Sistah Vegan Conference 2015: An Interactive Web Conference, The Vegan Praxis of "BLACK LIVES MATTER" April 24-25, 2015

Designed by Alise Eastgate (www.eastrandstudios.com)

Shared from http://sistahvegan.com/upcoming-sistah-vegan-conference-2015/

Registration and Ticket Purchase: CLICK HERE


The Sistah Vegan Project’s Vegan Praxis of Black Lives Matter conference will bring together scholars, writers, activists and community organizers to examine the intersections of the #blacklivesmatter movement and veganism.
Designed for black vegans, vegans of color and their white allies, this interactive, online event, offers an opportunity for collaborative discussion, building networks of engagement and knowledge sharing. The conference will also work to bring forward suggestions and inspiration to build momentum for collective change.


In this time, when large numbers of people are taking to the streets under the #blacklivesmatter banner, this year’s conference’s workshops and talks ask:


– How do veganism and #blacklivesmatter intersect?

– What does a vegan praxis of “black lives matter” look like?

– What does veganism that ignores “black lives matter” look like, and what are the unintended consequences?

– Why do race and whiteness matter, and how do they operate within veganism and beyond?

– What does allyship look like within the #blacklivesmatter movement amongst non-black vegans and black non-vegans?

#Blacklivesmatter is happening in and because of an America in which “post-racial” rhetoric dominates the mainstream and has been accepted as truth by many white Americans.

This narrowness of perspective/thought/rhetoric extends to vegan (largely white spaces) in which embracing anti-oppression is limited to non-human animal rights and specieism and does not acknowledge other forms of oppression (systemic racism, xenophobia, etc.).

In this context, black lives really do not matter and instead work to combat racism and other forms of human oppression is seen as an unnecessary distraction from the “real work” for non-human animal liberation.
Many of us, as black vegans and as non-white and white allies, find that our politics cannot be single issue. As much as veganism provides an anti-oppression framework it must do so holistically.

We cannot ignore the connections between child slavery on cocoa plantations and the enslavement of non-human animals on factory farms. “Cruelty-free” cannot simply mean that no non-human animals were harmed during production but that the workers who produce our goods are also well treated and well compensated.

We challenge the racial and class privileges that allow mainstream vegan rhetoric to speak of lower income people of color who don’t adopt plant-based diets as lazy without seeing and understanding their realities of lack of access to good, affordable food. We question the ease with which many white vegans shrug off the Thug Kitchen controversy ; their inability to see this minstrel show as reinforcing pernicious stereotypes about black people that make it easier to accept violence against them.

We note that from the beginning #blacklivesmatter activists have insisted that queer people, feminists, people from the spectrum of classes, those who are differently abled, etc. not only be part of the movement but that their perspectives help define its strategies and goals instead of accepting “traditional” hierarchies that would put straight, cis-gender, able-bodied, middle class men in the lead.

We call and fight for a vegan, collective praxis that uses a true anti-oppression lens and embodies anti-racism, Black liberation and the dismantling of white supremacist systems and institutions in a supposed post-racial era along with the systems that abuse and oppress non-human animals.

Registration and Ticket Purchase: CLICK HERE
Sponsor the conference: Find out more about sponsorship here.
Nominate the Vegan Anti-Racist Change-makers of 2015: Click Here.

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Schedule (Tentative)

Final Schedule will be confirmed by April 5, 2015

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS WILL ALSO BE RECORDED FOR REGISTRANTS TO ACCESS IF THEY CANNOT ATTEND IN REAL TIME

April 24, 2015

10:00 am. Introduction: Why a Vegan Praxis of Black Lives Matter? | Dr. A. Breeze Harper (Director and Founder of the Sistah Vegan Project)

10:20 am.”Dispelling the Myth of ‘Cruelty-Free’ Commodities Within the Context of Black Lives Matter and a Racist Food System: A Dialogue Between Lauren Ornelas (Director, Food Empowerment Project) and Dr. A. Breeze Harper

11:00 am.  “Cooking Up Black Lives Matter: A Critical Race Dialogue with vegan Chef Bryant Terry” | Panelists: Chef Bryant Terry and Dr. A. Breeze Harper

11:30 am. “Locating Intersections and the Decolonization of Veganism through Black Womanist Theology” | Candace Laughinghouse, PhD Candidate (Regent University)

12:00 pm. Break

12:30 pm. “‘The Pig is a Filthy Animal': Challenging Speciesist ‘Race-Conscious’ Black Liberation Rhetoric (Before, After, and Beyond Ferguson) | A. Breeze Harper (moderator) and Kevin Tillman (Founder, Vegan Hip Hop Movement).

1:00 pm. “From Critiquing Thug Kitchen to Revealing Vermont’s Speciesist White Agricultural Narrative: pattrice jones tells us about her Vegan Praxis of Black Lives Matter as a White Ally” | Speakers: A. Breeze Harper (moderator) and pattrice jones (co-founder, VINE Sanctuary)

1:45 pm. “Dear White People, Black Lives Matter: An Introductory Workshop For White Vegans on Being an Ally”| Speakers: Dr. Paul Gorski (George Mason University) and Dallas Rising

2:30 pm. “ALL Black Lives Matter: Exposing and Dismantling Transphobia and Heteronormativity in Mainstream Black ‘Conscious’ Plant-Based Dietary Movement” | Speaker: Toi Scott (Afrogenderqueer.com)”

3:20-4:00 pm. Funding Pro-Vegan Anti-Racist Projects: Challenges and Strategies in a ‘Post-Racial’ Era” | Panelists: Alissa Hauser (Executive Director, The Pollination Project) and Dr. A. Breeze Harper

April 25, 2015

10:00 am. “Animal Liberationists for No More Prisons and No More Police”| Speaker: Dr. Anthony J Nocella II (Institute for Critical Animal Studies and Save the Kids From Incarceration)

10:30 am “Black Lives [Don’t] Matter: Michael Vick and the Demonization of Blackness Among White Vegans and Animal Rights Activists”| Speaker: Harlan Eugene Weaver, PhD (Davidson College)

11:30 am. “Pro-Vegan Self-Care for Racial Justice Activists: Building a Long-Term Community of Support”| Speaker: Jessica Rowshandel, LMSW

12:00 pm. Break

12:20 pm. Announcement of the Anti-Racist Changemakers of 2015 Award Winners

1:00 pm. “Memory and Betrayal: An Inquiry into Race, Empire, and Relationship During an Era of Black Lives Matter” |Speaker: Martin Rowe (co-founder and senior editor of Lantern Books)

1:30 pm. “[TITLE TO BE DETERMINED]” | Speaker: Christopher Sebastian McJetters (Vegan Publishers)

2:00 pm. “We Need a Holistic Revolution: Vegan Ethics and the #BlackLivesMatter Movement”| Speaker: Nevline Nnaji  (cofounder, New Negress Film Society)

2:30 pm. “Abolitionist Veganism and Anti-Oppression Within the Context of Black Lives Matter” | Speaker: Sarah K. Woodcock (Founder, The Abolitionist Vegan Society)

3:00 pm.  “The Origins of the Criminalization of Blackness in the Context of a ‘Race Neutral’ Analysis and how it Helped Shape Policing Policies” | Speaker: Liz Ross (Founder, Coalition of Vegan Activists of Color)

3:50-4:45 pm. KEYNOTE ADDRESS (TBD).

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HOW TO REGISTER AND PURCHASE A TICKET

For this year’s conference, we ask that participants support the ongoing work of the Sistah Vegan Project by paying for a ticket to access the event. A limited number of full and partial scholarships will be available to apply to, starting the first week of April 2015. Send an email to sistahveganconference@gmail.com for inquiries.

Your monetary support will help the many goals of the Sistah Vegan Project such as:

• Supporting the groundbreaking book project by Dr. A. Breeze Harper: Black Masculinity, Veganism, and Ethical Consumption (The Remix).
  
• Organizing yearly Sistah-Vegan conferences that leave participants with concrete tools they can implement into their personal and work lives to dismantle systemic racism with a pro-vegan/ahimsa foundation.
  
• Supporting the production of an edited volume of the proceedings of the Vegan Praxis of Black Lives Matter conference which a publisher has already expressed interest in publishing.
  
• Provide financial support for operating costs for The Sistah Vegan Project (i.e. travel to conferences, utilities to run the project, internet and web technologies, editing services, design services, etc).
  
• The creation of ongoing tools and resources, such as webinars, toolkits,  and short publications that use critical race feminism and anti-speciesism to educate people about how to effectively dismantle systemic oppression and violence against people, non-human animals, and Earth’s natural resources.
  
• Food and Nutritional toolkits with an emphasis on marginalized populations.

Registration and Ticket Purchase: CLICK HERE

"IN MEXICO WE ALSO FIGHT!" Anti-Speciesism, Veganism and Animal Liberation Front/Commando-Green Black (FLA, FLAM & FLA-CVN) in Mexico - History in the Making

ALF Mexico - History in the Making
full story: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/01/390369.html

Correction of below article: 29.01.2008 23:33

Top action on the list of "History in the making" should include "January 23, 2008 - Mexico

FIRE AT KFC"...which is the first communique in the list.
FLA

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FLA, FLAM & FLA-CVN (Commando-Green Black)....the Frente de Liberacion Animal (FLA/ALF) is making it's mark in Mexico...
ALF Mexico

The first reported ALF actions in Mexico are; December 2006, when a KFC and fur store are sabotaged, and October 2007, when a pet shop was sabotaged by the F.L.A. Since then, December 2007 and January 2008 have seen a series of well planned and executed FLA actions in Mexico.

Similar to France, when two ALF reports in November 2002 caused a flurry of direct action three years later in 2005 - which is continuing to flourish, and also from April 2007 onwards, which saw Czech Republic heavily target hunting stands and other animal abuse after two actions in Sept/Nov 2006. Activists in Mexico have seen a spark and responded with a string of diverse actions.

This method also replicates the Band of Mercy (1974) which sparked direct action in England, by liberating animals and utilizing arson - two years later causing the birth of the Animal Liberation Front by Ronnie Lee.

The purpose of this post is to highlight the current growth of ALF activity in Mexico and is dedicated to the activists behind these compassionate actions.

Every year brings a new country or three to the frontlines of direct action for animals, whilst last year was the beginning for the Czech Republic, 2008 looks set for Mexico to win the "best newcomers" award.

Not that there really an award! But the front page of Bite Back Magazine would be a likely way to represent this.

The following are the actions that have been carried out...

THE SPARKS THAT CAUSED THE FLAME

December 10, 2006: FUR STORE, KFC HIT IN MONTERREY

anonymous communique:

"Greetings from México.
Two FLA (Frente de Liberación Animal) strikes very early this morning in Monterrey, Nuevo León.
The first target was a big fur store, where all locks and doors were glued, threw paint bombs and wrote "Frente de Liberación Animal", "Muerte" and "Cada Piel es una Muerte".
The second target was a KFC, that was painted with paint bombs.

In Support of all ALF and ELF cells and dedicated to the SHAC 7.
This fight for life won't end until the day we die.
Vegan Revolution!"

October 3, 2007: PET STORE TARGETED

anonymous report; rough translation:

"IN MEXICO WE ALSO FIGHT!
On October 1, a pet store was attacked, padlocks hit, paint-filled light bulbs thrown and a letter was left in the building, explaining the reason for the action and that if the captivity of animals continues, they would suffer the consequences. The F.L.A has arrived!"


ANIMAL LIBERATION - HISTORY IN THE MAKING

January 23, 2008: "MEAT=MURDER" PAINTED ON MARKETS
January 19, 2008: NEW HOMES FOR PUPPIES
January 14, 2008: "PASSIVITY MAKES YOU COMPLICIT"
January 07, 2008: TWO DOVES AND A TURKEY RESCUED
January 04, 2008: FURRIER PAINTED
December 30, 2007: PET STORES ATTACKED
December 29, 2007: KFC HIT WITH PAINT BOMBS
December 27, 2007: CIRCUS BIG TOP, CARS PAINTED
December 26, 2007: PET STORE ATTACKED

anonymous communique (translation):

"On the night of January 20 the Animal Liberation Front Mexico (F.L.A.M.) placed an incendiary device in an establishment of this multinational corporation that continues the killing of our animal brothers and sisters on their farms of terror for filthy money that comes at the cost of the suffering of others.
These actions are just the beginning of what the animal rights guerillas can do."

received anonymously (translation):

"January 21:

The Animal Liberation Front Mexico (FLAM) claim an attack with paint on a large meat market and a poultry shop called Bachoco, a company that has killed millions of chickens in its industrial farms, exploiting these animals and keeping them in precarious conditions even in the store. The bodies of those already dead were found on the ground in overflowing sacks and cages, giving off a stench of death.
These speciesist idiots do not know that the ALF exists. We are determined to cause more harm to this company, until it collapses.
'Meat=Murder' can now be read on the walls of these genocidal and murdering companies.
The war on speciesism will be brought to businesses like these.
FLAM"

received anonymously (translation):

"January 16:
The Animal Liberation Front Commando-Green Black of Mexico State rescued 4 puppies and gave them a better life.
Every animal is important as we continue the fight.
FLA/ALF!"

received anonymously:

"January 11:
Seeing that our brother animals were victims of torture and their torturers were exploiting them to earn more and more money, the Animal Liberation Front - Commando Green Black attacked Rolan's Circo, a circus that uses dogs and sea lions in its 'shows.' Tired of this situation we decided to paint slogans on circus trucks, on the tent, and on walls.
Passivity makes you complicit, use direct action and declare war on speciesism!

anonymous communique (translation):

"Liberation of 2 doves and a turkey + cage opened in Mexico

In the early morning of January 4, the Animal Liberation Front-Green Black Commando (FLA-CVN), infiltrated a farm located in Mexico State, rescuing and releasing 2 sister doves and 1 small brother turkey, who were detained and imprisoned in a cage. We wanted to release more animals but to be safe we had to leave the farm, but not without first opening the cage of another turkey.

NO MORE ANIMAL PRISONS!

FLA-CVN MEXICO"

received anonymously (translation):

"Attack on fur business in Mexico

The Animal Liberation Front has attacked a fur business, the cruelest, most despicable business that could exist against our animal brothers and sisters, apart from experimentation. 'FUR = MURDER' and 'Animal Liberation Front' were some of the slogans painted on the building.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO FIGHT!
TAKE WHAT YOU HAVE AT HAND AND THROW IT AT THE SPECIESISTS!"

anonymous report (translation):

"On December 28th, three cells of the Animal Liberation Front in Mexico coordinated actions against cruel and disgusting speciesism. They carried out the following actions:
- attacked a pet shop with paint bombs
- attacked another pet store with paint: NO MORE ANIMAL PRISONERS! painted on the walls and floor.

received anonymously (translation):

"With the coordination of cells from ALF Mexico and the ALF Commando Verde Negro, KFC was attacked. Bulbs & bottles filled with paint were used on their floor, windows and walls.

NOW IS THE FIGHT, THE FUTURE IS OURS.
GO VEGAN"

anonymous report:

"On December 24, the Animal Liberation Front - Mexico (FLAM) painted on a circus where they have imprisoned our brothers and humiliated and tortured them physically and psychologically. NO MORE CIRCUSES WITH ANIMALS was what appeared on the big top and cars of circus speciesists.
No more speciesism, long live the FLAM!"

received anonymously:

"On the night of December 24 while speciesists devoured the corpse of a turkey, we attacked a pet store and painted ANIMAL LIBERATION on its facade, walls and floor.
FORWARD WARRIORS OF FLA!"

"Decolonizing The Diet: Towards an Indigenous Veganism" downloadable PDF literature

Decolonizing The Diet: Towards an Indigenous Veganism...Unlearning to Relearn

In the age of decolonization and decolonizing pedagogy, students from the Comparative History of Ideas course, “Decolonizing the Diet: Towards an Indigenous Veganism” at the University of Washington have created a cyber class zine to share with our larger communities the knowledge learned, shared, and reflected on from the course readings and in class dialogue, interviews with Native Chefs, written reflections, and meals prepared and eaten which speak to and provide methods towards Decolonizing the Diet, while reclaiming and cultivating an Indigenous Veganism.

This PDF booklet can be found here for online reading or download https://archive.org/details/DecolonizingTheDietTowardsanIndigenousVeganism

Vegans of Color: Veganism and The Class War

This writing was shared from https://vegansofcolor.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/veganism-and-the-class-war/

What follows is a thought exercise.

My own definition of a vegan is a human who eats fruits and vegetables [as well as whatever nuts, seeds or legumes he or she may desire], and never eats or uses animal products. For starts. For my purposes and for the purposes of this post, this vegan is not so heavily involved in extremely elaborate recipes, in highly-processed ingredients and additives, in soy and grains, etc. That can come later. I’m simplifying and scaling down for the purpose of understanding what this post wants to address, which is the skeletal basics (though in full disclosure I’m pretty much a fruitarian). A vegan, firstly, is someone anywhere in the world where fruits and vegetables are affordable and accessible who eats those items, eats produce. That sort of vegan, who isn’t strictly dependent on special products, mock meats, packaged goods, and so on, who could be just at home eating the fruits and veggies available in Kinshasa or Kisangani as are available in Karachi or Kansas City, might be said, for the purposes of this thought experiment, to be a universal vegan, or even a vehicular vegan, and I will use either term interchangebly going forward.

As for the class war, I define it as the conflict between workers and bosses, between capitalists and proletariats, between landlords and tenants, between elites and all us riff-raff, even between humans and animals, over access and claims of ownership over land, infrastructure, the means of production, the structure of our economy, the production of culture, and so on. It is the imperative of oppressors to oppress, to exploit, to profit, maintain ignorance, maintain illiteracy and food scarcity, maintain the divisions amongst working people, maintain ideological, religious, and political zeitgeists of constant histeria, and yet eat well and live comfortably all the while. It is the imperative of workers, of women, of ethnic or sexual minorities, of those rendered landless, to maintain unity in struggle, to vie for and claim power, land and freedom, to achieve self-determination and societies of fairness and justice, to collectivize resources, to build and practice pro-human cultures, and to, at a spiritual maximum as it were, prefer death to slavery. The class war is very real and it is everywhere and, whether or not we acknowledge it, we are all class warriors of some stripe, all over the world. If we find ourselves hating our banks and landlords and tiring of our bosses, that much makes us class warriors, just as a Naxalite Adivasi struggling against planned and perpetrated genocides and land thefts and who actually engages in armed struggle is a class warrior. The bosses that like exploiting and polluting and dominating – whether at Goldman Sachs or British Petroleum or Tyson Chicken or General Motors or Lockheed Martin or Uncle Sam himself – they’re all class warriors for their side.

So how can we mix veganism – as practiced by the universal vegan – with the class war? We start with the manner in which prestige is applied to certain objects to make them desirable, even when they aren’t healthy or necessary. Possession or consumption of these articles of prestige is then used to define who is of what class, or at least who aspires to more elevated social rankings. Yes, commodity fetishism includes propagating the meat prestige – look at the most extreme sorts of hamburgers the fast-food industry invents, or at the Heart Attack Grill.

So, all over the third world, even where meat is scarce or pastoralism is irrevocably destroying land, meat is a prestige. Automobile usage is another. The wealthiest eat the most meat and drive the most, and are often the most gorged and overweight, hence the typical gut of rich and powerful elites in Africa and elsewhere in the third world. (And thanks to the zombifying power of marketing and mass media, a million other useless, wasteful and dangerous products are rendered prestigious, and we must use our own voices and propaganda to fight this, but that is another topic.)

But if a society hedges closer to veganism, that means more calories will generally be available to its individual constituents, since growing plants is far more sustainable and efficient than growing animals which eat plants. So that society would naturally enable an environment of greater equity and less classism. On the other hand, if a society hankers hard after meat, that means fewer people will eat of the greater resultant scarcity in overall available calories. The meat-centric society will inevitably breed the conditions for less equality and for harsher stratification, just because of how much meat production usurps of limited environmental resources.

That’s macro-level. What about individual vehicular vegan class warriors?
Conscious vegan workers remove themselves partly from an equation of exploitation by striking animals from a hierarchy of exploitation and brutality from their own lives. They help keep the class war between humans and from involving non-humans, who have enough of their own struggles and class wars in the wild without having to worry about human consumption.

Conscientious vegan workers keep from supporting aspects of the elite apparatus and cash machine by non-participation in the meat-industrial complex and, should veganism keep them healthy, the medical-industrial complex. The industries of violence and slavery are among the largest which support class and caste structures worldwide. Not endorsing the meat prestige and engaging in veganism means one is using one’s own labor and consumer powers to directly disempower the most odious aspects of the system.

It could be observed that much of veganism, as it is known particularly in North America, is associated with upper classes and privileged populations, but veganism at the grassroots is actually potentially most revolutionary. In the US, poor communities of color are often bereft of access to fresh healthy foods, and disproportionately find themselves afflicted with the diseases of Western diets and lifestyles. This is part of class war, as I see it, keeping the most chronically impoverished from being able to be healthy, long-lived and highly functioning, and from excelling as human beings. The elites don’t really care to ameliorate this problem.

Thus it is up to grassroots universal vegan workers of color, aware that existence in a human society configured such as ours means lifelong class war, to promote healthy lifestyles, to strive and struggle to increase access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables in our communities, and to speak loudly and widely on the benefits of non-meat consumption and the fallacies of the meat prestige and meat addiction.

Thoughtful vegans should make natural class warriors. Their veganism empowers them to escape relationships of oppression and violence with both humans and non-humans, while granting them the vitality and awareness to struggle for just power and representation for as long as necessary. The vehicular vegan revolutionary can be a revolutionary of stamina and substance, of vision and actualization, actually practicing diplomacy (with non-humans) and militancy (against industries and economies of subjugation).

And that is how, and why, veganism can relate to the class war, and why vegans, especially working-class vegans of color, should consider themselves class warriors. But it’s just one small open-source theory that still needs help (or refutation) from y’all.

Veganism can indeed be revolutionary, and we must make it so if we are serious about social change, food sovereignty, Earth and non-human justice, and human freedom and equity.