Sistah Vegan Project

Webinar Available for Purchase 

Beyond “Cruelty-Free”: Critical Race and Decolonial Approaches to USA Ethical Consumption

Instructor: Amie Breeze Harper, PhD

The above refers to a Webinar available that I video-recorded. I also provide a Powerpoint presentation and notes for your refer to. It is approximately 2 hours long (1 hour lecture, 1 hour Q&A) and now available for purchase for $9.99. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A PRE-RECORDED LECTURE.

How to Purchase and View: Please pay with the PayPal link here. Once I receive the payment, you will receive an email with a link to the Webinar that you can view as many times as you would like. Please email me at breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com if you have any questions. If  the PayPal link above does not work, you can pay by clicking on the Click here to make a donation by PayPal link on the right of the page.

Webinar Description: It seems like everyone is talking about ethical consumption in some way, shape, or form. And it also seems like there isn’t a universal agreement on what is ‘ethical’. Some folk think eating animals is ‘ethical’, as long as the animal didn’t suffer living in confined quarters and was ‘free range.’ Some folk think veganism is the way to go, but don’t think about the humans who may labor in cruel conditions to provide them their vegan foods, or the humans and non-human animals who are displaced to source ‘cruelty-free’ palm oil for vegan butter for example. This webinar will help you think more critically about how you consume, why you consume, and how to alleviate suffering through mindful consumption that is pro-vegan. This webinar will acknowledge that all people are different and that due to racial, class, and geographical privileges (or lack there of), access to ‘ethical consumption’ varies. In this pro-vegan oriented critical thinking course, I will teach you how and why you should consider how structural racism, classism, neoliberal capitalism, normative whiteness, and ableism affect what you think is ‘ethical consumption’, ‘healthy,’ and ‘perfect body.’ Upon finishing this webinar, you will have a better understanding of how to think critically about being a vegan consumer that is both mindful of non-human animal suffering and the suffering and pain that structural ‘isms’ (such as racism, sexism, etc) cause to human beings who labor throughout the food chain. You will be able to bring this information to your organizations, friends, and family in a way that is compassionate and loving, not shaming or judgmental. Though there are many human injustices that the global food economy relies on, this webinar will pay close attention to the under-represented topics of how structural racism/whiteness operate within a neoliberal capitalist driven consumer economy in the USA. This webinar is not about finding one sole solution to ‘ethical consumption’. Instead, this webinar will help plant the seed for more critical thinking in your consciousness and allow you to then self-train yourself on how to determine what pro-vegan ethical consumption lifestyle, principles, or philosophies best suit your own social, geographical, and financial statuses. This self-training will always be a process that is neverending. You will become better at it each day; this webinar will plant the seed to get you started. For example, once you learn about the human slavery used to produced certain cocoa products, this will engender you to think about the source of your vegan cotton and then research if people are exploited to produce a supposedly ‘cruelty-free’ product.

  Over the past few years, I have blogged about whiteness, racism, and veganism in a way that is mindful, holistic, and critical. Despite my attempts to present such ‘sensitive’ issues in scholarly and mindful ways, I have experienced comments that are downright violent and full of hateful rage from white-identified people. Most recently, someone posted a response to my 2012 blog article about the racial politics of dread lock wearing and cultural appropriation. The exploration of the topic earned me the label of ‘racist cunt’ from commenter “geoff” on April 8, 2013 at 844am. Thank goodness for cyberspace; what normally would not be said directly to my face, in a real physical space (like in my former university or  my professional place of employment), can be now be spewed towards my avatar in the comfort of one’s home, library, or even a smartphone/tablet from the commuter train. The other summer, I spoke of my experience at a Buddhism retreat for women of African descent. The retreat mindfully acknowledged how the repetitive trauma of structural, institutional, and individual acts of racism-sexism have uniquely shaped our Black female collective consciousnesses. My open-hearted blog post about my spiritually healing experience at this retreat was met with easy dismissal and calling me ‘racist’, by white male Buddhist practitioners. It would seem that they sincerely did not fully understand what ‘racism’ actually means; or how they as beneficiaries of whiteness in the USA (or in other white settler nations), have probably never had to find a healing retreat that mind fully acknowledges their experiences of surviving through a society that simply covets whiteness (phenotypes as well as ‘whiteness’ as performance and ‘ways of thinking’); a society that is usually repulsed by those bodies and systems of thought that deviate from “whiteness.” Instead of engaging with the lived realities of ‘the other’ in a mindfully engaging way, it would seem that a significant number of these folk who don’t agree with me resort to what I would consider ‘the troll life’: cyber-bullying, the usage of discursive violence, etc., versus more open-hearted ways of explaining how or why they disagree with my interpretations/analyses of my own experiences with race, whiteness, and power in the USA. I have actually never responded to those engaging in the “troll life” in the same violent ways that they have done to me. Sure, go ahead agree with or disagree with someone…. But why not do it in a way that is not violent? What purpose does it serve to resort to the “troll life?” I don’t believe that anyone deserves to receive hate filled rage and discursive violence; after all, when has anger and hate created love and understanding amongst people? If I were to go that ‘hate-rage’ route,  once I jump into their world of trolling logic, it is a lost battle. Instead, I have chosen to use my energy in other ways. However, recently, I have began to revisit the overall meaning of such hateful and violent language that is so easily used against me by these folk who end up on my blog-space. Over the past 8 months, I applied to a lot of full-time academic, non-profit, and industry positions. I have easily applied to over 100 full time positions at this point. Even though I know that the job market is intensely fierce right now, I have been quite perplexed that I have not even been called for one initial ‘phone screening’ interview. I have begun to wonder what the likelihood is that these ‘honest’ but hateful feelings towards my online articles about race, whiteness, and power may potentially represent how I am actually viewed by those that look over my resume and cover letter. Do they eventually conduct an Internet search of my name, only to find my Sistah Vegan blog and its ‘confrontational’ topics are not ‘suited’ for a ‘post-racial’ USA? However, I also want to give most people the benefit of the doubt and suggest that ‘discomfort’ and ‘defensiveness’ around my work may not even be a ‘conscious’ act; it could very well be dysconscious. Negative and uncomfortable reactions to my ‘online presence’ could be at the deeply somatic level. Perhaps most of the mainstream do not even know how to begin to interpret or come to terms with their reactions to what my work means or represents within their lives and the overall scheme of power, race, gender, and [‘white’] nation-building. Even though it was back in 2005, I will never forget the plethora of hateful comments made about my initial call for papers for the Sistah Vegan anthology. White vegans and vegetarians were angered by the idea that racialization and gender in the USA could influence one’s practice and rationale of veganism. I even ended up analyzing a vegan site’s 40+ pages of ‘annoyed’ white vegans’ responses to my CFP. I turned it into a Masters Thesis and published an article from it the other year in a peer-reviewed volume. For my own highly degreed self, what does it mean that despite getting a PhD with critical race studies oriented emphasis in a social science (critical food geographies), it wasn’t/isn’t enough to earn the ‘respect’ of not being a recipient of such hateful rage? After all, I’m using ‘social science’ training from a PWI to ‘show’ that racism, whiteness, and power are very ‘real’ in a ‘post-racial’ USA. Graduating summa cum-laude from Harvard Master’s program, as well as from my University of California-Davis PhD program, having received the Dean’s Award at Harvard for my “critical race feminist” thesis, or having received the two-year GSRM UCDavis Fellowship to academically theorize about race and food does not ‘yield’  a pass to exempt me from such trolling hate. Whether it is direct, unconscious, or dysconscious, if this how I am seen (i.e. ‘racist cunt’) by a significant number of [white] people , then what does it mean, or should it mean, for my future scholarship, activism, and my search for post-PhD full time employment? What does it mean for so many of us non-white women in white-settler nations who are doing similar work with love mindfulness, only to experience similar hateful reactions? And even the job market is really ‘tough’ right now, is it ‘equally’ as tough across the board, or does it become significantly tougher and more fierce when one does the type of work that I do while doing it in a body that is not ‘markedly white’?

Part I

[youtube=http://youtu.be/4ACInGvRSSY]

Part II

[youtube=http://youtu.be/ZUu8fsHZK0E]

Above are the two videos from my most recent talk that I gave on November 1, 2012 at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. The topic I was to address was “Intersectionality of Oppressions: A Look at How Race and Gender Shape the Vegan Experience in the USA.” The title of the talk that I gave to examine this topic was called “Feeding a Black Nation: Decolonial Vegan Politics and Queen Afua’s Kitchen.” It was hosted by the Boston University Vegetarian Society and Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Activism. I had a really great time. I also let everyone know that this talk is from a dissertation chapter that is still in its draft stages, “So bare with me as I try to work out a lot of the theoretical stuff I talk about at the very beginning.” I’m also functioning off of 2.5 hours of sleep and flew across country and basically went directly to the talk. Whew, crazy day getting there but it was well worth it. I think the Q&A session was the best because the questions were very critical and engaging. The next day, I had brunch with a bunch of friends and my twin brother, Talmadge, who I had not seen in person in over 2 years. We video Skype several times a week, but this was a gazillion times better. We ate at Central Sq. in Cambridge at a place called Veggie Galaxy, owned by the same people who run Veggie Planet. It’s vegan and vegetarian diner style. [caption id=”attachment_2186” align=”aligncenter” width=”538”] Talmadge Harper and Breeze Harper at Veggie Galaxy. Cambridge, MA. November 2, 2012.[/caption] Lastly, I mentioned a few titles at the end of the video. Here they are with a few more that may be of use. I think Barthes is really excellent as a semiologist because he can help folk understand how food ‘signifies’ and communicates an entire society’s “attitude” about life in general. Afua, Queen. Sacred Woman: A Guide to Healing the Feminine Body, Mind, and Spirit. New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 2000. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York,: Hill and Wang, 1972. Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. 1st American ed. New York: Hill and Wang, 1968. Grosfoguel, Ramón, and Ana Margarita Cervantes-Rodríguez. The Modern/Colonial/Capitalist World-System in the Twentieth Century : Global Processes, Antisystemic Movements, and the Geopolitics of Knowledge, Contributions in Economics and Economic History, No. 227. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Lewis, Tania, and Emily Potter. Ethical Consumption: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2010. Sandlin, Jennifer A., and Peter McLaren. Critical Pedagogies of Consumption: Living and Learning in the Shadow of The “Shopocalypse”. Edited by Joel Spring, Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education. New York: Routledge, 2010. Sullivan, Shannon, and Nancy Tuana. Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Suny Series, Philosophy and Race. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. Warren, John T. Performing Purity : Whiteness, Pedagogy, and the Reconstitution of Power. New York: Peter Lang, 2003 Zuberi, Tukufu, and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. White Logic, White Methods : Racism and Methodology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008.

So, is anyone else annoyed and pissed off that mainstream meda continues to represent our beautiful black brothers as incapable of contributing to society? Is anyone else getting irritated with the constant representations of ‘green’, ‘eco-conscious’, and vegan as NOT black men? Anyone highly skeptical about all the ‘facts’ that point to how ‘pathetic’ black and brown men are when it comes to being ‘leaders’ for alternative food and health? Me too.

Above, performing on Oct 13 2012 in Oakland, CA at “Life is Living” is one of my inspirations is DJ Cavem Moetavation. Listen to him. Listen to his words. His brilliance in fusing together hip hop, veganism, holistic health activism… then bringing it all up to a higher consciousness by integrating black social justice activists from the past to the present. This man is brilliant and represents one of thousands of brothers of the African Diaspora in the USA who are holding it down and creating social justice/food justice/environmental justice paradigms that do not, cannot, and will not ignore neoliberal whiteness, corporate capitalism, structural racism, and nutritional genocide. Because let’s face it: You won’t hear these types of critical engagements, found in his lyrics and speech, on PETA or VegNews, which I feel cater to neoliberal whiteness and hyperconsumerism and don’t go deeper. DJ Cavem’s song above comes from his new album The Produce Section: The Harvest. Incredibly brilliant albums that I highly recommend. My 3 year old son, Sun, sings it all the time. He isn’t allowed to listen to anything unless it brings his consciousness up. DJ Cavem his is favorite singer. Sun is always talking about, “We won’t want no GMOs,” “No Monsanto,” and “I’m a grown man, and I grow food.” I link this musica with his lessons about food and herbs. Thanks you Dj Cavem for being the type of mentor and leader we all need; and especially for the youth.

So excited! My new book is ready for pre-order.  The novel focuses on 18 year old Savannah Sales, an African American closeted lesbian who is growing up in rural white New England. Through her character and the relationships she has with others, I explore: internalized racism, normatie whiteness, internalized homophobia, racialized-sexualized violence, connections that food/consumption has to ‘liberation’, and the search for self-love. Her best friend is vegan and encourages Savannah to rethink her sense of justice by pointing out Savannah’s carnicentric and pro-corporate-capitalist consumption habits. This novel is based on my personal experiences growing up in New England and my award winning Dartmouth College thesis research (1998) that focused on black feminism, queer theory, and rural geographies.http://www.amazon.com/SCARS-Breeze-Harper/dp/0985476958/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351228806&sr=1-1&keywords=%22breeze+harper%22 .

Black Coffee Press publishers took the project and I have a ‘real’ cover design for it and real editors…. it’s even going to be available on Kindle. Go me! The artwork was specially designed by the brilliant Sarah Dorsey whose art encapsulates pushing the boundaries when it comes to ‘mainstream’ ideas about gender and sexuality. Her art reminds me of  a fusion of bell hooks, Octavia Butler, and Donna Haraway on a canvas.

This novel good for all ages past 18, but in particular, 18-23 year olds. Could be great reading material for college courses focused on sexuality, rural geographies, queer theory, women and gender studies, and Black Studies. It is rare that I find novels exploring the ‘black experience’ that is not in an urban setting and not heteronormative. When I have read about the ‘black experience’ within a Northeast USA context, it always takes place in a city. Scars explores this in rural and white environment.

If you would like to pre-order this book, you can click on the image below or above. Kindle is not yet ready for pre-order, but it should be shortly.