Racial Reckoning in the Mainstream Vegan Movement

As the U.S. faces a reckoning with systemic racism in policing, sports, and environmental groups, issues of racial injustice pervade the food world as well.

Reports of toxic and racist company culture at Condé Nast and Bon Appetit has forced resignations of senior executives, and seven of the beloved Test Kitchen hosts have left the famous YouTube show. Quaker Oats said it would retire the Aunt Jemima name and image and Uncle Ben’s rice has changed its name and packaging to remove racial stereotyping.

These events in the food community have reignited the issue of racism within the vegan movement. Mainstream veganism has become associated with white veganism.

Black vegan influencer Tabitha Brown previously told VICE that before she went vegan she thought vegans were  just “white ladies who do yoga.” Media outlets seem to reflect this assumption, featuring recipe blogs by white influencers on social media or showing images of white people when searching “vegan” or “vegetarian” online.

Mainstream veganism has long focused on the Animal rights aspects of living a plant-based lifestyle, but looking at the issues of veganism and Animal rights in a vacuum has alienated many activists of color.

A 2018 survey found that people of color at Animal rights organizations often cited racism within their organization and the broader movement as a reason for leaving the movement.

“When I first got involved in the Animal rights community, there were hardly any Black people . . . and never any discussions of human rights,” Black vegan organizer Gwenna Hunter told Civil Eats. As she went vegan, first for health reasons and then for animal welfare concerns, she realized the mainstream vegan movement was only concerned with the animals, ignoring conversations about important issues like Black Lives Matter.

While many think veganism is a young movement full of white millennials, the roots of plant-based eating are in Asian, African, Caribbean, and indigenous cultures. For health, economic, or religious reasons, non-Western cultures have a long history of diets that omit meat and animal products.

Nowadays, non-Western nations still dominate plant-based eating trends. Over a third of India, 14 percent of Brazil, and 20 percent of Mexico, are vegetarian, and plant-based diets have become extremely popular in countries like Taiwan and Jamaica.

Due to the non-white history of plant-based eating, mainstream veganism relies on (and co-opts) recipes and products that have been eaten in non-Western nations for years.  Chickpeas, quinoa, tofu, and coconuts are considered staples of a vegan diet and are mainly produced by indigenous farms in the global south. To meet global demand, small farmers have to mass-produce their products, overworking their land and getting little in return for their labor.

Mainstream veganism must come to terms with the global effects of its actions and recognize the exploitative nature of upholding “superfoods” as their own.

The meat and dairy industries have deep-seated colonial legacies and the industrialized food system has severe racialized health disparities. For marginalized communities, veganism can be seen as a form of activism against colonial and industrial systems.

For several Black vegans, following a plant-based diet is a tool of resistance that can combat the health problems caused by an industrial food system saturated in unhealthy foods. Leading causes of death in the Black community in the U.S. include heart disease, cancer, accidents, and diabetes. Besides accidents, the rest are linked to diet and lifestyle. Eating vegan is considered the “decolonization of the diet” according to A. Breeze Harper in her Sistah Vegan anthology.

In fact, Black vegans are the fastest-growing vegan demographic right now. According to a 2018 Gallup poll, only 3 percent of white Americans said they follow a vegetarian diet, whereas 9 percent of non-white Americans identified as vegetarian.

While white faces have made up mainstream veganism online, the current movement for racial justice is forcing prominent vegan and Animal rights organizations to consider their legacies as white institutions.

“We must center anti-racist-based justice in Mercy For Animals’ programs so that they’re actually relevant to the immediate needs and realities of nonwhite communities. If we focus our work and messaging solely on nonhuman animal suffering, we fail to address how factory farming and animal products also harm communities of color,” Mercy for Animals (MFA) President Leah Garcés wrote in a statement on anti-racism.

BIPOC vegan leaders, like A. Breeze Harper, Aph and Syl Ko, and Bryant Terry, have illustrated the connections between the plant-based movement and social justice frameworks and provided plant-based recipes of traditional Black dishes.

While BIPOC vegan cookbooks, vegan Black Instagram accounts, and vegan Black-owned businesses have been showcased in recent months, the long work of rooting out systemic racism in the vegan movement is just beginning.

Economic systems that disadvantage Black entrepreneurs must be changed, activists of color must be elevated in animal rights organizations, small businesses run by women of color need more funding, and the mainstream vegan movement must recognize the barriers for vegans of color and join the long-term effort to dismantle racist, colonial, and discriminatory systems.

Read our coverage of the fight for racial justice across the country and why racism and the killings of Black Americans is a public health crisis.

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• Breonna Taylor
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