by Siona Ahuja ’24
Staff Writer
While veganism is championed as an environmentally sustainable movement, the vegan community is intrinsically linked to class privilege and racist ideals. The limited presence of BIPOC within that community cannot be ignored.
Veganism is not a monolith. It is both environmental and political, and many people interpret it differently. While some health conscious individuals adopt a solely plant-based diet, others strive to eliminate animal products (food, clothing, shoes, etc.) entirely. In its truest form, veganism is the practice of abstaining from any product that involves animal cruelty and exploitation. Purchasing makeup that is tested on animals, visiting zoos and aquariums or even consuming medication which has animal products (like gelatin) are experiences from which vegans abstain.
Lifestyle products that are free from exploitation often have a higher price tag. Vegan and organic manufacturing is a costly process, and this cost translates to the customer’s purchasing price. Although naturally found vegan food like legumes and vegetables may be cheap, vegan substitutes like nut milk and soy meat are much more expensive than their nonvegan counterparts. Furthermore, most developed countries have subsidized costs for meat and dairy. Due to these price reductions, demand for meat and dairy products has risen dramatically. This is evidenced by the inexpensive cost of meat burgers versus the exorbitant rates for vegan burgers at the same fast food chains.
Because of these cost differences, partaking in veganism is often a class privilege. However, since a majority of the low-income population includes people of color, this class privilege often translates to white privilege as well.
Jessica Greenebaum, a sociologist specializing in the culture and politics of food, describes veganism as an “achieved status and [an] identity that reflects the shared beliefs, values, and politics of people” in her book, “Questioning the Concept of Vegan Privilege: A Commentary.”
The lack of intersectionality in veganism is harmful as it can create perceptions that veganism requires affluence, assumes whiteness and first-world privilege and can perpetuate self-righteousness toward nonvegans, which prevents people from diverse groups from joining the movement.
This is in opposition to the history of veganism as plant-based diets have been encapsulated by various ancient cultures. It is a cornerstone of many age-old Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Rastafarianism has adopted cruelty-free eating in which followers eat unprocessed plant-based food. The Black Hebrew Israelite community of Dimona also believes in vegan eating, as it was said to be the secret to eternal life.
The modern vegan movement, which originated in the 1940s after these cultures, has failed to acknowledge its deep cultural roots, thus creating an “all white” persona for itself. Additionally, several nonprofits that advocate for vegan practices such as the Humane Society of the United States, Mercy for Animals, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Humane League are largely staffed by white officials and patrons.
With the revival of the Black Lives Matter movement this summer, many members of the vegan community faced backlash for social media posts that held racist content. Backed by PETA, some members of the vegan community started a movement to end speciesism, the discrimination of animals because they are seen as inferior to humans. Some of these animal rights protestors started to equate animal discrimination with racism istead of contributing to the uplifting of the Black community through BLM protests. Responding to this countermovement, A. Breeze Harper, founder of the Sistah Vegan Project, wrote a letter to PETA in which she says, “Black people will continue to be treated as animals … until post-racial, post-humanist, ‘I don’t see color’ power-holders like [PETA], practice the tenets of Black Lives Matter.”
Several movements are rising to encourage the inclusion of the Black community in the vegan world, including the Black VegFest, a vegan festival started in New York City in 2018, and the Veganism of Color Mini Conferences originating from Dublin. Many contemporary POC activists are spreading awareness in the community that going vegan is a return to their cultural roots, not a new trend started by the modern West.