I became vegan for environmental reasons. I remember taking an Environmental Engineering class and then calling my parents later that afternoon crying. I felt like the world was inevitably going to end at the hands of humans and I felt such despair.
My best friend and soul mate, Bad Vegan Lady’s first Queen Bee Kelly, was already vegan at the time. I was a Dairy Institute Researcher. Yupp, that’s right. I was a firm proponent of dairy and despite having followed her to some degree into vegetarianism, I loved to explain to her how, “I could never give up cheese.” I was even working towards a Dairy Science minor to support my Food Science major. I promoted dairy and I even worked on numerous research projects to create value-added dairy products. I was never going to give up dairy. And why should I? I enjoyed it. I loved cheese. And I believed dairy lived in a vacuum outside meat.
So, back to my despair.
I felt like the world would soon be completely destroyed and I had to do my part to help it. I remembered some of my debates with Kelly, and suddenly something clicked. It was great to be a vegetarian, but just eating a plant-based diet wasn’t the whole picture. I somewhat reluctantly gave up milk, cheese and dairy. And then I started to think about the why be vegan beyond environmentalism.
With the help of Kelly, I got a hold of some books. If I was going to do this vegan thing, then I better get informed. I read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, and I couldn’t believe the cruelties we subjugate millions of animals to through various channels even beyond the meat industry. I didn’t start out as too concerned with animal rights, but soon things started to change.
Not only was the greater environment suffering, but animals were too. I joined the Boston Vegetarian Society and I heard animal rights activists make their case. I started to see the injustice around me. I was in Boston studying for my MPH, and the disparities in health care within the US and throughout the world I also began to see in new light.
Health as a right became a new doctrine for me. And it made me question, Who gets this right? And to what extent?
Veganism gave me an honest framework to begin questioning the suffering of others, and the passion to no longer contribute to that suffering. When I asked myself those questions, the answers were alarming because they gave me a first glimpse at the systems of oppression that play out daily in our lives. Often, I was part of the privileged group that did not suffer in the same way and explains why it was so difficult for me to first recognize.
I claimed to be vegan in search of a life that causes the least amount of suffering possible, but as I began to realize, I was unconsciously stepping into my privilege daily and unknowingly adding to the suffering of many other beings, especially POC and women.
Realizing this truth is daunting, but a necessary step. We all have different forms of privilege we benefit from, and it is essential we identify and investigate these privileges and how they play into the bigger picture.
I joined an on campus social justice club that sought to link justice and public health through an interdisciplinary approach and continued to try and keep myself informed.
My journey continued when I moved to an African country. I was for the first time, a minority which shifted my perspective. I also was in a country post colonization in which my foreign eyes could register more clearly many of the effects of oppression in people’s daily lives.
I began to see great disparities for women concerning health and daily life. I saw many disparities that as a middle class white woman I didn’t face Stateside. In my privilege, I had been wholly sheltered from those realities. I began to see how there were intersectional determinants that lead to why a woman living in a rural village may or may not access reproductive care. And how that same intersectionality applies in the States as well. For example what her socio-economic status was, whether she was educated or what ethnic group she was a part of. All these factors played together in her access to care.
Once again, in cultivating compassion, I started to resonate with a rights-based approach for a group that is systematically oppressed and barred from equal rights. I joined millions of others and insisted that Women’s Rights are Human Rights.
I have now spent almost the last full year in another African country, and once again I am the minority, yet often benefit from my white privilege in many ways. I work in safe motherhood, and it has inflamed my passion for resisting the oppression women around the world face, but it’s not enough to stop there. In my work and study here, I have been forced to reckon with my privilege again and again. And my eyes have been opened more fully to the experience of POC.
I realized how so many of the movements that have been counterculture continue to fail at welcoming in all people, especially women and POC. Feminism that fails to address the different experiences that women of color live out fails entirely. Veganism that fails to address the suffering of all beings, does not stand up to the values and morals it holds as essential.
I started my journey to veganism somewhere between 4-5 years ago, and it is what has opened me up to the realities of oppression and privilege that are present in our world. It has helped me educate myself and has cultivated a passion for bringing about a more compassionate world. That means recognizing the suffering of all beings and actively putting an end to my contributions in that suffering.
It’s not just about eating a plant-based diet, but that is a step in the right direction. A plant-based diet started my journey even while I was still veiled in darkness. Veganism nurtured eyes for me to see my white privilege and continues to strengthen me in resisting the systems of oppression that cause suffering for all beings.
I am in no way perfect, and have so much more to learn, but at least I’m starting to see clearly now. And we’re after progress, not perfection.