Have you ever felt the need to portray something that is obviously good as being objectionable. If so, I have a piece of advice for you. Just throw the word white in front of whatever you’re criticizing. Then make dumb claims while equivocating on which subset of the movement that you describe you’re criticizing.
This is broadly the strategy taken by this abysmal article. Nearly every statement made in this article contains total nonsense. It’s astounding. I’ve always found the tendency to take the moral high ground when carrying water for arguably the world’s most horrific industry to be a particularly sickening form of cognitive dissonance, one that irritates me greatly. So I thought it would be worthwhile to respond to the vast amount of nonsense in this terrible article.
The article starts saying “White veganism is dangerous.
It disregards the fact that the meat and dairy industries are inherently colonial legacies. It comes charging in on its moral high horse, enforcing its beliefs that veganism is the only way forward, overlooking the truth: that the white popularisation of plant-based consumption is only shifting unethical food production from meat to plants.”
The term white veganism is not defined in this article. It is used interchangeably to both describe a certain subset of vegans with problematic views and also all vegans who happen to be white. The reason that white vegans were singled out is because vegans are disproportionately racially diverse and democratic. This person has a reluctance to criticize veganism given this fact, so they decide to signal out white veganism.
If by white veganism they mean vegans who hold bad beliefs then of course that’s bad. It would, however, be curious to call that white veganism, given that there are no doubt non white vegans who can hold problematic views. It would also be uninformative, like saying harmful veganism is dangerous. This is obviously a Motte and Bailey.
The second sentence is particularly bizarre. If the meat and diary industries are colonial legacies wouldn’t that be a reason we shouldn’t prop up the industries. This would be like objecting to opposition to the Nazi holocaust by claiming the those who opposed the Nazi holocaust disregards that the gas chambers are inherently Nazi legacies. Unless this person is pro colonialism, it seems like being meat and dairy being colonialist would count in favor of not benefitting them financially.
The claim that it comes charging in on its moral high horse is amusing because vegans tend to oppose riding horses. Yet putting that aside, it’s not clear how it does that. Is any advocacy of people avoiding doing bad things riding in on a moral high horse? Is anti colonial advocacy charging in on a high horse? It’s not clear. This charge is just a term of abuse leveled at people advocating that others try to make the world better—or at least stop making the world actively worse.
They then assert that white popularization of veganism is shifting production to more unethical plant products. This is a strange assertion given that meat products use more plants to produce given that the animals have to be fed. One might expect this claim to be explained and defended in detail. However, the author seems oblivious to the notion that when one hurls vehement criticisms of broad movements, it might be worth actually substantiating the criticisms beyond mere assertion. It’s as if providing robust justification is an alien concept.
The article continues writing “White veganism fights the meat industry — a colonial legacy, and I will explain why — with the industrialisation of plants instead. As Erin White writes for Afropunk, “[W]hat’s so frustrating about too many animal-free platforms is the bizarre prioritization of animal welfare over that of the humans who produce the food.””
Plants are more industrialized by the meat consumption that’s so common, because animals eat plants. Given that we have to eat, it’s not clear why industrialized plant agriculture is bad. It obviously is far from perfect. However, it’s not clear why it’s bad overall and certainly unclear why it’s so bad to make veganism overall not worthwhile.
The claim that animal welfare is prioritized over the welfare of humans who produce the food is once again nonsense. As this article points out work in factory farms causes severe PTSD, hazardous working conditions, low pay, immense trauma, hearing loss, extreme temperatures—all of which make it one of the most hazardous occupations.
As I’ve pointed out previously, factory farms cause lots of pollution, environmental destruction, habitat loss, global warming, diminished health, and horrific diseases killing millions of people. Perhaps Yazbeck should spare a thought for the millions dying of disease and environmental destruction, rather than erroneously claiming that vegans ignore human interests.
Yet even if this charge were true, it’s not clear that it’s unjustified. Vegans don’t tend to try to hierarchically rank the harms of animal agriculture. But if they did, it’s likely that the harms to animals would win out. The torture and sexual abuse of billions of sentient beings, ground up in blenders, afflicted with disease, and forced to live in feces is an immense harm. Even if animals only matter .1% as much as humans, factory farming would still be morally equivalent to torturing and killing about 60 million humans per year.
The article continues, writing “Only, it is more than bizarre. It is outright racist. In fact, at this point, being a white vegan is practically intrinsically racist. White vegans blatantly care very little about the working conditions of farmers from the global south, or immigrant farmers working in the global north (a problematic term in and of itself).”
Building on the erroneous claim that vegans ignore the interests of humans the author claims white veganism is racist, so much so that being a white vegan is practically intrinsically racist. This claim is not justified in the slightest. It never advances beyond a bogus assertion. The claim that it’s practically intrinsically racist is an amusing instance of doublespeak—evocative of possible necessity claims in the modal ontological argument. The words practically and intrinsically are in conflict with each other.
The claim that white vegans don’t care about working conditions of farmers is false. We are not the ones who pay to prop up industries that inflict severe trauma on their workers. Vegans still eat food. Thus, for this person’s argument to hold water, factory farms would have to treat workers better than plant agriculture. Suffice it to say, they don’t. The author doesn’t even try to argue that they do, preferring to engage in a strange almost Freudian psychoanalysis of white vegans. By way of the dialectic, I shall respond in turn. This author clearly is in favor of bad things and opposed to good things. Ignore everything that is said from now on by them because of their bad motives.
Next the author claims “While some white vegans put in the effort to purchase only locally produced goods from independent farmers, there is no general conversation regarding race and the colonial nature of plant-based mass production surrounding white eco-warriors’ campaigns en masse.”
Several points are worth making. First, it’s not clear that buying non locally is harmful. As this article argues, while the conditions for people in other countries are often very bad, buying products from other countries props up industries and improves their quality of life. This article makes a similar case. Regardless of which is correct, it is not as clear cut as the article portrays. Trading with other countries is good and lifts people out of poverty. It’s only if we adopt a strange Copenhagen interpretation of ethics, that we ignore the possibility of improving the quality of life of people in other countries, out of a desire to avoid sullying our hands.
The author gives literally no argument for buying locally. This is a shame given that they’re arguing white vegans are evil and racist because they don’t talk enough about buying locally. If one wants to improve the environment, buying locally isn’t the way to do it. Also, many vegans do advocate buying locally. The claim that this is ignored within veganism is not true, not justified, and not objectionable even if true.
The author next says “Indigenous farms and farmers the world over are now being exploited for foods they once produced and consumed moderately, as per their sacred agreements with their lands. Plants like chickpeas, quinoa, avocado, cashews, and coconut are suddenly being mass produced to meet the demands of corporate supermarkets supplying foods such as hummus, cashew butter, and coconut milk to modern-day northern hemisphere consumerists. This has a devastating effect on the price of said plants, the welfare of the farmers and inhabitants of the land, and the land itself.”
Cheap food is good. This is true even if it decreases profits of those who formerly had a near monopoly on the types of food. Selling cheap chickpeas is a good thing, not a bad thing, especially given the powerful effect on poverty reduction that trade has. There is a reason economists are in near universal agreement about the desirability of trade. Some people are made worse off, but overall it has a very positive effect.
Additionally, more crops are needed to feed to animals which are then fed to humans. Meat has a more deleterious effect on displacing and harming native communities.
Everyone agrees that logical positivism is false. However, my credence in logical positivism increases slightly reading this article, bereft of substantive objections, in favor of vague emoting and bizarre identity politics.
The author continues writing “Another crucial matter that is overlooked surrounding the war on animal consumption is that, as mentioned, the phenomenon of industrialising meat — and food in general — is a deeply colonial story. In fact, industrial farming as we know it today did not begin to emerge until the 1960s in — where else? — the US. That is also when farms began to “increase in size and decrease in number.” (Shawn MacKenzie, A Brief History of Agriculture and Food Production: The Rise of “Industrial Agriculture”, 2007) Settler-colonialism and the colonizer’s establishment of corporate capitalism was — and is — the precursor of unethical farming methods.”
Okay, so it’s colonial. And colonialism is bad. Doesn’t that mean it’s not good to support the meat industry. This is a nice FYI, but not an argument against veganism. Spouting objectionable history of industries against those who are fighting to abolish those industries is no objection.
The author then talks about overpopulation, writing “Fast food corporations frequently give the argument of ‘overpopulation’, and ‘the need to feed masses quickly and cheaply’ (hugely problematic take on human life but a story for another day). Overpopulation is but a symptom of an underlying problem. Overpopulation was and is not a natural phenomenon, despite what history books and mainstream media would have us believe. Mass migration, urbanisation, and the supposed need for ‘fast food’ came as an immediate result of capitalism, and the colonisation of places such as South Asia and the American and African continents. It is worth examining the root of the problem; rather than solely treating the symptoms (if at all).”
Cool story, but what’s the implication for veganism? It’s not clear. Beyond vague allusions to the problem having roots that should be addressed, it’s not clear what the implication of this is.
They continue, writing “One imposed ‘solution’ to this eco-crisis is hunting bans. The problem here is that this often includes banning hunting for indigenous peoples on indigenous land. Hunting bans are necessary in certain places and in certain practices. But to ban indigenous people from practicing their way of life — especially when their way of life is centered around a sacred agreement to take no more than they need or than the land can give, and to always give back to the land themselves — is equally colonial. For a colonizer to occupy a land, murder its people, replace them with more colonizers, impose colonial laws, and create an irreversible eco-crisis, then to turn around and point a finger at indigenous ways of hunting, gathering, eating, and living, is no more than a 21st century manifestation of white people’s colonial mindsets.”
I don’t have very strong views about hunting. Most vegans are much more opposed to the systematic brutal torture and murder of trillions of sentient beings than we are to the killing through hunting, which is far more rare. More chickens die in a minute than hunted beings do in a year. So I don’t plan to defend hunting bans. Hunting is a distraction from the real problem. It would be like caring about anti semitic dog whistles in nazi germany.
The author continues writing “As an Arab, eating meat is part of my traditional way of life. I remember, growing up, going to the local butcher with my mother, and asking him for his kill of the day. The butcher worked with local shepherds whose goats roamed the hills, day in day out, and who occasionally slaughtered a few for sale. Our connection with animals was very close: We did not buy packets of frozen meat from the supermarket. We bought pieces of a carcass from the butcher; pieces we chose ourselves. We saw the animal. We knew what had been sacrificed for our meal. Things have since changed, and my people turn to the consumption of imported beef (not native to our land) sold to supermarkets by multinational food corporations. Local farmers are out of work. The cycle repeats — and worsens.”
A friend of mine is fond of responding to such arguments with “As one of European ancestry, colonialism is part of my traditional way of life.” Being cultural does not justify brutal torture and murder. When the United States culture allowed slavery that was bad. Similarly, when it condemns homosexuality that is bad. Likewise, even if cultural, paying for brutal torture is immoral. It oughtn’t be done.
Being a utilitarian, my main objection is to the suffering of an animal. If animals really lived perfect lives and were killed painlessly, I wouldn’t care very much. What matters, however, is the systematic torture and murder of billions of animals. That is what must end.
Given that 99% of meat comes from factory farms, surely this person would be 99% on board with veganism. Surely they’d be against buying from factory farms. Wouldn’t they?
The author continues “And so my message to white vegans is this:
If you do not care as much about the welfare of non-white peoples around the world as you do about ‘the environment’ (one would assume the environment includes humans, but I guess it only includes white humans), your veganism is performative.”
Yeah shame on you vegans who don’t care about non-white people. Similarly, shame on feminists who are racist and BLM advocates who are sexist. If we’re just calling out bad things that potentially occur in particular groups, I can do that too!
“If you continue to consume mass-produced vegan products sourced in the global south, your veganism is not only performative, but evil.”
Not clear what the argument is for this. I wonder if this person thinks that mass produced animal products that pollute poor black communities makes ones consumption evil.
“If you continue to impose your personal choice, however well-intentioned and admirable it may be, on indigenous people and people of colour, your veganism is cultural colonialism.”
Force? How is this happening. Are vegans putting guns to people’s heads and demanding they go vegan or they’ll shoot them. No! They’re just arguing that people should stop paying for brutal torture. They are right to do so. But okay, I’ll condemn them. If any vegans are literally forcing people to not eat meat by holding them in their basement and only feeding them bananas—stop!
“And most importantly, if you continue to push for ecological reform, but completely ignore the fact that there can be no reform without decolonisation, that realistically the only way forward is to return indigenous lands to indigenous peoples, that your fight would be better suited if it were directed at supporting indigenous calls for indigenous rights, and that any level of ecological healing fundamentally requires dismantling the system on which your soy milk pocket money is built, your veganism is a lie.
I invite you to examine the root of the problem, rather than solely treating the symptoms… if at all.”
No reform without decolonization? This is obviously question begging. Why would we accept that? Surely a carbon tax would reduce pollution, even in the absence of decolonization. Same with more people going vegan.
To modify a Scott Alexander quote “Imagine a boot eternally stomping on the human face and the face of animals labeled ‘At least I’m not the root cause of your problems.’”
Thank you for this read.
You make a compelling argument, highlighting the often-overlooked impact of "white veganism" on non-white communities and the global south. You stress the importance of addressing colonial legacies in food production and advocating for ecological reform that includes decolonization. It prompts critical reflection on the broader implications of veganism beyond personal choices. Good job!