Omnis: Veganism is white imperialism/classist/ableist because food prices, poor people can’t afford it, not everyone can be vegan and you don’t even care about the exploited immigrants working in fields!
Also Omnis: *Ignoring the indigenous people in the Amazon who lose their fucking home because of meat consumption. Ignoring all the people starving in West African countries because they can barely catch fish anymore thanks to the huge ass factory ships from China/Europe etc that empty the oceans. Ignoring all the indigenous people dependent on clean water, when raising livestock is the number one polluter of water. And of course ignoring the exploited immigrants and working poor with no alternatives working in slaughterhouses, one of the most dangerous jobs in the western world. Many losing body parts and, because they’re often illegal immigrants, wont get any form of health support once ending up disabled.*
Repeat after me:
- Veganism is not affordable
- Veganism is not cruelty free
- Veganism is not the best choice for everyoneRepeat after me
-I’m an idiot and wrong.
-Veganism can be made affordable.
-Veganism is fucking cruelty free. That’s what it’s all about.
- Veganism is the best choice for everyone, if everyone did it.
-I’m a fucking asshole for making this completely wrong text post and should shut the hell up now.Exploiting undocumented immigrants, and other workers is cruelty free?
Nearly 500,000 children as young as six harvest 25 percent of US crops.But I guess brown people don’t fucking matter.
People are literally starving in South America because all the Quinoa crop is being exported mainly for white vegans who want to live “cruelty-free” but don’t care about brown people as much as they do about animals.
plus, 4 of the 8 most common food allergies (soy, wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts) are common vegan substitutes.
hello i am also here with The Science™ to back up the fact veganism is NOT even the most sustainable dietary option for humanity, like not even in the ballpark of close
Oh, come on.
I guess I’m breaking my year-long streak of tumblr inactivity to respond to this. Not that I expect my addition to this post to get nearly as much traction as the original post, but because maybe the person I’m reblogging this from will see it and realize this is not an “interesting perspective.” It’s a bunch of people making strawman arguments (”Vegans care more about animals than about humans!!!” Because yeah, obviously it’s one or the other, never both.) lightly supported with a handful of cherrypicked studies and “facts.”
I’m not going to spend hours here debunking every single claim in great detail and with links to multiple studies. This is a general info post. If you doubt any part of it, please do your own research. Look at multiple sources. I’m not here to do everything for you.
Point one: Veganism isn’t cruelty free.
It isn’t perfect. It’s pretty damn near impossible to live as a member of a capitalist society and harm no one in any way. Veganism is about doing our best to make conscious decisions to reduce needless and easily avoidable cruelty, and always striving to do better. Here’s a more eloquent response on this topic, with links that address Point 2: Quinoa, as well.
Point 2: Quinoa
See the link above for some more comprehensive takes on the impact of quinoa’s rise in popularity. But the ethics of quinoa completely aside, since when has quinoa been a solely Vegan Thing ™? It’s a fad food. You can find it in just about every supermarket these days, right next to five types of gluten-free flour. If quinoa is the province of vegans, why do so many non-vegan quinoa recipes abound? See here and here. The Buzzfeed article features more non-vegan (non-vegetarian, even) recipes than the Epicurious one, but I think both make it clear that quinoa has been taken into the mainstream. It’s estimated that vegans make up between 1 and 3% of the population. We’re not not even close to solely responsible for the astronomic rise in quinoa’s popularity.
Point 3: Agricultural laborers, or “But I guess brown people don’t fucking matter”
Again, this is a strawman argument. Veganism isn’t about prioritizing non-human animals over humans. While pretending to care about the people picking your crops, you’re ignoring the fact that modern animal agriculture is just as bad, if not worse, about worker conditions. Many slaughterhouse workers are undocumented, face long hours and exploitative pay, dangerous working conditions with few regulations, and are injured frequently on the job. Oh, and they’re also at a much greater risk of those injuries becoming much, much worse thanks to exposure to all the antibiotics animals are routinely given. These links aren’t even close to giving the full picture.
All that was to say, don’t try to stand on the pillar of pretending to care about farm workers’ rights unless you actually care about all farm workers’ rights. Otherwise you’re just exploiting them further to make a point.
And once again, it is not a matter of either/or. Most ethical vegans do their best to avoid supporting unethical business practices. Modern society makes it really, really hard to avoid this altogether, but we can all work toward doing better. That’s what vegans are doing. We’re trying our best to change an unethical system for the better by exerting economic influence. For the good of animals and of humans.
Point 4: Veganism isn’t sustainable
The PBS article linked to claims that veganism isn’t sustainable because it doesn’t make use of perennial cropland, which is used to grow “a lot of the grain and hay used to feed livestock.” Hmm, something’s nagging me about that sentence. Oh wait!! Yeah, humans eat grain, as well. Grain that could be used to feed people is being used to feed animals destined for slaughter.
Everywhere you look these days there are conflicting articles about whether or not veganism is the absolute best dietary choice for the environment. I’ve yet to see an article conclude that veganism is bad for the environment after exhaustively examining every facet of what “sustainability” means, taking things like water usage, greenhouse gas emission, and deforestation into account in addition to land usage. Animal agriculture requires immense amounts of water and land, and produces the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon is due to cattle grazing, seriously threatening biodiversity on earth while simultaneously depleting a major greenhouse gas sink.
None of the above even take into consideration the incalculable amounts of animal suffering that non-vegan diets require. No matter how you slice it, meat is death. By eating meat, you’re advocating for the death of a creature who didn’t want to die. Most of the animals you eat had no quality of life before dying. From birth, through a brief, cruelty filled life, to death, sentient beings are treated as commodities. Eggs require death. Dairy requires death.
I’ve gone on much longer than I meant to, and even added a few links, despite what I said earlier. I could go on, but I’m tired and sad now. Time to take a break and eat some lentils (and destroy the world, I guess). ;)
“And I kinda thought we all shared common threads in that we gravitated here to challenge the conventions we’ve been fed by a culture that treats creatures like machines. And if you buy that shit then how long ’till it’s me who serves as your commodity?” – Propagandhi
(via yaslas-olehlr)
people calling america “the land of the great” and waving their stars'n'stripes banners, while im over here watching 22-year-old girls get killed by stalkers because the good ole U S of A still dont have gun control laws; seeing black kids get shot by cops for existing; witnessing an era in which cis white males can rape girls and get a six month long punishment because they can flap their hands in water well enough to float; existing in a world where being different in any way is a crime; watching an entire nation shudder in fear and disbelief because an orange coloured, flabby skinned, prejudiced old dickhead might rule an entire nation. if you still think america is great, im here to tell you: FUCK. YOU. you have your eyes closed to the horrors of your own country and then act surprised when things go to shit. slap some sense into yourself and wake the fuck up
(via psychoticlaughter)
Me: *reaches the end of a chapter* Time to stop for now.
Me: *turns page* whoops I guess I have to keep going.
"Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but ‘Mom’s’ probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes."- Kalyn RoseAnne
(via wordsnquotes)
(Source: wordsnquotes.com, via psychoticlaughter)
It’s been a very very long time since I posted a picture of myself, so here’s one from a week ago which I quite like.
Do not reblog, thanks.
#when she gives you that look after hearing another shitty theory
(via thepl-ace-icallhome)