Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Gary Francione, Esq,
Animal
Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
July 2016
I should add that the “animal advocates” who promote the “veganism is elitist” and “it’s not easy for the poor to go vegan so it is not a moral baseline for them” positions are all people who promote or support transparently speciesist positions.
In economically deprived communities in the United States, health
problems hit people harder than they do in other places because, despite
Obama Care, there is still a tremendously inequitable distribution of health
resources. Therefore, it becomes even more important to educate people in
those communities about how animal foods are harming them, and how a
plant-based diet can be healthier and less expensive than a diet involving
animal foods. It is also important to stress how many healthy meals can be
made easily and with a minimum of time and effort.
When I hear people spouting off about how it’s “elitist” to say that
veganism is easy, or that veganism is a matter of “white privilege,” I am
reminded of something a Black activist said many years ago (a paraphrase):
“The standard American diet is the slave master’s revenge. We’ve got to
educate poor people everywhere that the food in poor communities is as
dangerous as the drugs.”
Finally, the idea that people in economically deprived communities cannot
understand or identify with the message of animal rights is nonsense. I
teach in a University in one of the poorest cities in the United States.
Many people in that community understand the moral message more readily than
many in affluent communities.
What is truly elitist is the position that some people, whether “single
mums” (as someone from the UK animal welfare group Viva! said in a debate I
had) or people in depressed urban areas, can’t understand veganism as a
moral baseline.
I should add that the “animal advocates” who promote the “veganism is
elitist” and “it’s not easy for the poor to go vegan so it is not a moral
baseline for them” positions are all people who promote or support
transparently speciesist positions.
If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence.
First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But
it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.
If animals matter morally, veganism is not an option—it is a necessity.
Anything that claims to be an animal rights movement must make clear that
veganism is a moral imperative.
The World is Vegan! If you want it.
Learn more about veganism at
HowDoIGoVegan.com.
Return to Articles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle