I support animal liberation wholeheartedly. And I think that for now, I will continue to approach animal liberation in a way that does not center veganism/vegitarianism. Not only do I have my own issues with eating meat, but I also have to continue to work through this idea that seems to dominate animal liberation movements like PETA that what we *eat* is more important than societal and cultural norms that justify the murders of brown people, women, and animals alike.

In other words, I almost think that veganism/vegitarianism should be the *last* step to animal liberation or something that happens *after* you lead community workshops on the connecting histories of violence against animals and human beings or other structural/cultural shifting of opinions through dialogue. Not eating meat is an important thing to me, and I continue to work towards that goal every day. But I think that creating a world where the abuse of animals is not used to justify the abuse of the brown human beings requires that different tactics, strategies and priorities than what currently exists.

Thanks to the Vegans of Color for your site, it’s helped me work through a lot of my thoughts.

McDonalds or Your Hummer?

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 12, 2008
in Agriculture, Environment, Maí­z (Corn) and Vegan/Vegetarianism
. 0 Comments

I’m busy “dissertating,” but I have to share this article and the fact that it has my favorite quote of the month: “The US will face a choice between using corn to fuel animals, and using corn to fuel cars.” Simply put: engineered corn used to produce ethanol requires more pesticides and fertilizer, fertilizer has chemicals that kill the environment, our drive for corn to feed the meat industry and our cars is destroying the land, raising prices, and causing a whole set of problems for corn farmers in North America. I knew I would find a way to bring my dissertation research back around to my vegetarianism. ;)

From Environmental Research Web:

Sustainable Futures

Mar 11, 2008
Biofuels threaten sealife in Gulf of Mexico

Nitrogen from fertilizer applied to corn (maize) fields in the US midwest enters the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers and flows into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s been implicated in causing the “dead zone” that appears in the gulf each summer – an area of low oxygen that kills organisms living on the seafloor. Now, scientists in North America say that the increase in corn cultivation needed to meet targets for renewable fuels in the US Energy Bill could increase the annual flux of dissolved inorganic nitrogen to the gulf by as much as one-third.

“We found that meeting the ethanol production targets set for the year 2022 in the Energy Policy will increase nitrogen levels in the Mississippi by 10-34%,” Simon Donner of the University of British Columbia told environmentalresearchweb. “This will make the already difficult challenge of reducing the ‘dead zone’ practically impossible.”

Corn

The US Energy Bill sets a target of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022; 15 billion gallons of this can be produced from corn starch. More than 80% of total US corn and soybean acreage is grown in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya river basin, which covers 3.2 million km2.

When nitrogen from agricultural fertilizers enters the ocean via this river system it boosts the growth of phytoplankton. As these organisms die, they accumulate at the bottom of the ocean, where their decomposition can lower the oxygen concentration to dangerous levels. This hypoxia creates a “dead zone”, killing marine organisms such as crabs, fish, anemones and sea stars. The result has serious implications not only for ecosystems but also for the fishing industry.

Nitrogen levels

In recent years the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has been more than 20,000 km2 in size. The Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Task Force hopes to reduce the zone to less than 5000 km2 but recent research indicates this could need a reduction in nitrogen export of up to 55%.

“However, the new US Energy Policy calls for a huge increase in the production of ethanol from corn,” said Donner. “If the US pursues this biofuels strategy, there is little hope for reducing the dead zone. The only way to meet the corn ethanol goals and shrink the dead zone to an acceptable size will be to dramatically reduce the non-ethanol uses of corn. That means less animal feed: the US will face a choice between using corn to fuel animals, and using corn to fuel cars.”

Nitrogen sources

Donner and Chris Kucharik from the University of Wisconsin, US, used an agricultural version of the Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) – a process-based dynamic ecosystem model – and the Terrestrial Hydrology Model with Biogeochemistry (THMB) to simulate the effects of increased corn production on nitrogen export to the Gulf of Mexico. Nitrogen export depends not only on land use and land cover but also on annual variability in rainfall and river discharge.

“Even with reductions in other uses of corn, the construction of efficient riparian [river-side] wetlands adjacent to fertilized croplands and the implementation of on-farm nitrogen management practices will be necessary to achieve the large reduction in nitrogen loading required,” write the researchers in a paper in PNAS. “A massive national wetland restoration project, on the order of 22,000 km2 of wetlands and/or widespread adoptions of efficient nitrogen management practices, like a change in diet and meat production, would not be trivial to implement.”

Now Donner is looking at what the conflict between demand for meat and demand for biofuels means for nutrient pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

We Put the Meat on the Pole Not on your Plate

Published
by
Jennifer
on February 28, 2008
in Gender and Vegan/Vegetarianism
. 2 Comments

Any vegan restaurant makes my stomach happy….but a vegan strip club?? I support the idea of any facility serving vegan food and this idea may open up the world of vegan-ness to new people, but the following news story puts my vegan-self against my feminist-self. The reporter’s enjoyment of the story on Casa Diablo is over the top. Additionally, I am critical of the cliche camera-through-the-legs shot and filming the female dancers from below or aimed at their backs, even while the women are being interviewed. One of the dancers is vegetarian, but the reporter dismisses her words and only gives serious time to the owner who says ridiculous and sexist quotes such as “The only meat we have is up on the stage” and “We put the meat on the pole not on your plate.”

The video is from KPTV in Portland.

YouTube Preview Image