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Veganism of Color: Decentering Whiteness in Human and Nonhuman Liberation
Forget everything you’ve heard from mainstream white veganism; this isn’t a book about single-issue advocacy through the most privileged of lenses.
"Veganism of Color" is a compilation of writings from seldom-heard voices of color drowned out by the same white noise that systematically oppresses us all– vegan or not. This community-led effort is a call from Vegans of Color to People of Color to decenter whiteness and work towards dismantling a form of oppression that, although very different, interconnects with our own.
Embracing a social justice spectrum that is aware of, and working against, all forms of supremacy is a must if we are going to achieve true liberation from systems of oppression for ourselves and other marginalized communities.
"Veganism of Color" is a compilation of writings from seldom-heard voices of color drowned out by the same white noise that systematically oppresses us all– vegan or not. This community-led effort is a call from Vegans of Color to People of Color to decenter whiteness and work towards dismantling a form of oppression that, although very different, interconnects with our own.
Embracing a social justice spectrum that is aware of, and working against, all forms of supremacy is a must if we are going to achieve true liberation from systems of oppression for ourselves and other marginalized communities.
214 pages, Paperback
Published February 27, 2019
18 people are currently reading
367 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 28, 2019
This was very, very good. I read "Veganism in an Oppressive World" not too long ago and thought it was mixed-- some very good pieces that really made me rethink some things, and then some stuff that just didn't do it for me at all. "Veganism of Color" is much more consistent.
Some stand outs:
Shahada Chowdhury's "Ethical Consumption under Capitalism?" (with powerful bits on settler colonialism, Andrew Jackson, Christopher Columbus).
Julia Feliz Brueck's "The Movement of Time, Culture, and Perceptions: Growing up in Boriken" (great stuff about Puerto Rico).
Towani Duchscher's "The Shift from Hierarchy to Interconnection: My Path to Veganism" (with this powerful line about the murder of Eric Garner: "The general society accepted that a man could be killed on the street, in broad daylight, and his death could be recorded and played for entertainment on the news.").
Rama Ganesan's "Rejecting Speciesism and Casteism: A Hindu Perspective" (which, among other things, challenges a certain liberal romantic caricature of Indian veg culture that I am guilty of).
Nekeisha A. Alexis's "Re/Considering Animals: A Black Woman's Journey" (an extremely well-done Christian approach to veganism).
Kez St. Louis's "Unlearning Life-Long Lessons" (which focuses on veganism as a "mentality" first and foremost, and has this line: "veganism isn't a destination; it's a direction").
The whole thing is solid. I will be recommending this to other vegans, and look forward to meeting Julia Feliz Brueck at Syracuse Vegfest next month.
Some stand outs:
Shahada Chowdhury's "Ethical Consumption under Capitalism?" (with powerful bits on settler colonialism, Andrew Jackson, Christopher Columbus).
Julia Feliz Brueck's "The Movement of Time, Culture, and Perceptions: Growing up in Boriken" (great stuff about Puerto Rico).
Towani Duchscher's "The Shift from Hierarchy to Interconnection: My Path to Veganism" (with this powerful line about the murder of Eric Garner: "The general society accepted that a man could be killed on the street, in broad daylight, and his death could be recorded and played for entertainment on the news.").
Rama Ganesan's "Rejecting Speciesism and Casteism: A Hindu Perspective" (which, among other things, challenges a certain liberal romantic caricature of Indian veg culture that I am guilty of).
Nekeisha A. Alexis's "Re/Considering Animals: A Black Woman's Journey" (an extremely well-done Christian approach to veganism).
Kez St. Louis's "Unlearning Life-Long Lessons" (which focuses on veganism as a "mentality" first and foremost, and has this line: "veganism isn't a destination; it's a direction").
The whole thing is solid. I will be recommending this to other vegans, and look forward to meeting Julia Feliz Brueck at Syracuse Vegfest next month.
July 5, 2025
AN EXCELLENT AND UNIQUE COLLECTION OF ESSAYS
The introductory ‘Note to White Vegans’ that begins this 2019 book states, “While you are welcome to read and learn from 'Vegans of Color,' this book is specifically a conversation between Vegans of Color and People of Color. Unless you have started doing the work to acknowledge and address your role in the systemic oppression of People of Color and other marginalized groups, this book will most likely not make sense to you in your current world view. In addition, you will do more damage than good when attempting to raise the voices of nonhuman animals within communities about which you know little or nothing… Thus, you must stay in your lane, focus on your past communities, and begin doing the work to understand the world beyond your sole experiences. Doing the work includes self-reflection about the history of nonhuman oppression as it relates to racism and white settlers’ role in perpetuating both human and nonhuman animal abuses, as well as… acknowledging how you may add to the unfortunate fact that mainstream veganism is oppressive in itself.”
Editor Julia Feliz Brueck adds in the Preface, “In essence, the words printed on the following pages will raise the voices of Vegans of Color to bring our own communities an understanding of what we propose: the need to decenter whiteness from a movement rooted in rejecting our own hand in supremacy over all living beings because nonhuman liberation is tied to our own and because ethics are not owned by whiteness or by those from the most privileged castes. For far too long, the conversations on animal rights and human supremacy have focused on a single, privileged point of view. Therefore, with each chapter of this book, we attempt to take back something that also belongs to us, beyond what the most privileged have led to our communities to believe.” (Pg. 5)
Dr. Linda Alvarez states in the Introduction, “One aspect of the mainstream vegan movement that has received much pushback, as more and more People of Color (PoC) have become vegan, is the notion that veganism is a ‘white thing’ or that ‘only white people are vegan'… Because mainstream factions of this movement, which also happen to be the most heavily-funded parts of the movement, have been so greatly influenced by white vegan perspectives and have not been inclusive of narratives of color, whiteness, along with elite and privileged ideas, has been centered in the movement. Thus, it has been the case that when PoC attempt to engage the vegan movement, they are met with a myriad of problematic issues.” (Pg. 8) She adds, “White dominance in the vegan movement is a real thing, but to say that veganism is only for white people is erroneous. When we, as People of Color, advance this narrative, we serve to invisiblize the work that non-white people have done for veganism and disappear the communities of color that have been practicing veganism before it was coined as a term.” (Pg. 11)
She continues, “we have to ask ourselves: if veganism is the notion that animals should be liberated and not exploited, oppressed, violently abused, and indiscriminately killed by humans, are only white people capable of embracing this philosophy?... If veganism is the notion that we, as humans, can choose plant-based diets … as a way of contesting the so-called need for violence toward animals, then are we saying that only white people are capable of understanding this connection?... Obviously, the answer to all these questions is no; but we have to ask those questions in order to remind ourselves that veganism does not belong to white people.” (Pg. 13-14)
Several authors note that “The chapter ‘Making Connections In the Name of Food’ in the book ‘Food Justice: A Primer’… outlined the ways in which animal agriculture is tied to horrific cruelty against People of Color, which make up the majority of the workers, as well as the interconnections between racism, food justice, and nonhuman animal exploitation. From unsafe working conditions, to the exploitation of undocumented migrants and refugees, to psychological distress from repetitive violence witnessed … by workers on nonhuman animals in slaughterhouses, to environmental racism in which our own communities experience the worst effects from animal-agriculture-caused pollutants, there are myriad examples of the ways in which veganism takes an active stance against cruelty to our own communities.” (Pg. 24)
Later, they add, “While People of Color absolutely have our own struggles and fight towards our own liberation, we cannot ignore the fact that, even if you don’t personally like or care about nonhuman animals, their exploitation does negatively impact human beings---especially People of Color. Ranching and … more land-intensive forms of animal agriculture often encroach upon indigenous territory. Farms with livestock are more likely to exist near Communities of Color, meaning that fecal matter and other waste products pollute nearby land and water… Study after study has shown that People of Color are significantly more at risk than white people as the impacts of climate change intensify.” (Pg. 32-33)
They point out, “It is also important to recognize that while there are only so many hours in a day and we are exhausted from our own battles, it is possible to be active in advocating for more than one population at once. This is something Vegans of Color attempt to do as we work to dismantle all forms of oppression consistently, including our own. Choosing to embrace a consistently anti-oppressive stance across the board helps us all to break down hierarchies one by one, collectively. This makes it easier to break down multiple forms of supremacy by exposing the flaws and interconnected roots of oppression inherent in ALL hierarchies. Choosing to include veganism in our social justice work takes nothing away from the work also being done for specific groups of humans---and vice versa.” (Pg. 41)
Doreen Akiyo Yomoah observes, “We would be remiss to ignore the fact that the same class of people who created (and benefit from) white supremacy and capitalism as we know it (and believe it to be inherently just and true, rather than constructed by them) are the same class of people who created (and benefit from) the speciesism that many of us have come to accept as an inherent truth.” (Pg. 48)
Rama Ganesan states, “The West has the impression that India is populated by peaceful and animal-loving vegetarians. It is tempting to only share aspects of our culture that reflect well on us. However, India is casteist, and Indians being a vegetarian often has nothing to do with loving or respecting nonhuman animals; it is about establishing our own ‘purity’ in contrast to others who are considered ‘polluted.’ It is our own Brahmanic authority over Hindu history and cultural representation to the West that has skewed what India and Hinduism really is. This has left everyone in the U.S. and beyond thinking that Hinduism is the religion of ‘Ahimsa,’ and that ‘Ahimsa’ is equivalent to veganism. I am able to acknowledge that this is a false representation, as we Brahmins have only exported a one-sided view of Hinduism to the West---one that erases the voices of the lower castes.” (Pg. 101-102)
Nekeisha A. Alexis explains, “Just as my faith promoted me to become vegan, becoming vegan has also had profound and ongoing effects on my faith. One noteworthy change has been that I read the Bible differently Indeed, the more I continued reading Scripture with sensitivity to other animals, the more I noticed how numerous the references are, and the surprising, sometimes contradictory, and unusual ways they appear. For example, the text describes other animals as moral agents (Jonah 3, Numbers 22:21-38)… They are recipients of God’s grace, provision and care (Psalm 104, 147; Job 38), and harmonious relationships with them are part of God’s vision.” (Pg. 116)
Kameka Brown says, “As a queer Black woman, I know something about the struggles of navigating a world characterized by a set of assumptions about my worth, my value, and the entitlement of others to my labor and my body. To exist in a space that seeks to reject the notion that the lives and bodies of others are ours to use as we wish was the actualization of a hope that I had yet to encounter elsewhere to the same degree… My commitment to sanctuary is an act of solidarity---a commitment to co-liberation… Within sanctuary, I learned what it means to grieve the loss of those whose lives are not considered to be of value and whose deaths aren’t considered grievable…” (Pg. 146)
This unique book will be “must reading” for Vegans of Color---but also for Vegans and Vegetarians wanting to gain a ‘wider’ perspective on the movement.
The introductory ‘Note to White Vegans’ that begins this 2019 book states, “While you are welcome to read and learn from 'Vegans of Color,' this book is specifically a conversation between Vegans of Color and People of Color. Unless you have started doing the work to acknowledge and address your role in the systemic oppression of People of Color and other marginalized groups, this book will most likely not make sense to you in your current world view. In addition, you will do more damage than good when attempting to raise the voices of nonhuman animals within communities about which you know little or nothing… Thus, you must stay in your lane, focus on your past communities, and begin doing the work to understand the world beyond your sole experiences. Doing the work includes self-reflection about the history of nonhuman oppression as it relates to racism and white settlers’ role in perpetuating both human and nonhuman animal abuses, as well as… acknowledging how you may add to the unfortunate fact that mainstream veganism is oppressive in itself.”
Editor Julia Feliz Brueck adds in the Preface, “In essence, the words printed on the following pages will raise the voices of Vegans of Color to bring our own communities an understanding of what we propose: the need to decenter whiteness from a movement rooted in rejecting our own hand in supremacy over all living beings because nonhuman liberation is tied to our own and because ethics are not owned by whiteness or by those from the most privileged castes. For far too long, the conversations on animal rights and human supremacy have focused on a single, privileged point of view. Therefore, with each chapter of this book, we attempt to take back something that also belongs to us, beyond what the most privileged have led to our communities to believe.” (Pg. 5)
Dr. Linda Alvarez states in the Introduction, “One aspect of the mainstream vegan movement that has received much pushback, as more and more People of Color (PoC) have become vegan, is the notion that veganism is a ‘white thing’ or that ‘only white people are vegan'… Because mainstream factions of this movement, which also happen to be the most heavily-funded parts of the movement, have been so greatly influenced by white vegan perspectives and have not been inclusive of narratives of color, whiteness, along with elite and privileged ideas, has been centered in the movement. Thus, it has been the case that when PoC attempt to engage the vegan movement, they are met with a myriad of problematic issues.” (Pg. 8) She adds, “White dominance in the vegan movement is a real thing, but to say that veganism is only for white people is erroneous. When we, as People of Color, advance this narrative, we serve to invisiblize the work that non-white people have done for veganism and disappear the communities of color that have been practicing veganism before it was coined as a term.” (Pg. 11)
She continues, “we have to ask ourselves: if veganism is the notion that animals should be liberated and not exploited, oppressed, violently abused, and indiscriminately killed by humans, are only white people capable of embracing this philosophy?... If veganism is the notion that we, as humans, can choose plant-based diets … as a way of contesting the so-called need for violence toward animals, then are we saying that only white people are capable of understanding this connection?... Obviously, the answer to all these questions is no; but we have to ask those questions in order to remind ourselves that veganism does not belong to white people.” (Pg. 13-14)
Several authors note that “The chapter ‘Making Connections In the Name of Food’ in the book ‘Food Justice: A Primer’… outlined the ways in which animal agriculture is tied to horrific cruelty against People of Color, which make up the majority of the workers, as well as the interconnections between racism, food justice, and nonhuman animal exploitation. From unsafe working conditions, to the exploitation of undocumented migrants and refugees, to psychological distress from repetitive violence witnessed … by workers on nonhuman animals in slaughterhouses, to environmental racism in which our own communities experience the worst effects from animal-agriculture-caused pollutants, there are myriad examples of the ways in which veganism takes an active stance against cruelty to our own communities.” (Pg. 24)
Later, they add, “While People of Color absolutely have our own struggles and fight towards our own liberation, we cannot ignore the fact that, even if you don’t personally like or care about nonhuman animals, their exploitation does negatively impact human beings---especially People of Color. Ranching and … more land-intensive forms of animal agriculture often encroach upon indigenous territory. Farms with livestock are more likely to exist near Communities of Color, meaning that fecal matter and other waste products pollute nearby land and water… Study after study has shown that People of Color are significantly more at risk than white people as the impacts of climate change intensify.” (Pg. 32-33)
They point out, “It is also important to recognize that while there are only so many hours in a day and we are exhausted from our own battles, it is possible to be active in advocating for more than one population at once. This is something Vegans of Color attempt to do as we work to dismantle all forms of oppression consistently, including our own. Choosing to embrace a consistently anti-oppressive stance across the board helps us all to break down hierarchies one by one, collectively. This makes it easier to break down multiple forms of supremacy by exposing the flaws and interconnected roots of oppression inherent in ALL hierarchies. Choosing to include veganism in our social justice work takes nothing away from the work also being done for specific groups of humans---and vice versa.” (Pg. 41)
Doreen Akiyo Yomoah observes, “We would be remiss to ignore the fact that the same class of people who created (and benefit from) white supremacy and capitalism as we know it (and believe it to be inherently just and true, rather than constructed by them) are the same class of people who created (and benefit from) the speciesism that many of us have come to accept as an inherent truth.” (Pg. 48)
Rama Ganesan states, “The West has the impression that India is populated by peaceful and animal-loving vegetarians. It is tempting to only share aspects of our culture that reflect well on us. However, India is casteist, and Indians being a vegetarian often has nothing to do with loving or respecting nonhuman animals; it is about establishing our own ‘purity’ in contrast to others who are considered ‘polluted.’ It is our own Brahmanic authority over Hindu history and cultural representation to the West that has skewed what India and Hinduism really is. This has left everyone in the U.S. and beyond thinking that Hinduism is the religion of ‘Ahimsa,’ and that ‘Ahimsa’ is equivalent to veganism. I am able to acknowledge that this is a false representation, as we Brahmins have only exported a one-sided view of Hinduism to the West---one that erases the voices of the lower castes.” (Pg. 101-102)
Nekeisha A. Alexis explains, “Just as my faith promoted me to become vegan, becoming vegan has also had profound and ongoing effects on my faith. One noteworthy change has been that I read the Bible differently Indeed, the more I continued reading Scripture with sensitivity to other animals, the more I noticed how numerous the references are, and the surprising, sometimes contradictory, and unusual ways they appear. For example, the text describes other animals as moral agents (Jonah 3, Numbers 22:21-38)… They are recipients of God’s grace, provision and care (Psalm 104, 147; Job 38), and harmonious relationships with them are part of God’s vision.” (Pg. 116)
Kameka Brown says, “As a queer Black woman, I know something about the struggles of navigating a world characterized by a set of assumptions about my worth, my value, and the entitlement of others to my labor and my body. To exist in a space that seeks to reject the notion that the lives and bodies of others are ours to use as we wish was the actualization of a hope that I had yet to encounter elsewhere to the same degree… My commitment to sanctuary is an act of solidarity---a commitment to co-liberation… Within sanctuary, I learned what it means to grieve the loss of those whose lives are not considered to be of value and whose deaths aren’t considered grievable…” (Pg. 146)
This unique book will be “must reading” for Vegans of Color---but also for Vegans and Vegetarians wanting to gain a ‘wider’ perspective on the movement.
July 3, 2023
I’m not the target audience for this book, but as someone who’s been anti-oppression for all ever since I read Aph and Syl Kho’s books, I figured it would be alright if I picked this up, and I’m glad I did!
There’s a variety of topics in here that definitely seem useful for PoC who are interested in becoming vegan. It doesn’t go too in depth, so it’s more of a pocketbook/introduction, but it’s sufficient enough.
There are plenty of essays that cover quite a few cultures and identities, which I particularly enjoyed. Many thought-provoking questions were asked, and it was interesting reading about all the different experiences.
I’d definitely recommend this to all PoC, but also to white vegans who still view non-human animal oppression as a single-issue struggle.
There’s a variety of topics in here that definitely seem useful for PoC who are interested in becoming vegan. It doesn’t go too in depth, so it’s more of a pocketbook/introduction, but it’s sufficient enough.
There are plenty of essays that cover quite a few cultures and identities, which I particularly enjoyed. Many thought-provoking questions were asked, and it was interesting reading about all the different experiences.
I’d definitely recommend this to all PoC, but also to white vegans who still view non-human animal oppression as a single-issue struggle.
February 7, 2022
This was so well done! Read it once, then immediately read it again with a highlighter. Very excited to share my copy with friends & family.
March 2, 2022
TRASH BOOK I DON’T RECOMMEND
WAIST OF MONEY!
WAIST OF MONEY!
December 30, 2022
Hard to rate such books which is a collection of Essays.
The Intersection of Casteism and Speciesism: Interconnections from a Dalit By Prateek Gautam
is the one which stood out for me.
The Intersection of Casteism and Speciesism: Interconnections from a Dalit By Prateek Gautam
is the one which stood out for me.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews