Thoughts on (vegan) oppression, pt 2

One thing I have thought about a lot since I went vegan about a year ago now is the framing of veganism within the animal rights community. Many times when I tell people I'm vegan, they react negatively. One reason people give is that "vegans are so over-sensitive" or "vegans are always being offensive/rude/forcing their views on other people." However, people often say this without reflecting on how it sounds to someone who is vegan for ethical reasons when they say, "Yeah, I don't like factory farming either, but I love cheese." Or "Factory farming is bad, but if you get your meat and dairy from good suppliers, it's ok"--even though you know the person in question makes NO effort to do so. These comments ignore the fact that veganism is not about a bunch of people who don't like meat or dairy. Vegans frequently *do/did* love eating meat and dairy, but are vegan anyway. Because even though I used to love the taste of cheese, I have decided that preventing animal cruelty and exploitation is more important than my love for that food.

The point of that tangent was that some vegans I know who are active in the animal rights community have a tendency to see "vegan" as an oppressed category. I have always disagreed with this, but have not always been able to articulate my views. Recently, I came across several blogposts by vegans (primarily vegans of color) explaining why they believe the same thing. I will link to several of these discussions but also explain how I weigh in and give some examples. Note that some of these discussions focus on white men, which is easy to do, especially when many people resistant to the idea are white cis-gendered men ("biological" males who identify their gender as male). However, I have noticed the same trend among white women.

Some vegans have argued that, just as veganism is a choice, religion is too, so vegans can be considered an oppressed group because of the ways in which vegans are discriminated against by society and the government. I disagree with this belief for several reasons. First of all, while religion is a choice for some, the phenomenon of religiously-based oppression is not actually strictly religious. For example, many Arab (or Arab-seeming) Americans are discriminated against every day without being Muslim. I also think that religious belief is different from political belief. Along those lines, I think there is a difference between political repression and oppression, religious or otherwise.

However, I do believe vegans are allies, which is one of the primary reasons why I don't think vegans fit into the oppressed category. Allies are people who are not members of an oppressed group but rather members of a privileged group *who nevertheless fight with members of the oppressed group to eradicate that oppression.* Other examples are white people against racism and male feminists. While a little problematic because humans and non-humans do not collaborate in quite the same way, I see vegans as allies of primarily non-human animals facing oppression and exploitation as a result of the animal industries (food, clothing, etc).***

I think this is the most important reason why vegans are not themselves oppressed by their veganism. History is full of examples where allies have been discriminated against, persecuted by the government, and even killed. This was not uncommon during the U.S. Civil Rights movement, particularly during the 1950's and 1960's. Male feminists have been and continue to be targets of discrimination, mean-spirited jokes, etc, as are straight allies of the LGBTQ community. However, all of these people were targeted not because they fit into an oppressed group of people, but because they were fighting with a group of oppressed people to improve conditions. Being an ally is not about centering your experiences, particularly because as members of privileged groups, allies experiences (in these areas at least) are already centered. It is about centering the experiences of, in this case, animals. Discrimination against vegans certainly exists, but so does discrimination against white people, men, and the wealthy. Yet white people, men, the wealthy, and humans still hold the balance of power in these relationships.

Anyway, hopefully these posts articulate this theme better than I do.

http://veganideal.org/content/why-vegan-oppression-cannot-exist#comments
http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/veganism-is-not-for-vegans/
http://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/the-cult-of-veganism-or-sit-down-shut-up-little-brown-girl/ (a comment I thought was especially edifying)


***While veganism focuses on animal exploitation for what I hope are obvious reasons, it is also the case that animal industries are some of the worst industries in terms of human exploitation because of the ways they exploit their workers.