Have Gone Vegan

vegans on The Amazing Race!

Yep, there will be two vegans on The Amazing Race premiering this Sunday evening. Eric and Lisa are married yoga instructors, and it'll be interesting to see how they fare. But apparently there was a vegan last season as well (Mike, who appeared with his father Mel), although I don't remember this ever being mentioned. I wonder what he thought of the challenges involving animals at the Phuket Zoo in Thailand? I certainly wasn't too impressed with the elephant portion of the show, and the posing with the tiger just made me sad. In fact, the exploitation almost made me stop watching The Amazing Race altogether.

And what about the food challenges? How as vegans will Eric and Lisa react? Usually the food is meat or fish-based, so would they make an exception and eat items they normally wouldn't? In Season 13, Terrance, a vegetarian, ended up eating sheep, and I think he regretted it. But being vegan means an even greater commitment to not consume animal products in any way, so I wonder how the vegan couple will handle this ethical dilemma.

How would you?

what I think I know about veganism so far

Having been vegan for over a year I decided I wanted to know more about veganism and animal rights, so I gingerly dipped my toe into the pool of knowledge that's on the Internet, and boy the learning experience has been a humbling one! Here is what I've gleaned so far, but please keep in mind that my observations (in no particular order) are subjective, and may change over time. I will probably also expand on some or most of the points below in future posts.

All I think I know for sure in this moment is that:

1. Vegans piss people off. Both within and outside of the animal rights movement.
2. The word I see most often in connection with vegan is self-righteous. True, this usually comes from people who aren't vegan themselves.
3. The thing most people who aren't vegan seem to object to the most is the attitude of moral superiority they perceive most vegans to have. I sympathize. But what do you do when you feel that veganism IS a morally superior stance?
4. Veganism has a language all of its own. And abbreviations to boot.
5. The words vegetarianism and veganism are sometimes used interchangeably, which is inaccurate and confusing.
6. There's a bit of vegetarian bashing going on right now by some vegans, which I don't think is particularly helpful.
7. As much as I used to hate proselytizing by Christians, I'm now much more sympathetic as I would love to be able to convert everyone RIGHT THIS SECOND!
8. Having said that, I'm not convinced proselytizing is effective.
9. Veganism is not A diet, which my mom still doesn't get every time she offers me something that only has "a little bit" of milk or egg or anything else.
10. Veganism is ABOUT diet, environment, and most of all, other animals.
11. But vegans become and stay vegan for any of the above reasons, and I'm not sure we can decide which one is more valid for any one vegan in particular.
12. Vegans hold themselves and others to very high standards, and can be awfully hard on, again, both themselves and others.
13. If compassion is to be the underpinning of this movement (and in my opinion it should be), then that compassion needs to be directed not only to other animals, but also to ourselves and to each other. Each other would include vegans, vegetarians, omnivores who try in their own way to help animals, liberationists, abolitionists, and animal welfare activists.
14. Derisively calling animal welfare activists new welfarists doesn't strike me as particularly compassionate. Or helpful.
15. I am an abolitionist in the sense that I am vegan and support the long-term goal of abolishing all animal use, but I'm uneasy about the abolitionist movement (although I think the proper term is faction) itself. Just as I don't believe that Christianity is the only path to God, I don't believe that abolition is the only path to animal liberation, especially when animals need our help NOW.
16. Because it scares me when any one individual or group is convinced that they have the only, and the right, answers.
17. And I think it's dangerous to be so married to your own group ideology that you're not willing to listen to and consider any other perspective.
18. Any person brave enough to head any large enough animal welfare or animal rights group or organization will be vilified by at least one other group.
19. I have read different takes on Michael Vick and the NFL, and even though I think he's a complete and utterly vile scumbag, I can see valid points for both supporting and opposing his reinstatement.
20. But no, I don't think gleefully torturing dogs (including companion animals) with your bare hands is quite the same as sitting down to dinner. For those who can't see the difference, I would point to intent, level of involvement, and participation in a socially and legally sanctioned activity, however criminal we may think it is. Besides, if the goal is to convert omnivores to veganism, treating them as morally equivalent to Vick is going to help how?
21. I honestly don't believe I would have eventually turned vegan (I was 46) had I not adored my cat and finally made the connection of "if you wouldn't eat a cat, why eat a cow?"
22. I think taking advantage of the love that people feel for their companion animals is a perfectly good place to start vegan outreach.
23. Dismantling any ism is necessarily complex, and while it's easy to pay lip service to the idea of inclusion, in any movement largely led by white, privileged men, only those who are most affected can say whether there is racism, sexism, or any ism left in the movement. To declare otherwise is naive.
24. Animal liberation is not only not going to happen overnight, it won't happen in our lifetime (at least, not mine), and unless we're willing to be a bit more co-operative for the sake of the animals, and come up with a flexible enough framework that takes the best of all approaches OR represents the majority of activists that fall in the middle, then there's real danger of movement collapse.
25. And that, would suit those people who think vegans and animal rights activists are all whacko, just absolutely fine.

Finally, what I really know for sure (depite my tone), is that I have no answers, and definitely not even all of the questions.

pig roasts, gun shows, good grief!

As stated in my July 31st post, I moved back to my hometown after an absence of more than twenty years, and I guess I somehow forgot just how small and rurally based this area (Niagara Region) is. Or maybe I'm just not used to reading local newspapers that cover events like barbecues, county fairs and pig roasts. Pig roasts! And in just over the two months that I've lived here, there have been two of them. Now given the fact that I get a visceral reaction just from seeing animal flesh in grocery flyers (I swear I never noticed before turning vegan just how prominent it is), I nearly threw up my last meal when I saw a photo of the poor pig nearly done and ready to be eaten. What's even worse in my opinion is that this event was sponsored by a church; an institution that you would think would encourage non-suffering of all species. Anyway, it made me wonder if I should place an announcement asking if there are any other vegans in this town!

The opinion pieces I mentioned in that July post? The first, titled No animal cruelty in pampering a race horse, had the editor asserting that folks calling for a ban on horse racing are "horribly-informed, if not totally ignorant" and overreacting. Don't take my word for it though, as someone at the Niagara Center for Animal Rights Awareness also saw this piece and responded with what I thought was an intelligent and articulate rebuttal. Sadly though, their reply was never printed, which, I'm embarrassed to admit, made me abandon my own less coherent and already belated response. Then, this doozy, which made me shake my head, although she had a valid point about the chickens. Not surprising though that a column denouncing the efforts of animal rights activists would also advocate the death penalty! And guess what? Her piece got a huge positive response. But what I've also learned (in looking through drafts of potential letters to the editor), is that I'm pretty hot-headed, and should probably wait with responding to anything until I've cooled down, snort.

vegan characters continued

A comment to my last post made me realize I'm not quite done yet with addressing TV. First, I goofed, as there are currently two minor bisexual characters in mainstream TV today (House and Grey's Anatomy). Wow--two! And I also remember bisexuality being dealt with on Sex and the City, but was shocked because for a show that supposedly dealt with sexuality in such a frank manner, they perpetuated almost every single stereotype of bisexuality still out there; bisexuals are fence-sitters, and bisexuality is a brief experimental phase before coming out as gay, to name just two. Mind you, I thought the gay male characters on that show were treated as practically just another accessory for the female characters anyway, so I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised.

But back to vegans! I forgot to mention I heard somewhere that if you haven't been spoofed on SNL, The Simpsons, or South Park, then you haven't quite made it yet. South Park was never my cup of tea, and I haven't watched SNL for years (although watching clips of Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin was priceless), but The Simpsons I always liked. Unfortunately, without cable (and now TV) I haven't been able to watch them either, so I Googled, and what do you know--Lisa went vegetarian way back in 1995! Where was I? Oh, and Apu is vegan. Still, not enough spoofing going on yet, snort.

Another part of the comment suggested that it would be interesting to see what influence things like orientation, gender, marital status, religion, education, race, and travel have on becoming vegan. I completely agree, especially because unlike some of the above factors, becoming vegan is usually a choice, and that makes me wonder if being a member of one minority group affects a person's decision to become part of another. But even the other variables would be fascinating to look at, so I'm going to see if I can find any statistics out there. A sociology of veganism and vegan identity, hmmm, makes me want to go back to school!