A Call For An Intersectional Plant-Based Movement
As a social justice and sustainability educator, I constantly think about the journey I had that led me to a place where I feel confident in who I am and the positive contributions I can make to this world. I think about all of the people that were patient with me as I learned, challenged me when I needed it, and shared their personal stories so that I could be a more conscious citizen for all beings. Through the years, I’ve come to understand that I lead as a builder and connector of ideas, people, and movements. I feel privileged to have the option to choose to be a more conscious human. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to share with others the knowledge that has been passed onto me. My commitment is to build the right societal conditions for people to develop as leaders in order to create an intersectional plant-based food system.
I owe so much of my personal development and passion for a plant-based food system to the experiences I had as a college student. It wasn’t until my senior year when I started to question the ethics behind my eating habits. At the time, I was working on a film project for a class on media and the environment. Our intent was to share with others what organic farming entails and why it is important in the context of climate change. This was all brand new to me and it made me fall in love with farming. At the same time, I was involved with a social change organization at Florida State University, in which we explored ten specific global issues that we wanted to address - one of them was protecting the environment. I had a friend in that organization who would always talk about the exploitation of farmed animals in relation to environmentalism and how industrialized animal agriculture was incredibly harmful to planetary health and marginalized populations. I remember her words would always challenge my perspectives, which was a process I found to be extremely fun. I was really enjoying getting my worldview wrecked over and over again because it forced me to think critically and make sense of my place in this world. It helped me expand my care for other beings.
It was also during my senior year when I started developing a sense of social responsibility and working on my spirituality. This was also thanks to one of the programs I was involved with at my university. For me, the personal work on spirituality meant exploring what purpose, meaning, and authenticity looked like in my life. I began to question who I was in this big and complex world. I began to ponder my existence in relation to other living beings. Was I more important than an ant? Did my life have more value than that of a cow? Why is it that I feel okay eating certain animals, but feel angry when others are harmed? Reflecting back on the experiences I had during that period, I realized that somehow the stars were aligned and were pushing me to start acting in alignment with the mindset and values that I was exploring and aspired to have. This meant thinking about what was in my locus of control and what aspects of social change called my name a bit more than others. I began to make sense of my experiences and realized that focusing on sustainability was what felt right to me. Since sustainability focused on human, planetary, and economic health, it allowed me to focus on issues that would help animals, marginalized communities, and our natural world.
When I graduated, I tried to explore different ways in which I could get into the sustainability space. For a variety of reasons, this did not work out and I decided to focus on building a career in student affairs developing social justice and leadership programs at universities for students, staff, and faculty. Though at times I wasn’t actively working on sustainability issues, my passion for it never stopped. The more I engaged in social justice work, the more I realized how there was this huge gap between social justice and environmental movements. I remember being surprised that the colleagues I had, who were fighting for human rights, were also eating animals and not making the connections that supremacy, capitalism, colonialism and the patriarchy were all responsible for the harm to humans, non-human animals, and our planet. On the flipside, I would notice how mainstream environmentalists were only focusing on the conservation of natural resources and endangered species. Generally, arguments for why we should live in a greener society didn’t center the experiences of marginalized folks. The mainstream environmentalist movement lacked the perspectives of communities of color, low-income folks, and other underrepresented communities. This was also true for many animal rights organizations. To me, it seemed like there was a lack of understanding of the interconnectedness between their movements.
As I continued in my professional career, I was able to break into the sustainability space at a university in California and later on would end up working at a vegan advocacy organization doing inclusion and community engagement work. In the many positions I held, I found myself helping all “sides” understand how the issues they cared about were also connected to other societal issues. If we wanted to fight for planetary and human health, that meant we also needed to fight against animal agriculture. If we wanted to eliminate the exploitation of all animals, we also had to care about the liberation of all humans. Saying “I want to eradicate racism, but I just can’t give up cheese” lacks the understanding that pollution, toxic waste, and trauma are a direct result of an animal-based food system that disproportionately harms people of color. Saying “we have to get rid of the ramen chicken noodle cups in vending machines at our university because styrofoam is bad for the environment” lacks the understanding that for many food-insecure students the $1.00 ramen cup is all they can afford for a meal. It’s hard to have plant-based eating and environmentalism top of mind if you aren’t meeting your basic needs. This type of thinking also places the onus on the individual and does not work to address the root of the problem.
In the past few years, we have had more attention on the people and groups that have been doing impactful, intersectional work. There are people and organizations like Isaias Hernandez (founder of Queer Brown Vegan), the Food Empowerment Project, Crip Humanimal, Gwenna Hunter (creator of LA’s first vegan food bank), Support and Feed, and Plant Futures that are shedding light on the many ways that supremacy, exploitation, and capitalism are contributors to the current broken economic and food system we currently have. I thank them for much of my learning. As consumers of media, we should be elevating their stories and work with our circles and engaging with their platforms as much as possible. As socially responsible citizens, we should be putting into action what we learn from them. Once we know better, we should be doing better. We need to collectively create environments that push for an intersectional plant-based food system in which all living beings and our natural world receive the same amount of care.
My hope for the future of a plant-based food system is centered on inclusion and solidarity. I envision plant-based food narratives that call out healthism and anti-fatness. I envision intentional efforts to disrupt racism and classism within the plant-based sector and elevate the stories of low-income communities and people of color. I envision groups that work in the social justice and plant-based food spaces showing up for each other when they face challenges - regardless of whether or not the issue directly impacts the other group. I envision educational opportunities that are culturally relevant, supported by data, and ask big questions to help people think about their purpose and make meaning of their experiences. We owe this to the people and animals we are trying to serve. We also owe this to the people we are hoping will join us in our efforts. When we engage in education with the public, it’s our responsibility to help others adopt a systems thinking approach, identify the root of problems, and reflect on their role as socially responsible citizens.
I firmly believe we all have the capacity to expand what I like to call our “spheres of care.” Most of us care about one or a few issues. If we were to focus solely on one issue or community, we’d be fighting for privilege instead of liberation for all. It may feel like it is impossible to solve all of the world's issues all at once and that is valid (it is actually impossible). At the same time, we can expand our personal sphere of care and engage in socially responsible daily behavior that takes into consideration collective liberation. If you’re reading this article, that means you already care about or have some interest in a plant-based lifestyle. Whether this is your first time exploring or you’ve been plant-based for years, I hope that you are prompted to think about what your role might be in creating a more inclusive and intersectional plant-based world.
