Soul Food For Thought: Vegan Black History Month Event in San Francisco March 10, 2010

I recently stumbled upon this writeup (it’s a PDF linked from that post) of Soul-Food-For-Thought, a benefit in San Francisco for the International Fund for Africa. The event was sponsored by Go Vegan Radio, The San Francisco Vegetarian Society, and In Defense of Animals, and the extensive lineup included the Haitian singer King Wawa (a vegan — the writeup doesn’t specify if all the performers were vegan).

Speakers included IFA’s president, Dr. Anteneh Roba, who envisioned the event after being inspired by “the vitality of the African vegan movement” (says the article), and Dr. Milton Mills from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, who spoke about the relevance of vegan food to African Americans.

And, uh, the celebrity co-hosts included a former star of Baywatch.

Anyway — did anyone go to this? What did you think? It is all too rare to see vegan events with any awareness of race, much less geared specifically towards POCs, so it’d be interesting to hear more about how it all played out.

Joint Statement by a Group of Abolitionist Vegan Feminists for International Women’s Day

Check it out here (& there’s also a video). A lot of issues bloggers here (& elsewhere) have raised about sexist AR campaigns are addressed in this statement, which begins:

As abolitionist vegans and feminists, we oppose the use of sexist tactics in the animal advocacy movement. Ethical animal rights veganism is part of the logical conclusion of opposition to the exploitation of all sentient beings — both human animals and non-human animals. Opposing speciesism is incompatible with engaging in sexism or any other form of discrimination, such as racism, heterosexism, classism, and other forms of oppression.