Dear Animal Advocacy Organizations: If You're Not Fighting White Supremacy, Then I Can't be Part of Your Movement

I came to the animal liberation movement through the feminist and social justice movements. I became vegan nine years ago because I came to the realization - largely through reading things like Carol J. Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat - that there was no meaningful difference between oppression of nonhumans and oppression of marginalized humans. The philosophy that creates a hierarchy of whose needs and lives matters and whose don't is the problem. A truly just society can only be achieved through the rejection of all philosophies that value some lives more than others. Therefore, for me, there is no veganism - there is no animal liberation - without a wholesale rejection of all forms of oppression. It is not only ending nonhuman animal oppression that matters, but also ending white supremacy and patriarchy. They cannot be separated.

That is why I find it profoundly disappointing that so few animal advocacy organizations have spoken out against what happened in Charlottesville last weekend and about what is happening all across the country. There are some exceptions: Food Empowerment Project is a wonderful organization that always focuses on the interrelationship of human and nonhuman oppression. And other organizations have made these connections as well. But that is the exception rather than the norm.

White nationalists/nazis/white supremacists have been emboldened because they have their leader in the White House and are fighting back against movements like Black Lives Matter that claim the right of people of color to even exist in our society. This should matter for all organizations that advocate for an end to oppression. White supremacy advances the belief of the supremacy of white males over all beings, including nonhumans. Animal advocacy should be and can be a tool for ending white supremacy.

There is no choosing not to speak out in this moment. As Desmond Tutu famously said:

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

I do not expect animal advocacy organizations to change or expand their missions. But I do expect them to make some recognition that this fight is also their fight:

1. I expect them to say something about what is happening in the United States right now and condemn the emboldened racism;
2. I expect them to look very closely at how they perpetuate white supremacy within their own work and takes steps to undo those practices; and 
3. I expect them to incorporate the wisdom of vegans of color like A. Breeze Harper and Aph Ko into their work. 

There is no animal liberation without liberation for all marginalized and oppressed groups.

And there is no animal liberation without dismantling white supremacy.