Anonymous
Hi Mark! You answered a recent ask by saying that vegan food is responsible for the "oppression and murder of people of color around the world," and I would just like more information about that! I want to minimize the negative impact I have (I'm not a vegan, but I'm still concerned). Thanks!
Okay, I totally fucked up what I was trying to say and I went back and was like MARK WHAT ARE YOU SAYING HERE
lol OKAY SO WHAT I MEANT WAS that a lot of vegans (and people in general, but in this case I am trying to compare the single-minded nature of outspoken vegans) ignore the fact that many of the corporations they support are responsible for horrific acts of oppression, cost-cutting, encouraging dictatorships, and many other attempts at outsourcing their food or workers that cause murder, sorrow, hunger, and any number of terrible things just to increase their bottom line. I’ve met some fab vegans who are aware of this and do what they can to support companies that are local, to boycott organizations that contribute to food crises or tyrannical governments and whatnot.
What I was trying to point out is that a lot of these privileged vegans believe that veganism will just solve the problems of the transnational food crisis and of oppression in countries outside of the United States, and it’s probably because they are racist or imperialist themselves. It’s especially telling that vegans will ignore you when you bring up stuff like Monsanto’s horrific track record of repression and violence and insist that a vegan diet will solve that issue.
It won’t. At all.
It is also something that bothers me because vegans are quick to draw parallels between specieism and racism, and seriously, take one goddamn moment to think about the dynamic at hand when you compare people of color to animals. Who does that? Right, WHITE SUPREMACISTS.
I care about being vegan and I know it’s not easy or cheap to buy ethical food, so I don’t pretend that I am any better than anyone else for trying to do so. So I will enjoy my delicious locally-made vegan peanut butter fudge cookies, and I will support your right to eat whatever the fuck you want without calling you a bloodmouth. CHRIST I CANNOT GET OVER THAT THAT TERM. my god.
Of course, that’s getting into the vicious classism that comes along with hardline veganism, and that’s a whole separate post. My point is that if these people really, truly cared about making the world a better place, they would stop ignoring the intersection of corporate imperialism, racism, classism, and ableism that comes with issues of food consumption.
