As a poor person who has experienced food insecurity, I find many mainstream writings on food politics hard to accept as creditable. At times I find the professional middle class norms and assumptions agonizing to read. While sometimes writers make trivializing and token references to differences of class, race, sex and citizen status, these superficial acknowledgments are patronizing and tend to marginalize and perpetuate the ways the food system affects the lives of the poor and working class, people of color, women and im/migrants. The fact that these commentators ignore the experience of those of us most oppressed by our food system is too infrequently questioned.

A class-conscious look at the writings of best-selling author Michael Pollen can help illustrate the practical harms that class-biased food advocacy can have on poor and hungry people. Pollan's writings on food politics are rooted in his own privileged position as a professional upper-middle class White man. Much of Pollan's class and race bias is hidden under a voice that depicts his own privileged experience as normal and universal. He thus specifically writes for other class-privileged Whites and it is not much of a surprise that many of his affluent White readers don't question what is oftentimes their own experience as well. (Read more...)

The slogan "Food for People, Not for Profit" sums up the philosophy behind a movement for food justice where the production of food is done ethically and its consumption is considered a collective right. In the late 1960s and 1970s, a number of vegetarian, natural, and whole foods cooperatives and collectives where founded on this principle. (Read more...)

I believe real vegan options are those that model the vegan ideal of nonexploitation. In this way vegan options are intertwined with social justice. From its beginnings veganism has sought social justice, including an equitable use of the Earth's resources and materials.

I question the validity of promoting processed convenience foods and other consumer goods as increasing vegan options. I question it in part because I see it as the neoliberalization of the movement, but on a more basic level I see it as an invalid model for the vegan ideal. (Read more...)

A dominant misconception is that veganism simply means changing individual consumer habits and that this will lead to social change. However, this confusion of veganism with consumerism as a strategy for change is a fairly recent development that has its roots in the late 1970s with rise of neoliberal ideology; coming from outside of veganism. (Read more...)

In his article "Beyond Diversity," Paul Kivel writes, "The first step in diversity work is assessment—determining who has access to power and resources, who is safe and who isn't, who participates and who doesn't." As Kivel advises, we should begin by talking about "how we got to this point where diversity is an issue."

I believe the problem with the a many of the projects, campaigns, and policies I write about on this blog is the lack of any prior claim by oppressed people whose exploitation is being criticized. If, for instance, the oppression of people of color or transgrender people is considered from the start with their full participation then there really shouldn't be much need for criticism. (Read more...)

The following is from "A Discussion with Tom Regan" in Ahimsa Oct/Dec 1987; I think it illustrates the class bias inherent in well-resourced nonhuman animal advocacy:

Tom Regan: People think of activists as antagonists in confrontation, and so on. I think of activists in terms of people with a dollar bill in the wallet; that's the way I think of the real activists.

An activist is anyone who goes into the marketplace with a dollar in hand, who says "I'm going to buy this rather than that because it has something to do with the way that animals are treated."

This would mean that the more disposable income a person has the more potential that person has of being a "real activist." (Read more...)

I know a lot of people get excited about conferences, seminars, and festivals organized around vegetarianism and/or nonhuman animal advocacy. I wish I could get as excited about these events, but I tend to be put off by the ever present class privilege that is built into the vast majority of them. (Read more...)

I've noticed that whenever people talk about "humane treatment" they're usually referring to either nonhuman animals or humans who are imprisoned or otherwise institutionally confined and controlled. I guess this makes sense since keeping people in cages and under complete control resembles how nonhuman animals are general treated in our society. Similarly, the term "cruelty" is usually applied to the treatment of nonhuman animals, human children, and human prisoners. In fact, "humane treatment" and "cruelty" are really paired terms, with the former suggested as the remedy to the latter. (Read more...)

Under capitalist class relations, animals can be worked, sold, killed, and consumed, all for profit. --Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought

Expanding on what I wrote previously, Orientalism and nationalism are not the only oppressive ideologies that rely on protectionism. Capitalism is another oppressive system that is shored up by the appeals of protectionism. (Read more...)

On the Vegans of Color blog, Johanna posted about "Engaging" POCs in AR Work? in response to the program for an upcoming animal rights conference that includes sessions on "Engaging Ethnic Minorities (African-Americans, Latin Americans, Asian-Americans)"; "Commonality of Oppression (commonalities of oppressing animals, children, women, others)"; and "Engaging Other Movements (health, environment, hunger, women, justice, peace movements)."

The titles for these sessions illustrate what Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo calls "an assumption of universal whiteness." (Read more...)