Sad Livestock in the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant No-Entry Zone- another victims of the disaster January 13, 2012

“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated”- it is a MahatmaGandhi’s quote.   If Gandhi saw how the livestock in Fukushima have been treated, he would judge us as a heartless nation.

On May 12, 2011, Prime Minister Kan (Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters) ordered the Fukushima Governor to euthanize the remaining livestock in the 20km no-entry zone. Since livestock are someone’s property, Fukushima prefecture has to obtain permission from the owners of the livestock when euthanizing. The decision was made based on the Act on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency. The method of euthanazia should comply with the ones set forth in the guidelines of OIE (The World Organization for Animal Health) and American Veterinary Medical Association (The AVMA). Based on that, the Japanese government uses drugs like tranquilizers and muscle-relaxants to euthanize the animals. There is no humane way of killing, animals always faint in agony before given any of these drugs that definitely put them to death.

The officials of Fukushima government stated that “these livestock does not have any market value. By destroying them, livestock farmers can start a new life.”  Animals are property of people. Livestock does not have any value other than as “products.”

According to Yomiuri Newspaper, issued on April 24 2011, there were 4,000 cattle, 30,000 pigs, 630,000 chickens and 100 horses in the 9 effected villages in Fukushima. Most of the pigs and chickens had died by last summer.

Yomiuri newspaper reports that 80% of cattle in the affected areas still remain trapped in the 20 km no-entry zone, as of October 20, 2011. Some of them were abandoned and left to their own devices, while others left locked enclosures to suffer slow death. Those that have been abandoned are being described by Yomiuri, as “invading people’s property.”

These animals are also the victims of human’s arrogance and neglect. They are dying through no fault of their own and in a very sad irony the enslaved creatures who through this terrible event gained their freedom for brief time, are slaughtered in the end, none the less.  They are guilty of nothing other than being non-human.

<references>

OIE:

http://www.oie.int/index.php?id=169&L=0&htmfile=chapitre_1.7.6.htm

AVMA:

http://www.avma.org/

Yomiuri Newspaper “野良牛　捕獲１割未満 警戒区域の民家被害” Nov.10, 2011:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20111109-OYT1T01023.htm?from=tw

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SALA Network is an animal shelter located in Tokyo. The volunteers go up to Fukushima to feed stray livestock and abondaned dogs and cats. They have pictures and are collecting petitions.

http://www.salanetwork.or.jp/e_index.html

Afya Ibomu August 10, 2011

Excerpt from an interview with Afya Ibomo from Frugivore.

I have been a vegetarian for 21 years, and vegan for 15 years. I became a vegetarian because I had asthma, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic dehydration as a child. After awhile, I became tired of taking numerous pills and medications per day. I knew there had to be another way to deal with my illnesses. When I was 15 years old, my mother found an allergy specialist that suggested that the food I was eating could be the cause of my problems. This was the first time that I connected food to health, and simultaneously, the rapper KRS-One  had a song out called “Beef”, which discusses vegetarianism, health, and the food industry. Armed with all of this information, I became a vegetarian at age 15. My health improved somewhat, but it did not completely get better until I became a vegan.

Full interview here.

Afya Ibomo’s website.

Black Vegan Mammy-ism: Sacrificing My Emotional Health for the Vegan Status Quo July 14, 2011

In this video I talk about how I struggle with not being a “mammy” when it comes to accommodating the emotional needs of particular white vegans who do not extend mindfulness to me when they talk to me about ‘their’ post-racial view of veganism.

Here is a useful article to read to understand more about what I mean by “mammyism” . I don’t agree with a lot in this article, but it does give a basic premise of mammyism:

Abdullah, Afi Samelia. “Mammy-Ism: A Diagnosis of Psychological Misorientation for Women of African Descent.” JOURNAL OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGY 24, no. 2 (1998): 196-210.

Milk: the new PMS panacea July 13, 2011

As if we didn’t need any more evidence that the animal product industry is an intrinsic element of the perpetuation of male supremacy.  This is actually an update of an ad from 2005 which featured pathetic looking men jamming into a grocery store lines, their arms occupied by multiple milk cartons.  I’m tempted to write a rather long treatise on the various social implications of this ad campaign, but I’m inclined to think that the pictures and links will speak for themselves.

If you’re interested in feeling further offended here’s the mini-site for the campaign:

http://www.everythingidoiswrong.org/#/

 

White male vegan paternalism: Or, on how to offend Black Veg*n Reiki Community June 21, 2011

In this video I speak about how white male middle-class paternalism ended up offending and upsetting an African American practitioner of vegetarianism and Reiki. This video is an example of how white middle class paternalistic rhetoric becomes an impediment when communicating with “other” communities that don’t fit into the racial-class-gender status quo’s conception of ‘logical healing systems’ or ‘morality.’ I also didn’t say this in the video, but my friend kept the identity of the person who moderated the listserv, a secret, and sent me the quoted response she got from the moderator, in terms of she wanting to post about Reiki.

In this video I speak about how I am also raising money to finish my PhD/dissertation.

If you like what you hear and believe in the necessity of anti-racist and critical whiteness analysis within veganism (in order to help build coalitions and solidarity), please contribute to my fund. I am seeking $10,000 by September to register for school. Thus far, I have received $3200 in contributions (Thank you!!). My critical race and critical vegan dissertation fellowship was not renewed for 2011-2012 year, so this is why I’m seeking assistance. You can email a paypal donation to breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com. If you’re not comfortable with that, you can email me and I can provide a postal mailing address. Thanks.

Sistah Vegan needs help finishing her PhD May 28, 2011

In this video I am asking for your help. I would like to finish my PhD and need some help.

Paypal email donation: breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com.

UPDATE: As of May 31, 2011:

Donated: $880

Needed for completion of goal: $9,120

Deadline: September 2011 (so I Can register for 2011-2012 academic year)

Other creative ways to help would be to buy a personalized signed copy of Sistah Vegan book directly from me if you don’t already have a copy or want to give it as a gift.

I also had one person ask if they can pay me to speak to their social justice group, via video Skype, for an hour. They agreed to pay me to do that, so that is another possibility.

I’m also open to doing paid talks and lectures that are no more than a 2 hour drive from where I live. Could fly out if I were not in my 3rd trimester, but driving there is still an option.

If you’re asking the question, “Why should I fund this woman? What has she done?” Please refer to my CV so you can see the type of person you are investing in and how ‘productive’ she can be
http://web.mac.com/sistahvegan98/research/Curriculum_Vitae.html

Intersections: Black female slave vivisection, non-human animal experimentation, and the foundation of Western gynecology April 12, 2011

This was originally published in my Sistah Vegan Blog about 2 weeks ago, but I wanted to share it here on VOC as well.

In this video, I speak of how Black female slaves were forced to undergo ‘vivisection’ by Dr. Marion Sims, the ‘father’ of Western gynecology. I also speak of how this fits into colonizing both ‘the other’ (Non-white peoples and nature) and how vivisection on non-human animals today is connected to the interlocking system of oppression and suffering that allowed Dr. Sims to repeatedly cut into black female slave’s vagina’s (without anesthesia, remorse, or regret).

Books for further explorations on these intersections:

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South

Animal Welfare and Anti-Vivisection 1870-1910: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Mission (History of Feminism)

Nobody Deserves a Tsunami March 14, 2011

I’ve posted before about my discomfort with the rhetoric of the anti-whaling movement.

Now I see that Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd has posted a little poem on Facebook about the tsunami that’s hit Japan:

Tsunami

Neptune’s voice rolled like thunder thru the sky
Angrily he smote the deep seabed floor
From the shore echoed mankind’s mournful cry
……The sea rose up and struck fast for the shore

From out of the East with the rising sun
The seas fearful wrath burst upon the land
With little time to prepare or to run
Against a power no human can stand

Whether or not you interpret this as the tsunami being karmic retribution for whaling or prefer to see it as an oh-so-coincidental comment on the uncontrollable whims of an anthropomorphized force of nature, this is completely out of line & no different from those people who are saying Japan deserved the earthquake & tsunami because of Pearl Harbor. I am disgusted by the 550+ people on Facebook who clicked to indicate that they liked the poem.

If you have spare money & are so inclined, help_japan & help_japan are running fannish — see my worlds intersect! — auctions to raise funds for disaster relief. There are lots of non-fannish things being offered, too, & certainly on the Dreamwidth auction (the first link) all you need is a valid e-mail address to bid.

Vegan Bake Sale in Seoul to Support Animal Shelter January 22, 2011

Mipa from Alien’s Day Out & Kia from Soju & Pancakes are having a vegan bake sale on Saturday, January 29 in Seoul. This is to support a local animal shelter struggling against the very cold weather in Seoul this winter. As in, dogs are literally freezing to death.

Here’s the Facebook invite. If you’re not in Seoul, please spread the word to folks you may know there! Judging from the scrumptious photos of her cooking & baking I see frequently on Mipa’s blog, it will definitely be worth checking out.

How NOT to Inspire More People to Go Vegan January 8, 2011

Someone on Livejournal just posted a graphic created, apparently, as a vegan advocacy tool. In case that post gets deleted, the image is also here. I’m not posting it here because it makes me too angry.

It’s a graphic where the left half is a black & white photo of several black, presumably African, children who look extremely malnourished; the right half is a color photo of a cow. The text at the bottom says, “Who do you want to feed?” The font, by the way, is the same one used for LOLcats or other popular graphics that are generally seen as sarcastic or ironic (like Privilege Denying Dude).

I get what the person is trying to say; it’s drawing attention to how much grain is used to feed cows that are killed for human consumption versus how many people that could feed instead. I get the intention. Nevertheless, intention itself is not enough. This graphic embodies the worst kind of oppression porn, OMG-THOSE-POOR-BROWN-PEOPLE-OVER-THERE. And to many internet-savvy people, it may well appear to be a joke graphic because of the LOLcat font — like there should be a punchline. (Actually, I think it’s pretty close to an unintentional Privilege Denying Dude graphic myself.)

I’m not laughing.