Ethical Veganism as Anti-Intellectualism: Eurocentric White Masculinist Traditions of Intellectualism August 15, 2015

The Sistah Vegan Project

James McWilliams wrote a new blog piece called Modest Proposal. He critiques the vegan movement as not self-reflexive and also makes the observation that the movement is rooted in anti-intellectualism. He basically asks if one can make an ethical argument for veganism that is based on intellectualism: the theory that knowledge is wholly derived from reason and rationalization; the theory that emotions cannot produce intellectually rigorous based knowledge systems.

How interesting….

If you have spent any time with academics involved in critical animal studies who practice veganism, you will find a rich canon of intellectually rigorous research that is pro-vegan– some rooted in Eurocentric traditional notions of intellectualism and some not. All of these scholars are very much part of the vegan movement, which is not a monolith, but like any movement, has a plethora of varying perspectives.

I wrote an award winning Masters thesis at Harvard University in 2007. I…

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The Racial Privilege of Voting With Your Dollars to Create a ‘Good Food’ System August 6, 2015

The Sistah Vegan Project

I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘voting with your dollars’ mantra that I see just about everywhere in the racially and economically privileged areas of the SF Bay area where I live. I wanted to express my perspective with the below infographic and am hoping to open up the conversation about such topics; in my experience, such topics are nearly silenced within the ‘post-racial’ good food movement in the SF Bay area (and most of the USA). Reminder, this is not the “end all be all”. However, after reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and attending the Vegan Praxis of Black Lives Matter conference, I started thinking even more critically about the racial privilege analysis needed within this mainstream good food movement, here in SF Bay area– especially in California with the rise of the prison industrial complex.

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Fairy Tales and Cowlifornia Nightmarin’: Who Else is Sick of the Sugarcoating of the Endless Nightmare of Systemic Oppression?

The Sistah Vegan Project

I am sitting at Coffee Conscious cafe in Berkeley CA right now. A truck just pulled up and parked on the side of the road. It is a Clover Farms truck filled with cow dairy milk products. I took a picture and added my own text to what I would like the truck add to reveal.

Nothing is as infuriating as constantly being bombarded with imagery that continues to create myths around the lives of non-human and human beings who are exploited, abused, and suffer immensely to fulfill the desires of certain human beings within a capitalist system– because capitalism cannot be ‘successful’ without these constant fairy tales and myths that distract one from what is really going on.

Just wanted to remind many of you that most white people found comfort in the myth that Black cisgender women’s bodies and reproductive purpose were there to make white Americans happy and thrive…

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SisTot Vegans: Fair Trade Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the 4 year Old’s Birthday Party August 2, 2015

The Sistah Vegan Project

Here is the the kick-off blog piece for SisTot Vegans.

Kira-Satya, My 21 month old daughter, enjoying a cupcake.

I made these yesterday morning for my 4 year old’s birthday party. They were a fantastic hit, enjoyed by everyone. I surprised quite a few non-vegan folk who didn’t know that it was possible to make a superior tasting cupcake without eggs, animal based butter, and animal based milk.  I enjoyed photographing my masterpiece.

I got the chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Save the World via Chow website.  I did my own modifications for the recipe. Because the birthday party was for 2-6 years olds, I thought it would be a good idea to reduce the sugar that the recipe calls for by 50% and replace it with coconut sugar which has a low glycemic index and can prevent the crash and burn hyper kid syndrome that many…

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