III. But Veganism is Racist!
Extinction events wrought by
consumptive greed come
to claim us — and we cry
for change now, no weeping
at corpses of cows or
the sight of Inuit starving, but
only for the Earth killing those that
kill itxNOMADx — “The Punishment” (2023)
Seeing this argument on Twitter was what inspired me to write this article. I will preface by saying that this is, of course, a very sensitive topic. Whenever people argue for meat’s cultural significance, I tend to see practices by American indigenous nations cited as examples. I don’t mean to diminish indigenous cultures, and I will concede that vegans are just as capable as nonvegans of being culturally insensitive or racist.
None of this changes that I think this is a very disingenuous thing to say. As much as I believe that animal exploitation is not okay regardless of one’s heritage—especially as the vast majority of animal species are reaching extinction crises, which will affect global food security and especially marginalized communities—I don’t think this is an effective argument in favor of veganism. After all, there are plenty of examples of indigenous nations hunting out of necessity from living conditions, such as aboriginal whaling across the Arctic circle. By some estimates, 10 million aboriginal people rely on diets that include animal products. Leaving aside from how this is 2% of aboriginal populations, this is still a drop in the water against the 86% of people worldwide who consume meat.
It’s a mischaracterization of veganism to say it’s inherently racist against indigenous nations. Veganism tends to be more focused on industrialized farming practices, not towards upheaving the cultural norms and livelihoods of isolated indigenous communities. I would be astounded if someone brought me an example of a vegan who was singularly focusing their energy on indigenous hunting practices rather than daily meat consumption by billions of people worldwide. One of these is completely both completely unsustainable without industrialized farming and just completely unsustainable in general.
These systems don’t exist in a vacuum; veganism is a logical extension of the fight for land rights, for conservationism, for human rights and for food security. It’s astounding how much veganism’s been blackwashed amongst otherwise progressive circles. This whole debate on white veganism, although stemming from a place of genuine concern about vegan messaging and who speaks for veganism, is just nonconstructive when it’s reduced to identity politics. Maybe “identity politics” is lending this debate line too much credit. I don’t think it’s as progressive as people think when they make the argument that hunting is intrinsic to the identity of all indigenous people, or that the values of indigenous cultures have remained static and morally inflexible.
There is a place for constructive debate on veganism’s relationship to the self-determination of native nations, particularly with the use of farmland for soybean crop cultivation. It’s hard to have these debates under all of this noise, noise that happens to be convenient for the anti-vegan and colonial status quo. As I said before, there is no world where vegans will ever be a majority or even in a position to exact oppression. We are people, and we are not the ones who are exploiting, polluting and exterminating entire ecosystems on indigenous land.