We Have To Choose. We Have To Focus.
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Did you know that ALL nonhuman animal rights issues combined have a smaller budget than ONE human disease?
According to The Animal Activist’s Handbook by Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich, Catholic Charities took well over 100 times more money than the largest AR organization to work on poverty issues. And cancer gets thousands and thousands of times more money devoted to it than is contributed to every single issue related to animal rights. Despite the fact that many cancers are effectively prevented through a plant-based (vegan) diet!
There’s not enough time in the day to work on all the issues that need attention. There is not enough money in the movement to work on all the issues that need attention. We have to choose. We have to focus.
I choose the issues and the activities that have the most potential to make a real difference for animals, the environment, and public health: veganism.
Our resources are finite. In order to be effective at making a difference, we must prioritize.
Prioritization doesn’t mean that our focus must be so narrow as to exclude similar or overlapping issues. Prioritization doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t involve interesectionality and try to tackle the oppression of animals at the same time as we tackle the oppression of humans. But it does mean that if we want to accomplish anything at all, we must focus.
If we want to have any effect at all at reducing animal suffering and stopping unnecessary killing of animals, we must promote veganism in a way that reaches a significant portion of the population. We must also reach those people in a way that effectively changes their opinions and behaviors.
By how?
Option one: We can offer free vegan food to homeless people. That’s an excellent thing to do. By all means, spend your time feeding people. But is Food Not Bombs going to effectively change the systematic oppression of all animals – human and non?
Option two: Give a man some corn and soy and he’ll eat for a day. Give a man some land, a tractor, and heirloom seeds and teach him how to grow and he’ll eat for a lifetime. Plus, he’ll feed his family and probably his village, too. But feed him meat (corn and soy filtered through the flesh of an animal) and you’ve fed him for a day, plus you’ve increased his chances of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
But dismantling all the barriers facing oppressed people and giving them land, farming equipment, seeds that aren’t patented, and teaching them how to grow food, well, that’s an enormous project that requires a TON of resources. On top of that, without major funding, it’s unlikely to save many animals’ lives or have a significant effect on the environment. It’s unlikely to build a critical mass of people who view animals not as tools but as individuals deserving of basic rights, like the right to be free from unnecessary suffering.
Option three: We can promote veganism in the ways that use the fewest resources yet produce the most vegans. That is, we can build a critical mass of people who view animals as individuals who deserve the right to be free from unnecessary suffering. Leafleting on college campuses is one of those effective and efficient methods.
When I go out and leaflet with Vegan Outreach materials to college students – which are written in a way that appeals to a majority of people – I am focusing the discussion on one topic: eating animals. I am encouraging students and faculty to choose alternatives to animal cruelty.
Agency of individuals is varied depending on class, race, gender, age, size, and other factors. Therefore I advocate veganism predominantly to the privileged people precisely because they are privileged. They have the most power to affect significant change in our society on behalf of animals, the environment, and public health.
I have thought deeply about issues of class, race, and gender. And I’ve chosen routes of animal advocacy that I believe are most effective at saving animals lives, stopping climate change, and improving public health.
Option four: The government. The government has the power to change society’s attitudes towards nonhuman animals. I strongly support reform of the school lunch program to include vegan options so that all children can grow up with more knowledge and agency regarding the issue of veganism.
The Meatless Mondays campaign is an example of effective advocacy:
However, there is racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, agism, fatphobia, and other -isms within the animal movement. I know, I have experienced it. I agree that it’s time for the animal movement to be more cognizant of our individual and collective privileges. We can do that and advocate for animals. But that doesn’t mean we should choose ineffective, resource-intensive advocacy.
There comes a point when we need to face the facts and realize our powerlessness. We cannot solve all of the world’s problems. We cannot end racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, agism, fatphobia, and other forms of prejudice and oppression all at once, no matter how hard we try. Because of this, I do the thing that has the most potential to significantly improve the lives of both nonhuman animals and human animals: I encourage veganism.
And I hope you will, too.
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(This article is part 1 in a series. The second part is: Pushing Animals To The Margins)
This article has been updated from the original version in order to enhance clarity.
PS – I have little patience for nonvegans (Like A Whisper) who criticize vegans on the basis of unfounded assumptions. If a blogger can’t be bothered to do a little research about veganism and vegan activism and simply wants to declare that “no one has bothered to create a world in which [vegan] alternatives are available” to poor people, then act all surprised when I suggest FNB, Vegfam, and school lunch reform here, then I simply can’t take her criticisms seriously.
Moreover, I can’t take Johanna (at Vegans Of Color) seriously when she suggested that handing out leaflets on college campuses (one of the all-time MOST EFFECTIVE forms of vegan advocacy ever) is so terribly classist that it’s not worth doing. Is she serious?
come on. I got into veganism BECAUSE of intersectionality. Do you really think everyone is so dumb that they can’t figure out how classism and racism and transphobia and sexism and homophobia and ableism and agism and fatphobia and SPECIESISM work together if you help connect (rather than ignore) the dots instead of creating ‘mainstream’ (read: unchallenging) flyers??!?
and your PS is ridiculous. FNB in my town serves a bunch of white punks, not families, and for the most part, not a whole lot more than that. and read Like A Whisper’s blog. she’s aware of all of what you mentioned. You keep discounting her opinions and its disgusting.
“I got into veganism BECAUSE of intersectionality.”
That’s fantastic, but the reality is you’re not representative of the majority.
“Do you really think everyone is so dumb that they can’t figure out how classism and racism and transphobia and sexism and homophobia and ableism and agism and fatphobia and SPECIESISM work together”
I know that the course entitled “Race, Class, and Gender” at my local university is not a mandatory class. I know that the majority of students there don’t consider themselves anti-racism activists, feminists, womanists, worker’s rights advocates or anything remotely similar to any of those. I know that most people are happy with the status-quo and are overwhelmed when forced to confront all of their privileges at once. I know that focusing on one topic at a time is generally effective at encouraging long-term, life-changing attitudes and behaviors.
“FNB in my town serves a bunch of white punks,”
If you think my post above is about FNB, then you need to re-read. I distinctly wrote about how INeffective FNB is.
Like A Whisper isn’t vegan. Her criticisms must be taken with a grain of salt.
Great post EV. I agree, we can’t do everything about everything, but the one thing we can do to help so many in so many different ways is to go vegan.
.-= Daniel´s last blog ..In defense of James Cameron and Avatar (sort of) =-.
Non-vegan criticisms of vegans/veganism = FAIL. Stop consuming animals and then we’ll talk.
Plump, yeah I feel the same way.
For the record, she identifies as vegetarian in one of her blog posts (though I’m sure she eats fishes every now and then, she just seems like that type of vegetarian). And on her blog, the only discussions she makes about animal rights or veganism are criticisms of activists or organizations.
In essence, she produces nothing positive on her blog for animals and can’t rightly be called an animal advocate.
She most definitely does not identify as a vegetarian and mentions veganism in other posts. She is writing a critique of people’s classist assumptions- you still talk about how handing out literature at college campuses is the most effective thing you can do to help the animals. What about people who can’t afford college? What type of college do you go to? Are you going to a four year university? A community college? You say you’re trying to reach students and professors. What about other workers there? Do you have any literature in other languages? You said what you hand out is easily read by all. I don’t how you can’t understand how going to college is a privilege not everyone has and that youvare excluding many people in your outreach.
“What type of college do you go to?”
I go to UNLV and CSN.
UNLV is a state four year school. It’s a commuter school and the average student works and has a family. I graduated from UNLV, so it’s my community. It’s not like I’m an outsider coming in and telling people how to live.
CSN is the community college. They have multiple small campuses. I go there sometimes. Likewise, I took some classes at CSN so again it’s MY community.
“You say you’re trying to reach students and professors. What about other workers there? ”
I am hoping to reach students and professors, but when people walk by, I hand them a leaflet. I don’t ask to see their ID card.
“Do you have any literature in other languages?”
Yes. I use the Spanish ones sometimes when I set up an information table.
“What about people who can’t afford college?”
To reach the general Vegas population, I spear-headed a campaign to put up 9 billboards around the valley. You can read more about them here: http://www.vegasveg.com/billboard-project.html
Despite my [nonveganism]*, I honestly feel for you here. You strive to do something good and get attacked for failing to inadequately consider the feelings of the disinterested, the unsupportive, and down-right hostile with regard to mobilizing effective support for your case. Frankly, I view you and the flak you received as classical example of the reason the American Left is an utter failure.
God, I am often envious of the Tea baggers.” In the time it takes the Left in Baltimore to plan an event, they became a national force that for a while derailed and nearly destroyed the prospects for health care reform. They did so because they didn’t try to mobilize those who they knew would oppose them. They didn’t waste time with the clearly uncaring. They even jettisoned reason and fact to accomplish their goals. They focused.
But they were results-oriented and while I agree that too much focus on getting things done is bad, resources are scarce and not everyone can be empowered to think the ways we want them to. Dare I say, they might even be empowered and still oppose us. Hopefully, the American Left will realize that.
*comment has been slightly edited to abide by the comment policy.