jenna

As an activist, I think that breaking down the barriers between groups of people — while still recognizing and respecting individual differences — is a key component to achieving equality and ending oppression.  When we stop thinking of beings who are different from us as the “other,” it becomes more difficult to treat them as “less than.”  I think recognizing that animals have an interest in being alive, not having their children taken away, not being beaten, etc. is the first step in making the choice to not use their bodies for our own purposes.  Similarly, acknowledging that people who have differently-abled bodies or different gender presentation or different ethnicities or insert myriad-other-ways-in-which-people-are-different here still have an interest in health, happiness, safety, bodily integrity, and choice is a first step to creating a world without oppression.

However, I’ve noticed lately that even within social justice activism there’s a pervasive “us vs. them” mentality that can totally undermine that vision of a peaceful world.  Believing that the western world, for example, is infinitely more forward-thinking than less-industrialized nations is one harmful way in which this occurs; even within the context of the United States, thinking that large cities are more progressive and subsequently dismissing the behavior of other cities and states as “backwards” is dangerous as well.  Activists are guilty of this all the time, and I think it creates unnecessary borders and divisions between potential allies.

Doris Lin wrote about this in a January 2010 article concerning animal activists’ propensity to blame an entire culture or an entire country for animal cruelty occurring within its borders.  She writes, “I’ve noticed in various social justice movements that it’s easy to demonize disempowered groups or groups that are considered ‘other.’  Whether the cause is human rights, environmental protection or animal rights, it’s always easy to get some people to agree with you by reinforcing their prejudices against ‘those people’ or ‘these people.’”  This mentality not only unfairly labels an entire culture or country as “backwards” or “barbaric,” but it also dismisses the efforts of progressive, anti-oppression activists within those countries’ borders, as if there’s nothing there worth saving.  Interestingly enough, we rarely see western cultures being described as “barbaric,” despite the fact that plenty of mind-boggling oppression happens right here on U.S. soil.  It’s only those people who are “other” who seem to warrant that label; it’s only appropriate to write off a whole country when our targets are different enough from ourselves to no longer remind us of our own abhorrent behavior.

It’s not just animal activism, either.  After atrocious immigration legislation was passed in Arizona, calls to boycott the entire state started peppering my news feed.  Have we forgotten that plenty of other U.S. states have criminalized, arrested, and deported people of color or immigrant citizens before, during, and after the passage of Arizona’s legislation?  (See this heartbreaking article from North Carolina.)  I reported some really vicious rules for intersex citizens in Australia, and someone commented that Australia is particularly “effed up” when it comes to governmental approaches to sexuality.  Have we forgotten that here in the United States, LGBT folks do not have access to marriage or that gender non-conforming individuals do not have federal protections for housing, employment, or the privilege to safely use a public bathroom?  Female genital mutilation is currently being funded and celebrated at an ivy league institution in the United States.  Transgender individuals are harassed, beaten, and killed in cities as “progressive” as New York and Seattle on a daily basis.  The examples go on and on and on and never fail to discourage me.  We (New Yorkers, Americans, vegans) have to stop thinking that we’re somehow better than other people, other cities, other countries.

It’s not fair to blame an entire population for the oppressive words or actions of a few individuals, especially when nearly every population on the planet is, in some way, committing similarly oppressive acts. And so much work needs to be done in our own backyards that it seems to make sense to focus there before we go pointing fingers at other communities.  This is why LOVE focuses so strongly on community-based activism and a holistic understanding of veganism and anti-oppression.  In my experience, it’s not effective to launch a campaign in a city or drop a hundred leaflets on a street corner and then blow out of town.  We have to listen to each other, respect differences, and work together to eliminate oppression.

Recently, members of the LOVE collective have been batting around the idea of adding some “Veganism 101″-type posts  to our blog, in the interest of sharing some of our experience and advice with fellow collective members and blog readers.  Everyone who has made the choice to adopt a vegetarian diet or who views the world through an anti-oppression lens has hit some stumbling blocks along the way — often in the form of fielding questions from friends and family, feeling some discomfort over making new choices, or trying to figure out the right way to express concern, criticism, or excitement about things happening in the world.  One of the reasons we created the Vegan Blog was to share these experiences with each other and learn from them; building this community, both virtual and physical, was one of my main goals, at least, in founding LOVE.

However, I’m struggling a bit with the idea of posting some set of rules or guidelines for other vegans to follow in their own lives.  My experiences are my own, and the way I handle a situation may be radically different from the way that someone else would choose to do so.  I’m certainly no expert on anything, and I don’t like the implicit authority that comes from being the author of the post.  I’ve wanted to write something in here for weeks, but I’ve been floundering, having only my own experiences to draw upon and certainly not feeling qualified to tell others how to live their lives.

Other writings on this site have talked about speaking your truth, and as I was gawking at my blank computer screen, I realized that this might be exactly what we have to offer.  Instead of worrying about having all the right answers or overstepping my bounds in directing others in how to live, it might be most useful — and most cathartic — for me to just write about experiences I have had as an anti-oppression vegan activist and solicit feedback from the rest of the collective (and other readers) about how to handle these situations.  I hope that the other LOVE blog writers will contribute similar stories; we can create our own version of “Veganism 101″ that will hopefully be more inclusive, more truthful, and more relevant.

I want to talk a little bit about my experiences with combating despair.  Sometimes, as activists and compassionate people, the weight of the world’s problems can really suck the life out of us.  With a greater understanding of the forces that keep humans and animals oppressed comes a heavy sadness that can immobilize us.  The media seems to be a never-ending parade of oil spills and abuse of dairy cows, violence and war; even worse is when around us in in the flesh is apathy, sexist jokes, animals on plates, and “allies” who don’t understand us at all.  It’s enough to make a person want to hide under the covers and never come out.

So, what’s a vegan to do?

Personally, I’m working really hard on a few different approaches to this gut-wrenching feeling.  First and foremost, I’m acknowledging that I spend a LOT of time thinking about and writing about and living anti-oppression; most of the people I meet are not going to have given these issues as much consideration as I have, and I can’t expect them to be on the same wavelength as me.  It took a lot of time and reading and talking these things through to get to the understanding I have today, and tempting though it may be to throw a fit each time someone falls short on his analysis of power and privilege, it’s not fair or productive to do so.  What’s more, the general mission behind LOVE is to build and strengthen our communities; when we focus on that goal and proliferate the ideas of anti-oppression activism beyond the relatively small group of people who currently devote themselves to these issues, there will be fewer people causing me such anguish.

Terrible things are happening in the world, to people and animals.  Every time I write a letter to someone in prison or meet an animal who is obviously traumatized by her experience on a farm or in an abusive home, I worry that I’m not going to be able to handle the next atrocity that comes down the pike.  Sadly, I sometimes feel like my horror or disgust or despair wouldn’t be understood by anyone around me; or worse, when I try to express these feelings to friends and partners, I end up debating or justifying myself instead of getting the support that I needed.

How do we maintain hope when there seem to be so few people hoping right there with us?

I’m trying to live more by example than continuously and aggressively shoving these ideas down the throats of everyone I meet.  The latter approach seems to be just exhausting for everybody involved and no doubt contributes to that weighted-down feeling that seems to run my life from time to time.  LOVE is currently working on a new video and an updated version of our vegan brochure that will hopefully facilitate the conversation about veganism and anti-oppression beyond what we’re able to do in our day-to-day lives.  In short, my goals are to not alienate people and not lose myself in the fog of sadness that sometimes rolls in with the sunrise.  The bigger this community becomes, the more allies we will have in fighting that despair, and the less alone we will feel.

If anyone has any similar experiences or wants to discuss any of these ideas further, please feel free to share in the comments.  I’d really like to hear how you find the strength to keep fighting so that I can draw upon it in some of those difficult moments.

This is the text of a presentation given at the 2010 Institute for Critical Animal Studies Conference.

I am always shocked and saddened when I hear yet another story about an activist who has been arrested and put in prison.  We heard earlier today about the Green Scare, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, the unconstitutionality of the laws that exist to put our comrades behind bars – and, yet, every time that happens, I am stunned.  I mean, these are our friends, our colleagues, our family members.  Some of them are finding themselves locked up for ten, fifteen, twenty years.  Our criminal justice system, clearly, is wreaking havoc on the hearts and minds of the people fighting for change for animals, and their families.

Maybe I’m always so shocked because as a relatively privileged person, it’s not likely that many of my closest friends and family members will end up in jail.  It’s only really through this road of animal activism that I’ve had any brushes with law enforcement.  But the prison-industrial complex has been thriving for years on striking that same fear into the hearts, minds, and families of poor people, of communities of color, and gender non-conforming individuals long before the advent of the Green Scare.

I am one of the founders of a group whose opposition to violence is so central to the work that we do that we have actually chosen to incorporate it into the very name of our collective – Living Opposed to Violence and Exploitation.  And yet, the act of calling the police on someone, the act of putting someone in jail – in a cage – is not widely viewed as the act of violence that it is.  In fact, there are some animal advocacy organizations calling for stricter penalties and harsher punishments for animal cruelty.  Of course, we all want to see the end to animal abuse and exploitation, but is putting people in jail – overwhelmingly, people who are already oppressed by the same systems of power and privilege that allow animals to be abused – really the solution?  Does incarceration actually address the broader societal issues of animal exploitation?

The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any country in the history of the world.  One in every 100 adult Americans is in jail.  While the United States has just five percent of the world’s population, it is home to 25% of the world’s prisoners.  These numbers are startling.

I’m going to posit that the U.S. criminal justice system – the Prison-Industrial Complex – serves as a political tool to keep poor people, people of color, and gender non-conforming people under the control of those in power.  It’s a well-oiled machine of oppression that systematically denies people wealth, value, and freedom.  And it is not something I, as a vegan and animal advocate, can endorse.  It feels imperative to me to be working to empty the cages that confine and repress all animals, including humans.

Before I started researching prison abolition, in fact, before I was much of an activist, I had this idea that law enforcement and incarceration existed to keep us safe.  That notion was eroded slowly over time, as I saw abuse of police power at demonstrations, as I watched friends get locked up for having the audacity to speak out against unjust systems, and as I started seeing the parallels between animal oppression and human oppression.  But I still didn’t really know what to do otherwise.  What about the “criminals” who are imprisoned and thus not on the streets?  Isn’t that a sign that the system is working?

As it turns out, prison operates a lot differently than what is told to us through the dominant cultural narrative.  Of the 2.3 million people in prison in the United States, about 1% of those people are actually there for a “violent crime” – the rest are typically related to drug charges, fraud, or other minor offenses.  I don’t think that the solution to poverty or drug addiction is to lock people in cages, but this is exactly what we’re doing.

What’s more, the incarceration of millions of people has done very little to deter future crime.   Women are still afraid to walk down the street.  Families are still torn apart by violence.

Prisons are not about reducing harm in our communities and in fact, imprisonment actually serves to destabilize our communities.  Prisons are violent institutions that only perpetuate violence, and prisons as a public policy solution have failed to create safe communities.  They do nothing to address the cultural conditions that lead to so-called criminal behavior.

Over 500,000 of the people currently languishing in U.S. prisons are there because they simply can’t afford to post their bail.  They’ve been judged not a threat to society and have not been found guilty of anything, but are stuck in prison for the months it takes for their case to wind through the court system because they can’t afford the bail fee.

Class and wealth play a huge role in the “who” of prison.  Approximately 30% of women arrested had been receiving public assistance before their arrest.  Fewer than 40% of women had held a full-time job prior to their arrest, and 2/3 of women under supervision – either in jail, on probation, or on parole – had never held a job making more than $6.50 per hour.  Opportunities to get education or employment while in prison are severely limited, if available at all, which ensures that inmates will continue to be poor even after they are released.

More than 60% of the people in prison are people of color.  Compare that to the ethnic composition of the United States: less than 45% of the population identifies as non-white.  There’s a huge disparity here.   For Black males in their twenties, 1 in every 8 is behind bars on any given day.  Three-fourths of people in jail for drug offenses are people of color.   At this point, you have young Black and Latino men just assuming that one day, they will go to prison.  It tears apart their families, it hobbles them in terms of future opportunities, and it does very little to actually deter crime.

Women in prison also face incredible challenges.  By the end of 2006, over 112,000 women were behind bars, compared to 44,000 women imprisoned in 1990.  Women of color, like men of color, are actually overrepresented in the prison system.  Women’s individual histories of trauma and abuse also makes prison an incredibly hostile environment, and guards often take advantage of the power dynamic between guard and inmate.  Barriers to health care, especially female-related health issues, like reproduction, breast cancer, and childbirth, can make prison a deadly experience for women.

Trans- and gender non-conforming individuals face even more opposition in prison, as they are often housed with people of opposite genders, are denied medical care and treatment, and are assaulted and harassed simply for their gender identity or gender expression.  Because it’s still legal in most places to discriminate against trans-identified people, it can literally be impossible for these individuals to go to school, get a job, or otherwise support themselves.  Prison seems almost inevitable when the deck is so stacked against them.

Whenever I talk about prison abolition – or the idea that criminalization is not the solution to society’s problems – people inevitably ask, “if not prison, then what?”  I ask myself that question all the time, too.  The idea of incarceration is so ingrained in our societal narrative that we have difficulty visualizing any other way to keep the peace.  Two really important considerations have helped me to embrace the idea of abolition and encouraged me to work toward a different model:

1)    There is a lot of violence and “crime” being committed that goes unpunished, and a system that doesn’t address all violence equally is one that I cannot endorse.  For example, in 2008, a number of slaughterhouse workers in California were sentenced to jail time for the abuse of animals in their facility.  Some of these people were undocumented workers, who will be deported once their jail time is served.  However, what about the executives at the top of those corporations, whose orders directly result in the murder of billions of animals every year?  Why are they allowed to exploit those workers?  And why, instead of getting punished, are they some of the richest folks in the country?
2)    There is a lot of violence occurring within the U.S. prison system.   Sexual assault and murder run rampant through prisons and jails.  Prisoners are denied adequate health care, opportunities to make contact with their friends and families, education, and income.  Women are physically shackled to tables and beds during childbirth.  Immigrants are deported to countries in which they may know no one after serving their jail sentences here.  It’s a system that completely devalues the lives and bodies of the people struggling within its walls.

I have a really nice quote from Andy Stepanian, one of the SHAC7 activists, who served two years and seven months in prison for “conspiracy to violate the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.”  Andy says that he doesn’t believe incarcerating either social justice activists or animal abusers is the answer to society’s woes.  “I oppose the prison industrial complex and all forms of oppression. I don’t relish seeing a single piece of kindling thrown into that fire no matter how despicable the animal-abusing wretch is.” Andy views cruelty to animals as a sickness that is exacerbated when the abuser is behind bars. “I think we need to get proactive in healing our culture’s illnesses, and in turn these abusers — whom I see as symptomatic — will be a less-frequent phenomenon.”

But how will we be safe without prisons?  Take a minute and think about what makes you feel safe — your home?  Your family?  Your friends?  While some people may say that prisons and police in your community make you feel safe, many of us most impacted by prisons and policing will not.  In fact, the Prison-Industrial Complex has stolen those very things from millions of people.  We see that prisons and rampant policing have served to destabilize our communities — removing family members from our communities, draining resources for essential social services, and pushing us to fear each other.

Of course, the notion of abolishing prisons is, admittedly, ambitious.  I think a lot of people are really exhausted by the idea of doing all this work, just as the task of bringing about a vegan world can feel so daunting to those of us working toward change for animals.  It’s easy, unfortunately, to think, “Well, this will never happen in my lifetime.”  But that line of thinking is so dangerous.  I’ve watched veganism get co-opted by organizations looking to make a dollar and declare victories – we’re pushing for alternative methods OF exploitation, like humane farms, instead of alternatives TO exploitation.  And prison reform feels that way to me as well.  I think the best way to advocate for prisoners and to make their lives better is to get them out.  A system that puts people into cages is no more ok by me than a system that ultimately kills animals for our enjoyment.  Neither of those can exist in a vegan world.

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(a.k.a. If I Could Change Anything, This Would Be It. … well, Some Of It.)

With the passing of feminist scholar and transmisogynist hate monger Mary Daly, a number of feminist blogs have been singing the praises of her life and her legacy. Few of these female-positive spaces – which profess to work towards empowering women and eliminating oppression – have bothered to mention that Daly, an “ethical vegetarian” and one-time board member of Feminists for Animal Rights, espoused the complete elimination of transgender individuals, calling them “Frankensteinian.” Feminist and vegetarian scholar Carol J. Adams, a much-respected activist in both the feminist and animal rights communities and a former student of Daly’s, sung her praises in a recent blog entry. In the comments of this blog, Adams states that “there were times when we disagreed with her; but what was wonderful is how she opened up the space to have such lively disagreements.” Meanwhile, a comment asking Adams and her readers to acknowledge the very real legacy of harm and intolerance left by Daly, was promptly deleted .

(In a private e-mail to me, Carol stated that she deleted the comment because she wanted to keep her blog entry as simply a memorial to the influence that Mary Daly had on her life, but this felt to me like more of the same denial that Daly ever did anything wrong, more of the legacy of trans-exclusive feminism that has created such a threatening world for gender non-conforming individuals.)

As someone who calls herself both feminist and vegan, or simply as someone working toward a more just world, I find that the correlation between the oppressions based on gender and species is striking. Of course, hierarchies based on inherent characteristics (viewing women as inferior to men, for example, or animals inferior to humans) are hugely problematic in the first place, but nowhere does the intersection between gender and species seem so strong as in the dairy industry. Non-human animals enslaved on dairy farms face oppression and exploitation not only because they are animals, but because they are female. Milk is a product of pregnancy; in order to continue to produce milk, a cow or goat or sheep must be continually impregnated, usually by force and use of a tool referred to as a “rape rack.” This does not mean, however, that the animals get to enjoy a large family and the love of their children; instead, offspring are taken away from the mother hours or days after birth. These infants are often slaughtered immediately or, in the case of calves, raised as veal. In this way, the exploitation of the female reproductive system feeds directly into the system of meat production, the elimination of which vegans and vegetarians are working toward.

Furthermore, the demand for bird eggs results in not only the demand for (female) hens with reproductive systems, but it also cumulates in the slaughter of millions of male chicks who are unnecessary for egg production. (Male chicks do not grow quickly enough to be “profitably” reared for meat, and they are biologically unable to produce eggs. Therefore, they are killed immediately.) Again, these hens would not be trapped on egg farms if they weren’t female, and these male chicks would not be created simply to be killed within hours of birth if humans did not demand the products of female hen reproduction.

It would seem that every feminist, fighting for the rights of women and an end to gender-based oppression, would have a stake in choosing not to eat the products of the dairy industry. Sadly, this is not the case.

And just as I am disheartened by feminists and “ecofeminists” who choose to eat or wear animals and animal excretions, I find it disappointing, not to mention dangerous, when feminist-identified individuals purposefully ignore and deny the struggles of gender non-conforming and/or transgender people. If we are speaking out against women being oppressed because of their gender and gender identity, it seems natural to also speak out on behalf of transgender individuals, who also face systematic oppression because of their gender identities. As long as feminists and vegans are declaring that trans men must have transitioned because they found life “too difficult” as a woman and trans women decried as “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” we are perpetuating a system that discriminates (and kills) based on the way a person experiences his/her/hir gender.

And as long as any of those systems exists – as long as people are experiencing oppression because of their gender, race, class, species, ability, sexual orientation, or any inherent characteristic – we have not achieved a vegan world.

A formerly vegan friend recently revealed to me that she has begun incorporating “local” and “sustainable” dairy products into her diet in an effort to eat more responsibly, at least in terms of her impact on the earth. This person is now consciously seeking only foods — with the exception of those stolen or recovered from a dumpster — that have originated within a small geographical area. Influenced heavily by Lierre Keith’s recent book, The Vegetarian Myth, this friend argues that veganism as a mainstream movement and, specifically, a way of eating, has turned into one of over-processed, over-packaged “replacement” foods that may actually harm the planet (in the language of topsoil erosion, water and fossil fuel resource depletion, and non-organic agriculture) more than is done by eating locally-raised animal flesh and excretions.

I definitely do not disagree with her dissatisfaction with the current state of vegan affairs. Veganism, to me, sometimes feels like so many grains of sand slipping through my fingers as classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of privilege run rampant, unchecked, through activist efforts. I, too, worry about the use of genetically-modified soybeans in faux-meats, reliance on foods transported thousands of miles, and the extinction of orangutans because Earth Balance is harvesting non-renewable palm oil from their habitats. The modern-day vegan movement, hardly reflective of the Vegan Society’s original definition as a stand against exploitation, has allowed the Philip-Morris company (the animal testing, tobacco-growing giant behind the BOCA brand) to produce vegetarian foods that vegans rave about and permits groups ostensibly working toward animal welfare to celebrate and partner with people who otherwise commit racist, sexist, and other oppressive acts when not speaking “on behalf” of animals.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should state that I haven’t read Keith’s book, and while I would like to at some point, it hasn’t yet made its way onto my reading list. In the introduction available on her site, she states that her intention is to ask readers to look beyond just the animals on their plates and consider what else might have been sacrificed along the way to get that food to your mouth: animals killed in the agricultural process, river beds gone dry, topsoil “turned to ghosts.” It’s an interesting and important question to ask, and not one to be dismissed out of hand.

But I’m still not convinced that abandoning veganism is the way to go.

This friend of mine has declared that her desire to eat only locally is so strong that she plans to move to California and live and work on a farm, from which she will procure all of her food. While this is a very romantic and admirable notion, the fact remains that dropping everything and moving to places where the sun shines year round and myriad crops can grow is not desirable or possible for everyone. As long as we live on a planet with seven billion people, some of them will be living in areas where food is less accessible than others; unless several billion of those people plan to kill themselves for the greater good, some measure of transportation is going to be required to feed all of us. Declaring that everyone should (there’s that pesky “should” word again!) only eat food grown in their backyards feels just as privileged as the “replacement food veganism” that some locavores are purporting to challenge with their new dietary choices. Issues of privilege aside, this New York Times article from 2007 also questions some of the assumptions that local food is always “greener” than other types of food.

(On an aside, I think some mention must be made of the implicit privilege involved in dumpster diving. Royce at the Vegans of Color blog highlights some serious problems that he faced as a dumpster-diving person of color; plus, issues of accessibility, availability, and reliability also plague anyone who tries to make dumpster diving a main source of sustenance.)

Not to mention that “humane” or “sustainable” animal agriculture doesn’t happen in a vacuum. While the animals shown to visitors to a local farm may be treated “well” (though can you really be doing right by an animal by stealing her milk and forcing her to live as a tool of production?), what about their offspring who were created to keep milk flowing and then taken away from the mothers shortly after birth? What happens to the animals on this farm once their production levels decrease and they no longer become profitable for the farmers? What about the basic tenement of not using another being without her consent on which veganism was founded?

If we’re working toward a vegan world, we of course want there to be a world left over when we get there, which is why issues of sustainability and environmental responsibility are crucial to our work. But, in my opinion, a world built on oppression is not an acceptable outcome. I do think it is possible to make better food choices and STILL be vegan; for example, we can assess the foods we would like to purchase and see if an organic food wouldn’t be better than a conventional food, or if a fairly-traded food would be better than one without fair-trade certification, or if maybe a food doesn’t even belong in our cupboards because of the issues of transportation or labor or sustainability involved. Of course, this extensive line of thinking and questioning isn’t always possible for every person, every time, but neither we nor the world are perfect. I believe that continuing to advocate for veganism while continually improving our food choices (the personal is political!) is a better solution than eating eggs. (And just as we can critique local-only diets as being harmful and privileged, I think it is important to keep harmful, privileged rhetoric out of the vegan dialog as well.)

We recently updated the “Vegan on a Budget” portion of the LOVE website, which offers some really great meal ideas for vegans who may be looking to eat more cheaply, locally, or sustainably. I am proud of the offerings on this page; many of the recipes beautifully illustrate that veganism isn’t always about trying to replicate animal flesh or importing ingredients from around the globe. We welcome your comments, suggestions, and recipes; please use the general inquiries contact form or leave comments below!

today, my partner and i walked out of the musical ”avenue Q” at intermission, and we never looked back. as a full-fledged theater nerd, this is not something i have ever done before; typically, i cry at the theater because i am so moved by a singer’s voice or by a cast’s performance. this time, i found myself crying because the absolute steamrolling of identities by the show’s script left me feeling so uncomfortable and so downtrodden that i couldn’t think of anything else to do. (granted, i was having a terrible day, and i may have held it together on an afternoon when myriad things hadn’t already gone wrong; i doubt strongly, however, that i wouldn’t have still been offended and upset.)

i recognize that there is a possibility that the script was written with that smug, tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic style that leaves the author room to say, “but i was CLEARLY joking!” if he is called out on the ridiculousness and offensiveness of the words (see also: hipster racism). i also acknowledge that i walked out before the show was over, and perhaps there is a redeeming moment in the second act in which all of the characters renounce the words and actions that occurred before the intermission (but i doubt it). but if that’s the case, what about the folks who walked out with me at halftime? what if the damage had already been done?

in a theater in one of the wealthiest states in the country, surrounded by some of the most privileged people in the world, i listened to the laughter of the mostly-white audience at the jokes coming at the expense of people of color, gay people, and women, and i just felt like we were all taking one enormous step backwards from being able to respect or empathize with the oppressed groups taking a verbal beating by the show.

some of the lyrics encourage listeners to tell racist jokes because everyone secretly enjoys them; one character suggests that it’s ok to pass little racist judgments like “wishing the mexican busboy would learn to speak goddamn english” as long we’re not making BIG racist judgments like hiring or hate crimes (oh, wait, we’re still doing both of those, too!); the one black-identified character declares that “bigotry isn’t exclusively white!”; the scripted accent of one asian-identified female character is the butt of several jokes throughout the play.

“tongue-in-cheek” or not, this is dangerous.

and i found myself thinking also of a norton anti-virus software commercial i’d seen recently {link here; trigger warning}. a naked, dead, mutilated chicken is “pitted” in a “battle” against four male humans. at the :20 mark, the narrator says something along the lines of, “the chicken doesn’t have feelings one way or another” — and i remember being stunned by those lines, because it has been proven that, yes, chickens DO have “feelings:” they have just as much interest in living free lives — in not appearing naked, dead, and mutilated on television or on our plates without their consent — as anyone else. i could just imagine the hundreds of thousands of people who might catch this on TV and consciously or subconsciously receive this reminder that animals don’t have feelings and can be manipulated in any way we so choose.

it’s also important to keep in mind which groups are creating these lyrics and commercials. i guarantee you a chicken didn’t storyboard that norton commercial, and i doubt either of the creators of “avenue Q” ever actually was an individual of limited english proficiency working for significantly less than a living wage in the food service industry.

any time i encounter something like this, i just cringe (or cry) at what an enormous step backwards this feels like. people who might have been in the process of committing to an animal-free, vegan diet may find themselves wondering why they’re doing so, if yet another commercial reinforces the popular notion that non-human animals are not sentient beings (not to mention all of the advertisements that straight-up portray them as food). people who may have been making an effort to be more aware of the identities and the oppression of people around them may be shamed by the lyrics of “avenue Q” (and the seeming agreement of everyone in the theater) into being more careless about their behavior.

as anyone working against the dominant forces of the world can attest, i’ve been told that i’m too critical, that i’m humorless, that i take everything too seriously — but today, i think i’ve finally stopped feeling ashamed of analyzing the world in this way. i am simply reinvigorated to keep fighting, keep speaking out and standing my ground, until the world begins to operate in a way that doesn’t require so much critical analysis and so many tears.

people are understandably angry and offended by a recent PETA billboard in jacksonville, florida that compared overweight women to whales and demanded that they ”lose the blubber” by going vegetarian. the billboard has since been removed (albeit replaced with a snarky, equally fat-shaming one that leads me to believe that PETA’s staff feels they’ve done nothing wrong and won’t have me waiting by the phone for an apology) but the hurt remains — and the ridiculousness continues. PETA president ingrid newkirk sounded off to the huffington post, essentially rolling her eyes at all the “prudes” and “reactionaries” who rightfully pointed out that this billboard is hateful and hurtful and has no place in animal activism.

newkirk’s article is a gem. she makes comments such as, “the majority of fat people need to have some discipline” and “being fat means being a bad role model to our children.” i wish i was making this up, but i’m not sure i could even come up with something so cruel. i’ve blogged before about how i find it so important to respect the identities and backgrounds of our fellow activists and indeed our fellow humans, and it’s so interesting to me that newkirk continues to defend this campaign despite how incredibly problematic it is. it appears that she — an incredibly privileged, able-bodied, thin, white, heterosexual woman — is unable to acknowledge and respect the lives of people who don’t fall into those privileged categories. that people still call her an ally to animals is problematic. that she is [still] considered a “leader” of the animal rights movement is unfortunate. that she can sleep at night after having made statements like the ones she made to the huffpo is unforgivable.

ida at the vegan ideal has a really thorough analysis of this whole fiasco, but my favorite part is this:

Usually, no matter how oppressive PETA’s campaigns get, nearly everyone I talk to who still supports PETA will at some point always recite a version of the phrase: “But PETA does some good.” This is the “get out of jail free” card most commonly used by PETA supporters to dismiss harsh criticism and seek concurrence and unanimity. But the reality is there is no amount of ostensible “good” that can justify perpetuating oppression.

veganism is a stand against exploitation, oppression, and subjugation of living beings, including humans. we can’t liberate one group at the expense of another. we can’t throw people under the bus to abstractly “save animals.” there are so many compelling reasons to adopt a vegan diet and live a vegan life that don’t involve degrading other people for the way they look or whom they love or what they believe or where they live. as my friend andrea wrote, “[Go vegan] to improve your health and the planet’s. Do it to improve and save animals’ lives. Don’t do it because PETA bullied you into it.”

i recently devoured the book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, and it started me thinking about the use of prisons in the united states and the effectiveness of incarceration in deterring crime. it would seem that other folks have cages on their mind as well: royce at vegans of color put up a post about incarcerating people of color for animal cruelty, and there was recently some lengthy debate about the inclusion of hate crime laws in different ENDA [employment non-discrimination act] legislation floating around the country. both discuss the abuse of the current (in)justice system — putting people of color and trans people, respectively, behind bars in greater numbers than white and cisgender people — and the failure of the threat of prison to prevent crime.

as vegans advocating for the end of the imprisonment of non-human animals, i can’t fathom how we can simultaneously support a system that puts human animals in cages — especially those humans who are systematically marginalized, silenced, and oppressed. the SRLP, referenced above, also expresses some concern that the inherent power and hierarchy in the criminal justice system will never allow for a level playing field, and those laws put in place to protect marginalized groups through the use of incarceration (i.e. hate crime legislation) may end up putting more of us behind bars. if the laws are going to be enforced unequally based on race, class, gender, etc. then i, as a vegan, cannot support them.

a few things turned my stomach about the article referenced in the vegans of color post above. in addition to the reporter completely dehumanizing cheyenne cherry, the young, black woman who killed a cat by putting her in the oven (royce rightly notes that billions of people do this very thing every day to a chicken, and yet none of them will find themselves arraigned and sentenced to a year in jail), discussion of a demonstration outside of the courthouse includes quotes from participants calling cherry “ugly” and “a monster.” (and don’t even bother reading the comments below the article from readers; some of the vitriol there is more than i can handle.) i wonder how many of those demonstrators wore animals to the courthouse, went home to consume animals, or purchase products that were tested on (and resulted in the murder of) animals? breeze also notes, in the comments, that mike huckabee’s (white, male) son allegedly hanged a dog in 1998 but was never prosecuted, either due to his race, his father’s influence, bias/reluctance by the local enforcement, or all of the above.

i remember when the michael vick dog-fighting case occurred, gary francione seemed to be the lone voice attempting to humanize vick and bring some perspective to the crime. other individuals and media outlets were quick to brutalize, pathologize, and otherwise create a monster out of michael vick, as if the idea of animal abuse was completely unfathomable and absent from the rest of the world. of course, i find dog-fighting, murdering cats, abuse or violence against any animal or human completely atrocious, but i’m not sure that throwing michael vick or cheyenne cherry in jail is going to prevent any future violence against animals. in fact, it is committing an act of violence against human animals. the united states incarcerates more of its population than any other country (one in 100 adults are in jail in the united states, as of 2008); crime rates, however, are rising. statistics go on to further suggest that 45 percent of people once incarcerated will commit crimes upon their release.

incarceration is not working to prevent future crimes from being committed, and it is oppressing people of color, women, and/or gender non-conforming individuals. so what is the answer? it seems like education, drug rehabilitation, counseling, and striking at the societal roots of racism/sexism/classism/heterosexism/speciesism would go a lot further in preventing crime than putting people in cages (where further violence is perpetuated through abuse by inmates, guards, and the system itself). after all, aren’t we as vegans working toward the elimination of those cages, regardless of who is contained within their walls?

i recently participated in a discussion about the unlikely partnerships between animal advocacy corporations and individuals, groups, or corporations who do not focus on animal advocacy work but have chosen to support a particular animal-related issue through press releases, advertisements, or products.

many of these partnerships have been in the news as of late, and each one has certainly given me pause. we have the humane society of the united states pairing up with rush limbaugh to increase awareness about animal cruelty; never mind that in the same breath, limbaugh might be telling women to “put some ice on it” and get over it following a beating by their husbands or partners. we have PETA commending KFC — and referring to their products as “favorites”! — for its inclusion of one vegetarian option in one country in which it does business and the use of a different killing method for the chickens it slaughters. the author of this PETA blog conveniently neglects to mention that KFC is a company founded on the torture, murder, and sale of animals to humans.

advocates of these sorts of arrangement stress that it’s vitally important to get the anti-cruelty message into the ears of as many people as possible. one employee of a large animal welfare corporation told me that the animals can’t be bothered with our high standards for who speaks out for them. we should be grateful for any show support of animal protection we can get — even if it’s from people who otherwise oppress animals or humans.

but what about the potential for losing other voices who are completely horrified, offended, or triggered by the work that these fair weather animal allies are doing when not pairing up with HSUS, PETA, etc? if a handful of republican supporters are persuaded by rush limbaugh’s anti-cruelty message, what if another handful of domestic abuse survivors, and/or LGBT individuals, and/or women are completely turned off by the pro-animal organization’s alliance with an anti-human advocate?

how often have we heard that hitler was a vegetarian? in my experience, most vegans and vegetarians immediately attempt to distance themselves from that association (or even disprove the notion altogether, which, according to the internet, is not true); i’d venture to guess that few of us would reply with, “well, we don’t really consider the other things that hitler stood for, we’re just thrilled to have one more vegetarian among the herd.” a person’s whole body of work — especially when they are being touted as a spokesperson for a particular cause or message — has to be taken into consideration.

falling far short of the vegan ideal, in my opinion those partnerships actually hurt animals and animal advocates. when it is posited that animal abuse is actually more important than the abuse of humans or the denial of human rights — when those issues aren’t even considered when forming these awkward alliances — we are doing ourselves and the animals a great disservice. yes, i prefer that we conduct a litmus test on ourselves and the world around us, and i choose to push toward a vegan world — one in which no one is oppressed.

oh. and for a great post on why i might reconsider my use of the term “ally” from now on, check this blog out.

i am sorry for the blog-writing hiatus as of late; sometimes life takes us away from our computer screens, and as much as i hate to neglect the LOVE we’ve built here, i had to wait for the storm to settle a bit before i could cobble my thoughts together into something resembling a post.

thankfully, it hasn’t all been chaos and upheaval over here. some of my absence has been because of some great social justice events and conferences that have been happening in my neck of the woods. each time i attend one of these events, however, i am momentarily stunned by the fact that they are serving meat and dairy products. it would seem that the organizers of an event to benefit a feminist organization or to raise money to support LGBT youth mentoring programs would have an obvious interest in not piling the bodies of other oppressed beings onto the plates of the attendees, but time and time again i find that this is not the case.

it’s obviously important to convey our thoughts on these issues to the people and organizations putting together these events, but i often hit a brick wall in my attempts. in my experience, event organizers are so harried with the thousands of details that go into planning an event or conference that this “seemingly minor” concern from one or two people doesn’t warrant a solution. it can be really challenging — especially if you’re not a visible member of the community you’re approaching — to express the relationship between human and animal oppression and the importance of not participating in any of it in an e-mail that’s short enough to be guaranteed to be read.

i think that’s why i have had so much trouble with letter-writing campaigns or leafleting at churches/conferences/pride parades in the past. i find it incredibly uncomfortable to approach a group of which i am not a visible member or an active participant and purport to tell them how to run their events or lives. steven has talked about the use of the word “should” and how that can (intentionally or unintentionally) flaunt unchecked privilege — and i am struggling to find a balance between speaking up for the animals who are murdered by the billions and respecting the individual experiences and rights of the people to whom i’m speaking.

so do i have any suggestions or solutions? the one that stands out to me is to ensure that we’re standing in solidarity with everyone working on behalf of oppressed groups. there’s no point in hosting the oppression olympics — anyone facing any oppression on any scale deserves to have her voice heard and deserves to have that persecution ended. (at an LGBT event last night, a speaker talking about the importance of LGBT education said that she wished her daughter could learn about gay leaders and the gay rights movement the same way that students learn about black leaders and the civil rights movement “during black history month, in february, or whichever month that is.” really? you’re expressing the importance of gay history while being completely flippant about the struggles of black people to have their history recognized in the same way?)

this doesn’t mean that we have to attend every protest or participate in every legislative call-in session that comes down the pike, but yes, we can be aware and considerate of all of the struggles that are happening simultaneously with the one(s) we call “our own.” get informed! get educated about the history of oppression and how people’s lives are being affected by oppression today. go to the library, take a course at your community college, attend lectures and community events hosted by social justice groups that maybe you’ve never interacted with before. there are myriad commonalities between the different groups working to end oppression. i would love to see us pool our resources and use our energy to work together. all struggles are one struggle, my friends. what is your role in the fight?