Three ways Black veganism challenges white supremacy (unlike conventional veganism)
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What if Black veganism succeeds where popular, white-centered representations of vegan ethics fail to scrutinize oppressive social norms?
By Sincere Kirabo
There are certain things Black folk refer to as White People Shit. You know, activities predominantly enjoyed by white people. This often includes things like storm chasing, BASE jumping, hot yoga, brunch, Burning Man, and trusting the police.
Many would say veganism also belongs on this list. That’s what I used to think, the assumption being abandoning all animal products and byproducts is an extra, bizarre, and inaccessible pursuit for most of us. I’ve seen so many vegans—white people, of course—that left me with the impression that veganism is merely a diet indulged by those with disposable income. They further turned me off by trying to compare nonhuman animal oppression with chattel slavery, and by trying to shame meat consumption with graphic images of animal suffering.
But what if there’s more to veganism than that?
I’m not vegan, but I was put onto reading Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters by a close friend (also a non-vegan) who claimed the book conceptualizes veganism in a way that de-centers whiteness and critiques the intersection of colonialism, race-thinking, and animality.
This got me thinking: What if Black veganism succeeds where popular, white-centered representations of vegan ethics fail to scrutinize oppressive social norms connected to the plight of human and nonhuman animals?
I always assumed “Black veganism” was just white veganism experienced and perpetrated by Black people, and not a framework to analyze various oppressions. I damn sure never considered it to be anything revolutionary. Seeing that Aphro-ism was written by two Black women (Aph and Syl Ko) that name themselves as being animal rights advocates and anti-racist activists, I gave the book a try. Now I’m rethinking the entire way the defining biases of our society create dehumanizing standards that not only impact me as a Black person, but also extend to animals, inform our food options, and empower the anti-Black food industry.
I want to emphasize that the liberation the Ko sisters envision is less about meat consumption and more about the necessity of re-framing racism to include the relationship between anti-Blackness and anti-animal sentiment as codified into the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. It is this cultural arrangement that informs our overall conceptualization of, and justifications for, meat consumption in white supremacist capitalist patriarchal societies.
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Given this distinct analysis, here are the three key things I’ve learned about Black veganism I think the whole world needs to know:
- Black veganism investigates the root and scope of colonial thought.
Aph and Syl Ko bring to the forefront the work of anti-colonial writers such as Franz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, María Lugones, and Aimé Césaire to argue that the category animal is also a colonial invention imposed on human and nonhuman animals. In their book, the Ko sisters explore how colonial constructs of understanding disadvantages nonhuman animals while also infiltrating human oppressions, particularly racialized oppression. This ties into how we think about race, or race-thinking, which leads to point two:
- Black veganism forces us to consider the ways the idea of race extends beyond human bodies.
The Ko sisters argue that the idea of race encompasses more than discourse limiting discussions of race to skin color, human bodies, and location. They re-frame race-thinking as a tool that targets and distorts not only people, but also regions, all members of the environment, knowledge, language, and human conceptualization of time and space itself.
Intertwined with race-thinking and colonialist tools of understanding is animality, which brings us to the powerful interplay of colonialism and race-thinking in point three:
- Black veganism scrutinizes how “animal characteristics” are negatively attributed to both nonhuman animals and non-whites.
The Ko sisters argue animality is a Eurocentric concept that has contributed to the oppression of any group that deviates from the white supremacist ideal of being—white Homo sapiens.
Consider how people demand their humanity by juxtaposing its imagined superior value with the assumed inferior status of the animal. I’m sure we’ve all said, thought, or witnessed sentiment along the lines of “I am not an animal!” and “Don’t treat me like a dog!”
This language casually relies upon a prescriptive idea that grants humans (the right humans) a superior status to those regarded as non-human—less than. Black veganism asks us examine the socialized thought processes that deem certain entities abuse-able, thought processes that many, including me, simply don’t second-guess.
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Thinking that employs hierarchical ideas of “other” or “subhuman” mirrors how the socially and politically constructed concept of “whiteness” is conceived and understood as opposing other categories in the racial hierarchy. Similar to how whiteness defines itself by demarcating a separation from “others,” the conception of and allusions associated with “humanity” and “human” is so arranged in opposition to “animal.”
This isn’t to say the experiences of Black people and animals are the same, but that white supremacy seeks to organize social systems that satiate the interests of whiteness at the expense of all those who fall outside this form of categorization.
White supremacy renders a higher regard for the intellectual, behavioral, and inherent value of those defined as “white.”
White supremacy is both a systemic and systematic ideology baked into the social DNA of this nation.
Black veganism is determined to reveal how this Eurocentric logic is reproduced to create the distinction of animal through numerous examples of colonialist conceptions being foisted onto different societies. The Ko sisters deconstruct how Black people—as an extension of the racialized nature of both human and animal categories—are animalized within our white supremacist society as a means to exploit, violate, and eliminate us.
Black veganism isn’t merely the act of Black people planting gardens and advocating for animal rights in a white-centric way. Black veganism is a sociopolitical movement that renounces white-centered definitions of the world while rearticulating Black liberation politics to incorporate nonhuman animals through the lens of animality and race.
In other words, Black veganism re-examines social norms imposed on us and calls out politics many of us take for granted.
Both sisters summarize this undertaking of Black veganism in the book Aphro-ism. In Chapter 7, Syl Ko states:
I propose we change the terms of the conversation by refusing to center whiteness in our lives and work…de-centering whiteness essentially means we need to take seriously non-white theoretical constructs and frameworks and use these to change our understanding of the world, others, and ourselves…refusing to center whiteness also encourages us to move away from the human–animal divide.
Later, in chapter 15, Aph Ko remarks:
We’ve inherited our conceptual tools and activist theories from the Eurocentric system. Before we can start ‘dismantling’ this system of oppression, we first need to understand how we’re still chained to it through the theory we employ to understand and discuss oppression. In other words, liberation can’t happen until we change the way we understand oppression.
I’m not saying I agree with every argument and conclusion offered by this book. However, learning more about veganism through a Black lens has certainly challenged my assumptions and the way I view the world.
It’s pushed me to reassess what I think I know about history and the ways white supremacist standards have informed our culture, the language we use, and what’s become legitimized means of diet and food sources.
Angela Davis taught me that “radical simply means grasping at the roots.” If we want to realize liberation from all the oppressions woven into the tapestry of our culture, it makes sense for us to destabilize dominant theoretical models of oppression (and liberation) that may be embedded in white supremacist colonialist origins.
Or, at the very least, listen to what Black vegans have to say about these complex subjects. Who knows, perhaps listening may cause more of us to rethink our perceptions of both the mundane and what “getting free” looks like.
Sincere Kirabo is the social justice coordinator with the American Humanist Association. His work can be found on The Humanist, HuffPost, Everyday Feminism, among other media.
Is this not the same argument that white vegans use by comparing the atrocities done to animals and the atrocities done to african slaves? Down to even the branding, trading, breeding, etc. That argument coming from a white person is often interpreted as racist and insensitive. But isn’t the comparison simply pointing out the systems of oppression that oppresses any human/animal not considered part of the ruling class/white people/the non-other?
No. White vegans sloppily compare oppressions and flatten out what each group experiences with no analysis of systems. It has no analysis of white supremacy. Black veganism focuses on animal as a racial construct. So mainstream vegans look at animal experiences thru a lens of speciesism and black veganism looks at animal experiences thru a construct of race…that animals r racialized themselves. I read the book myself snd it blew my mind. There’s no way u can judge the book now and its argument if you haven’t even read it bc it’s intense lol.
Thank you. I needed someone to spell it out for me and I look forward to reading the book. <3
Absolutely <3 I can relate to your confusion because when I first heard about the book a few months ago, I was like, "isn't black veganism the same thing as when white vegans compare black oppression to animal oppression?" but then when I read the book, it blew my mind. I am like obsessed with it now, lol.
The human vs animal distinction is not one that is endemic to Eurocentric societies. Asian societies made that distinction prior to European contact.
The human/animal distinction isn’t unique to this society, however their book tackles the way white supremacy weaponized that distinction to bolster their own racial superiority. I’m sure other authors could write books about the human/animal divide in other cultural setups. Context is important to the convo…
Melissa, please continue to cultivate your ability to think critically and don’t trade that for the approval of a person you happen to admire. Your initial post demonstrates that you were able to grasp the idea people try to convey when calling attention to the similarities of justifications for slavery based upon race, and justifications for slavery based upon species. The fact that some people may be sloppy does not invalidate the idea. If you happen to be vegan for the animals, then love and respect to you…whatever color your skin is, as if that isn’t an idiotic thing to have to say in 2017…
News flash – not everything is about black and white.
No “race” has a monopoly on good or bad ideas.
Yes if you try hard enough you can speculate that the reason for absolutely everything comes down to race. Though I guess when your whole career and existence revolves around this black/white thing, it is in your interest to perpetuate or even try to exacerbate it.
What a mistake it is for anyone to blame a select margin of people for the actions of a few people that in reality aren’t a part of those peoples day to day lives. When in reality it’s the actions of a very few people who are diverse in their own ways and nationalities. Still from behind the scenes these people are there pulling lots of strings that no one else is allowed to know about right away. So there’s no way we could blame one color of folks for situations in time which they have no real life experience of. Blaming a bigger number of human for the mistakes of a few humans is like blaming a beaver for building a different beaver’s dam. The beaver has never been to that dam or even met those beavers. He would have no idea whose worked on that dam or how to tell you who to blame. Well maybe a beaver could do that, but not a human. Still the beaver wasn’t there for that and has nothing to do with it.
If a different group of people were in those positions of power, positions that exist only because of us, different people, people full of love, compassion, and all inclusiveness which we all know these people exist because deep down in all of our hearts it’s there in us. Just think about how much different the world would be today if it wasn’t conquered by what the ego has to offer; greed, anger, jealousy, resentment.
Interesting, will see if I can find the time to look at the book. FWIW I’m a white vegan, but not really part of the liberal culture described. I grew up in small-town Iowa in the ’60s, i.e. about as deep into meat-eating culture as it’s possible to get. Anyway:
IMO there’s an even broader analysis, one rooted in deep ecology. It boils down to a critique of viewing the environment (biological and physical) as simply something to be exploited for one’s own benefit. But usually explications of deep ecology neglect the human social implications, so it’s nice to see an important aspect of that emphasized in this book.
I would just add since I didn’t see it mentioned explicitly that the climate argument in favor of veganism is overwhelming. It doesn’t require making an argument about exploitation or animal welfare, and so may be more persuasive with some people.
I think I understand w/o reading the book yet. White Veganism still has that air of “superiority” that allows them to be snobbish judgemental critical and ignorant to the CHOICE of others to make the right and INFORMED decisions for themselves. White Supremacy still tries to tell blacks what is proper for us without respect to our experiences. Like in Insecure when the white female co-worker is upset that Issa doesn’t do anything about the black school principal. They speak to us in a parent/child narrative. Furthermore, getting rid of meat entirely won’t solve the deeper issue (just like whites systemically trying to get rid of us/blacks). Meat still has a more nutrient dense output for such a small grain input. Grain feeds chickens which increases protein for human growth development and strength. Just like getting rid of blacks will not cure white America for they will still refuse to look in the mirror and face a still constant problem – Themselves. Thank you I will get this book