White anti-veganism

We’ve all heard of “white veganism”; white people loudly and arrogantly talking over people of color, telling indigenous people who depend on hunting for sustenance “just go to the grocery store and buy some quinoa and oat milk lmao”.

You know what we don’t hear a lot about? White anti-veganism. The kind of white person who cries “white vegan! white vegan!” any time a vegan (who may or may not even be white) exists in their general direction. The kind of white person who goes “but what about indigenous hunters?” while eating a plate of Tyson chicken nuggies, and posts “why do you want to put small indie farmers out of business?” while sitting in the Burger King drive-thru.

(Weird how everyone seems to be adamantly opposed to factory farming and never consumes any products thereof. How do they even stay in business?)

Like, I’m both white and a vegan. I try to avoid being a condescending White Vegan TM. I read and listen to BIPOC vegan bloggers and activists, while white anti-vegans don’t even seem to know that said people even exist.

And how many times have I heard “Hitler was a vegetarian” (nevermind that vegetarians aren’t vegans), while no one ever points out the obscene number of serial killers, terrorists, murderers, and fascists who eat meat? Mao Zedong ate meat. Stalin ate meat. There are weirdo vegan white supremacists (which vegan communities, especially white vegans, need to be proactive about pointing out, shunning, and removing from our communities, and a lot of us do not do that), but there are also fascist anti-vegans who insist that soy makes you grow boobs and real men eat steak. But somehow this is never taken as “proof” that anti-veganism is racist.

Sure, back during the 2016–2020 time period people kept talking about how Donald Trump ate McDonald’s all the time, but that wasn’t about him eating meat, it was about him eating low-class food.

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, here are some BIPOC vegans you should check out.

Margaret Robinson, a Mi’kmaq woman who is an anthropological scholar researching mental health, poverty, two-spirit, and LGBTQ+ identities in Canadian First Nations peoples.
Angela Davis, a feminist and leftist political activist.
Aditya Prakash, aka Soytheist, an Indian vegan activist of the Assamese people. His Youtube channel hasn’t updated for a couple of years, but he is an excellent speaker and debunker of garbage arguments.
A. Breeze Harper, a Black woman writer who does work in feminist, critical race theory, and ethics.
Solaire Denaud, a French and Hatian Ph.D. student studying plant-based diets in the African diaspora. She publishes a podcast profiling French- and Creole-speaking vegans.
Shonalika, a non-binary leftist musician and Youtuber. Okay so I could only find one video of theirs discussing veganism, but I wanted to link to them anyway because they deserve it.

The late Coretta Scott King was also vegan for the last ten years of her life, as was her son Dexter.

This is hardly scratching the surface.

Some organizations that might of of interest:

Middle East Vegan Society
Black Church Food Security Network, an organization helping Black churches grow vegetable gardens
Food Empowerment Project

And if you’re looking for some recipe bloggers:

I could go on and on, but there is only so much time in the day and I only have so much energy in my body.

It’s not like I can claim to be the Perfect White Ally. Still, I figured that instead of getting defensive in the face of white anti-veganism, I might as well do my part to lift up BIPOC voices. On the off chance that anyone is reading this blog. (That’s not a cry for pity or anything — I’m actually more comfortable if it turns out I’m the only one who ever comes here.)