I’m seeking links to useful resources of two types, basically the two main intersections from which this blog was born: firstly, resources on racism geared towards getting white people to recognize their own privilege, which could be used by white vegans; & secondly, resources on speciesism/veg*nism that speak to people of color, meaning that they come at speciesism from a racialized perspective. It’d be great to have a compilation of resources available on this blog.
For the former, I’ve found useful Peggy McIntosh’s essay “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. In my experience & the experience of many, many others, sometimes white people just won’t listen to what people of color (POCs) have to say about racism — because we’re biased or have an agenda or something, har har — & in those cases, sometimes I’ve had good results with McIntosh. My other favorite recommendation is “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?”: And Other Conversations about Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum, a woman of color. It is an amazing book, & highly recommended.
Of course there are dozens of blogs & websites that folks could look at (the myriad posts for International Blog Against Racism Week, for starters, not to mention the blogroll of this site), but occasionally it is helpful to be able to recommend one article or book as a place to begin.
For the veganism/AR thing, I must say that I’ve never read anything about why I should be a vegan or why I should be in favor of AR that spoke to me as a POC. Quite the opposite, in fact; a lot of writing on veganism I’ve found alienating when it comes to issues of race (some of these instances are written up on this blog). The closest I’ve come is a conversation with a Chicana friend several years ago, where she noted that in some countries, the indigenous, pre-colonial culture was much, much more plant-based, & it was only when the white colonialists came in that this began to change. I know that some POCs have been moved by the comparisons to the enslavement of African Americans; I also know that many POCs have been alienated from vegan issues by such comparisons.
So. Thoughts? I am particularly interested in hearing from POCs on what has worked for them on both counts, although hearing from white folks on specific pieces that woke them up to racism would be useful. But I especially don’t want this to turn into a bunch of comments from white vegans on what “should” persuade POCs to become vegan. On the other hand, well, that would be a timely demonstration of white privilege, wouldn’t it?
I can’t find the specific article right now, but Breeze Harper’s Sistah Vegan Project site had an article a couple years ago that woke me up to racism in the animal rights movement and prompted me to email her. She was nice enough to respond to what must have been an odd email out of the blue! lol. She gave me some reading recommendations too. I don’t think it woke me up to racism in general so much as white privilege. Which is maybe the same thing, but I feel like it is important to specify “white privilege” because most white people I know will adamantly say “I’m not racist…I have [insert non-white race] friends.” I don’t think I understood racism until I started to understand and see white privilege.
And along those lines, I’ve found changeseeker’s blog (http://whyaminotsurprised.blogspot.com/2006/08/for-white-folks-how-to-become-ally.html) to be really helpful. She’s white, and has worked on being an ally for … I don’t know, decades. A lot of her posts (and specifically the post I linked in, which is really the start to a series of posts) speak specifically to being white and confronting the systemic racism of white privilege. I feel like I learn a ton from her, and she’s pretty blunt in a lot of ways, ways that I find helpful to shine a spotlight on what I otherwise sometimes (maybe most times) have a hard time seeing.
It is an ongoing learning process, as far as I am concerned. The invisible knapsack article was one of the first I read after reading that article on the sistah vegan project website, and I would definitely agree that it is a big help in explaining to us white folks what exactly white privilege is.
One of the books that Breeze recommended to me was “black looks” by bell hooks. I got pretty bogged down in her analysis of films (none of which I’d seen, I watch almost no movies and zero tv, so that was bound to pass right by me!) but other than that, it was a a definite eye opener.
I’m going to get my hands on a copy of the book you recommended. It sounds great.
Here is a list of recommended resources for white folks that I’ve used.
Why Are All the Black Kids… is indeed at the very top of my list for a starting point, and a great follow up is The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide by Meizhu Lui et al.
On the tricky issue of discussing animals etc. with other POCs not previously involved with these issues, there are some places to turn.
Key theorists of race, slavery and colonialism, from WEB DuBois to Franz Fanon to bell hooks, have discussed how racial power works through a logic of animalization. This highlights how species and race co-constitute identity (of course along with gender, sexuality, ability, and other categories). The “human” that we might understand as a universal species identity is fractured by race, and conversely, race emerges with reference to “lower” or “higher” species. (Fanon’s passage on “zoological terms” in the opening pages of The Wretched of the Earth is especially eloquent on this point.)
The animalization argument is different from comparisons of animals and slaves, which along with abandoning the contexts of institutions of violence, often simplistically views all animals as universally oppressed by an undifferentiated humanity. Terms like “speciesism” can risk this same mistake because they tend to gloss over the huge disparities between humans. (There are some other theoretical arguments that might speak to POCs that I’m working out for an article I’m writing–hopefully more on this later.)
In terms of the organizing/politics side of things, I think the approach of pattrice jones and others who were involved in the Global Hunger Alliance is eye-opening: if you approach animals and their/our ecosystems by analyzing institutions instead of making abstract moral prohibitions (which we can never honestly uphold anyway) there are possibilities for alliances that can address human inequalities and the “interests” of nonhuman beings. From what I’ve read, GHA was involved with transnationally connecting animal activists, small farmers organizations, environmentalists, and anti-hunger activists in opposition to global agricultural policies that promote corporate factory farming. I don’t know how well the alliance ultimately worked, but it seems like a pressing issue with today’s global food crisis, and i think the kind of organizing that might speak to POCs who would otherwise see animal activists as crazy or elitist.
Your own blogroll is a great place to start. I found Sistah Vegan to be exceptionally helpful for me in explaining some issues.
indo, what do you mean by “abstract moral prohibitions”?
Try tim wise he talks about white prividge http://www.timwise.org/
Various clips on youtube
On the Vegan ting many sources exist
including work by people like Jewel Pookrum, Llaila Africa, Aris La tham, Dick Gregory, Queen Afua, Muata Ashby,
i gotta tell y’all that i am so grateful for this entire blog! it’s really thought-provoking. for me, peggy mcintosh was a starting point a few years ago. really digestible material for the privilege acknowledgement-weary. and allan johnson’s book, power privilege and difference was HUGE for me in dealing with general privilege issues – obviously applicable to white privilege. there’s also a fanTASTIC white privilege conference put on every year, http://www.uccs.edu/~wpc/
as a white person working toward allyship every day through study and practice and conversation, i’m always up for criticism for any of my philosophies. however, i have found few places to go when it comes to responding to the following criticism: veganism for all is NOT relativist like most of my rhetoric, so why make an exception in desiring a cultural universal?
vegan advocacy and anti-racist, privilege-aware, feminist discussions are fairly consistently engaged for me. but i gotta say i have a hard time responding with citable resources to intrigued or irritated folk bringing to the table concepts of heritage denial. sistah vegan has been great for multiple perspectives (i so look forward to a printed anthology!!!), but i am SO bothered by racist-by-neglect, or just overtly white privileged, theorizing that goes on within vegan advocate writers.
As a white male I had a wake up call to racism while in college, as a student in the admission department, where I began to get involved on campus in attempt to make it a more welcoming place, somewhere people could be acknowledged, respected and find a safe place to learn and grow.
I was responsible, in a way, for bringing people from diverse ethnic backgrounds to a mostly white, euro-american, campus in the countryside. By taking an opportunity to work with staff on better understanding diversity, ethnicity, and how racism does show its head, even on campus, I began my never-ending journey and thirst for understanding racism and later on white privilege.
Not until several years ago, through my work at the YWCA, did I get acquainted with white privilege. I knew that I had unearned privileges, but often times struggled to define it as such. As Defi and Ande said already, I agree that Tim Wise and the white privilege conference web sites are good to check out.
As for books, the most recent one I read was Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. This book details accounts, stories, facts and figures, and research done by transracial adoptees, who were more often than not, and still are to this day, adopted into homes of white people, and how adoption ultimately impacts their lives in numerous ways.
Thank you to everyone for posting the helpful links and book suggestions!
Hey everyone — thank you so much for all these comments & suggestions! To those of you who gave names w/o specific articles or books, are there specific pieces by those folks that you find especially useful (extra awesome if you could provide a link to the article online)? I think sometimes people find it intimidating to be given a list of names of people (who probably have written a lot of stuff) to research, & would like to have as many individual articles to link to as possible. I’d like perhaps to have these articles linked in the sidebar (but I would also link to this post, so people could see more names & stuff too). So… any more specific suggestions? Thanks!!
Johanna: my 2 unID’d texts are:
–”The Training of Black Men” by WEB Du Bois in Souls of Black folk (the copyright has expired so it’s free on google books and elsewhere)
–bell hooks’ “Eating the Other” in Black Looks
Elaine: I meant that making universal claims for animals (like saying no human should ever be complicit in their deaths–an impossible task) might be less effective than working in specific ways to oppose animal-exploiting industries, especially since these industries are responsible for deepening class, racial, national, and other inequalities and since there are activists all over the world already working on this stuff.
Adding this list of links for clueless white people.
Also this list of 101 primers.
I’m not sure this one would fit your criteria, but what about Marjorie Spiegel’s “The Dreaded Comparison”?
Googling her just now I came up with her 1999 dissertation on animals as trope in the works of African-American writers Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison…
http://www.library.unt.edu/theses/open/19992/erickson_stacy_m/Dissertation.pdf
Hey guys, I’m a recent convert and haven’t eaten meat now in over a month. I didn’t think it was possible @first, strangely enough I don’t miss it. However, I have noticed an increase in the amount of sweets I consume. Maybe, it has always been this much. Anyway, regarding the topic I have a video link on my website that might help to enlighten some of our white brothers on the issue…how timely:
http://www.theleftflank.com/white-man-s-burden.php
Cheers,
Cranston
Hey there,
I just read two articles about intersectionality. It touches on speciesism, sexism, and race.
I dig this one the most:
http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/intersectionality_101_sexism_racism_speciesism_and_more
This one has some great points:
http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/intersectionality_and_animal_advocacy
Thank you for posing these questions!
I am a human who produces very little skin pigment. I also have a penis. Do I deserve privilege based on these physical attributes? No. Do I receive treatment other than those individuals comprised of different characteristics? Yes, all the time. I get treated like a criminal in retail stores because I wear baggy jeans and a cocked-sideways hat. It is easier for me to find housing, even without a job or references. I was forced to physically defend myself (get beat up) almost every day for being the only pigment-deficient human in my neighborhood in Oakland, until I moved. I will get hired and make more money than an equally skilled vagina owner. I have been called every derogatory term used to insult pigment-deficient humans, by my neighbors. We all suffer form of discrimination no matter individual characteristics.
I am well aware of my societal-privilege, and have done my best to avoid it, but it is simply not always possible. In school, I got in a fight (violently physical) with a human who produced vast quantities of skin pigment, and who also owned a penis. I was moving to Oregon a few days later, so the principal decided not to suspend me, but to suspend my cooperator. This enraged me, and even though the decision might have been alternatively motivated, i.e., no use suspending me on my last days of school, I saw it as discrimination. We were both equally guilty of a crime, and therefor should be equally punished. I moved for either suspension of both of us, or suspension of neither. This was one day that I didn’t get beat up on my way home. But, I had to go to school the next day.
Every instance after this, I try to recognize privilege when it happens, confront it when I think it does, and try to avoid utilizing the privilege, but it is nearly impossible. The question is not “what can I do to avoid using this privilege?”, the question is “what can I do to avoid having this privilege?”
Regardless of which area one chooses to pursue, the recognition that exploitation and discrimination are morally wrong is the key. One who recognizes that these ideas are wrong only need be informed that other forms of the same ideas are present, and will likely see them as equally valid. Many people who produce small amounts of pigment do not see that discrimination is present on his or her behalf, but that does not mean that these individuals are not fighting against oppression as they see it. Just as I might not have known about the Coltan conflict in the Congo, doesn’t mean that I do not care about the Congolese people. I care about all people. I want to fight against all forms of discrimination, those I can identify, and those I have not identified yet. Not everyone is obligated to pursue the issues surrounding “race” (I don’t agree with this term, and new science tends not to either, when describing various social groups), species, sex, hetero-sex, class, etc., equally when choosing to be active against these concepts. To be active against discrimination and exploitation as a whole is to consider all of the individual concepts or facets of those concepts as one ideology. To be clear, to focus on species, one excludes “gender” (I don’t agree with this term as gender is self-defined, not biologically or anatomically defined) and “race”, etc. To focus on “race”, one excludes species and “gender”, etc. To focus on discrimination and exploitation without excluding any individual facet, one must focus on hierarchy. However, to broadly focus on such a pervasive and socially accepted form of dominance, in which discrimination and exploitation lie, would be quite an achievement as far as scope of content and ability to encompass all forms of discrimination and exploitation within a viable, easily transferrable ideological construct. Proponents of anarchy have tried, but have ultimately been ineffective. For example, it is hard enough to encompass all of the aspects of meat consumption in a conversation about animal exploitation, let alone vivisection, fur, leather, dairy, eggs, etc. However, focusing on one issue, such as vivisection, lends support to the idea that eating meat is acceptable, because vivisection is what is focused on, not the general use of animals. So focusing on two, or three, or however many, does nothing to address the root of the problem which is not who or how we discriminate or exploit, but that we discriminate and exploit. The hard part is: How do you start?
What single campaign can we have that encompasses all forms of discrimination, exploitation, oppression, etc.? We would have to include every form of oppression, and not choose those only known to us, but unknown. Here are some I know:
(in no particular order)
Racism
Sexism
Heterosexism
Capitalism/most other forms of government
Anthropocentrism
Speciesism
These forms of oppression all manifest, and can lead to, different characteristics of behavior (white supremacy>slavery), or action, (heterosexism>violence against LGBTs) and contain individual facets (animals>leather, fur, flesh, etc.), but I think these are the main ones.
How do we stop all these forms of oppression, without focusing on single, double, or triple isms, or excluding any one facet?
By breaking down the hierarchy responsible for all of these things.
This is an incredibly hard concept to even start to explain to most people. Proponents of social-anarchy will attest to this. Similar to “white social privilege”, humans do not even see their own human privilege. The notion that all beings and things on Earth are the property of humans in general.
So to try and start to break down this social hierarchical given, I suggest baby steps. Start with one issue. Add another one. Add another one. The twelve issue people have just as much right to harp on the two issue people as the the two issue people have to harp on the one issue people. None. The hierarchy is being maintained by excluding from one’s group an “other” and maintaining the ladder system he or she purports to oppose. The number of issues one adheres to is not one’s “moral barometer” as Steve Harvey puts it. If we all did as much as we could, we would no nothing else. Just doing something is better than doing nothing, and because someone is doing more than someone else, doesn’t invalidate the latter’s something. “Vegans of Color” is another way to support the idea of an “other”. Way to go against the grain, y’all (sarcasm). If we are truly to be free from hierarchy of people, values, species, race, sex, gender, etc., we must form a community which does not recognize these as making one an “other” from the collective group, but maintaining individual status within a community group. The fact that I am called a white male limits me. I might lack the pigment concentration of some, but I am not just white. I might have a penis, and might be classified anatomically and biologically as a male, but I am not just a man. I might be classified as a human, but this I am not, just, either. I might campaign for animal rights, but I am not just an ARA. I might produce music, but I am not just a musician. Allow me to be me, Lloyd, not Lloyd the white male, or Lloyd the vegan, or Lloyd the DJ, allow me, and all others, to be us, just like you. I don’t focus on veganism as a single issue, but if I did, I would be justified in doing so. I am not required to campaign for anything, but not doing so doesn’t mean I support it, or trivialize it. When conversing with a person, regardless of reproductive organs or pigment or sexual orientation, I speak of the oppression I think is relative to them, or the discussion. Publicly, if one were to address racism to a group of people, many people will identify and many will not. But if one were to address all forms of exploitation or discrimination, all would identify because even the “richest, whitest, males” feel “othered” and discriminated against by poor people. I know, not much sympathy there, but the point is this: No single issue or double issue can encompass all facets, so lets take small bites and address each one individually, but with the clear intent of ending all forms of oppression. This is similar to advocating eating one vegan meal a day. One is not advocating eating two meat meals, but advocating one vegan meal with the clear intent of veganism as the end. In order to campaign against slavery, one must identify slavery as oppression and move to end it, as one step further towards ending all forms of oppression. If one is motivated to stop all forms of oppression and has a clear message that this is his or her goal, it does not matter which individual campaign he or she chooses, but that the end goal is the elimination of discrimination, exploitation, and all other forms of oppression.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. Gandhi was on to something. I don’t want to see oppression, so I will try to defend against ALL forms, just not ALL on Tuesday.
Thanks for thinking.