What we’re looking for

So, if you have something you want the world to know about, be it a product review, a great use for that old pasta sauce container, your two cents on how veganism relates to something else that is important to you or a simply perfect recipe for a fall soup that everyone should be carrying in their thermos, we’re interested!

What you need to do

Don’t hit the send button just yet though! In order to make this whole thing a little easier on everyone, there are a few things we would like to request from you:

• Read some of the past issues so you’ll know (almost) as well as we do what has been done, and you will also understand what it is we do.
• Send us a few ideas. If you’re truly committed to one, and you have some past experience with the topic, then pitch it by all means. However, if you just want to write about something related to veganism, then give us a range of interests.
• Quality and quantity. Although the word count is flexible, you should be comfortable with the idea of writing at least a couple of pages. We like to think our readers are looking for more than just a tweet or a blog entry about something, so stretch your legs and run with the idea. Unless it’s a recipe. Those shouldn’t be more than a page.
• Original content. If it’s an amazing piece that you don’t think received enough attention on your blog, you might sway us, but coming to us with a new idea will get a better reception for sure.
• Unpublished content. Since we started, there have been a bunch of great new vegan-specific publications popping up around the world, and we don’t want to step on any toes. There is room for all of us. However, if you’ve submitted something for one publication already, please don’t send it our way. It could get messy, and we can’t afford a lawyer or an apologetic fruit basket if another mag gets upset.
• Get excited. We don’t want to have to chase after you about the piece. Sure, we will send an email here or there, but if you’re not really into the idea or something comes up and life gets in the way, please let us know. This is supposed to be fun for everyone involved!

Good to go?

If so, then send us your pitch!

From the vegan duo The Pleasants, who were kind enough to travel across North America with me for issue three, to photographer Jo-Anne McArthur, who continues to challenge our view of animals within our world, the T.O.F.U. grant has been our way to give back to a community that has supported what we do since day one.

So, when work started on the sixth issue we knew we also had to keep our eyes open for the recipient of the third grant. Given the serious focus of the issue, it seemed logical that the recipient would be heavily involved in pushing the envelope on the topics we knew we would only be able to touch on. Thus, the decision came easy to choose A. Breeze Harper.

Truly Ethical Veganism

A PhD Candidate at the University of California, Harper’s work focuses on intersections of critical food studies, critical race theory, and black feminist thought. She is also the founder of The Sistah Vegan Project, which explores the lives of black female vegans. The project also looks at how geopolitical status, race, class, gender, and sexuality affect vegan philosophy. In 2010, Lantern Books published Harper’s edited volume Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans on Food, Identity, Health and Society, the first book of its kind to look at the experiences of American veganism through the lens of race and gender.

In an interview with the Creative Director for issue six, Harper goes into detail about the importance of critically thinking about veganism and its intersectionality with forms of oppression:

“…it’s not that I have a problem if a vegan still chooses to eat a vegan tomato product, but I have issues with the lack of transparency of how the vegan food actually got to your plate. Marking it as ‘cruelty-free’ elides the possibility that human beings may suffer in order to get that product to you. I actually feel that framing a vegan product as ‘cruelty-free’ creates a one-dimensional “it’s only about the animals not being exploited” approach to vegan consumerism.”

It is due to her continued efforts to put such problems on the table that we proudly support A. Breeze Harper and her work to make veganism, and the world, better.

Show Your Support

A. Breeze Harper is trying to finish her dissertation work, titled Situating Racialization, Racisms, and Anti-Racisms: Critical Race Feminist and Socio-spatial Epistemological Analysis of Vegan Philosophy in the USA. Due to California budget cuts, her dissertation fellowship for 2011-2012 was not renewed. If you would like to support her finishing her PhD and social activist scholarship for 2012 summer graduation, she is accepting donations through paypal: breezeharper@gmail.com

Everyone has that family member (or maybe more than one). You know, the one who every now and then says or does something that shocks or embarrasses everyone else? Then, after the awkward silence, the conversation moves on and everyone just chalks it up to “oh, that’s just your uncle. He’s set in his ways and doesn’t quite understand why such things might offend us, but he means well.”

Drawing the line with uncle PETA

I’ve muttered on this site before about other PETA campaigns, and I’ve downplayed most of them as just another drop in the bucket for an organization that is so focused on one goal they don’t see the damage their doing to other movements. Unfortunately, the latest PETA campaign entitled “Living With BWVAKTBOOM: Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me” is more than just another ignorant misstep. This one crosses far too many lines to just be pushed aside by a comment on how great Aunt Jane’s garlic mashed potatoes turned out.

So, I want to make this clear, just in case I’ve been vague in the past:

Although T.O.F.U. and PETA are promoting veganism, in no way does T.O.F.U. promote PETA. Their most recent campaign, along with so many in the past, relies heavily on damaging and irresponsible methods filled with stereotypes and ideologies that T.O.F.U. strives to eliminate rather than propagate through our own actions.

Sure, we may be in the same family, but that doesn’t mean we have to support everything our weird uncle does. What is it that offends us so you may ask? Well, let’s see:

1) Exploitation of women

Granted, the women in the campaigns may do it of their own free will, and the fact that they are able to do such things is a sign that we have come far in some ways. However, the use of oversexualized campaigns (see previous banned Super Bowl ads, including the most recent one) to promote veganism is weak marketing at best. With so many other possible avenues, such as the plain and simple truth about the cruelty involved in the meat and dairy industry, why must an organization that aims to stop the exploitation of so many species support the exploitation of another?

2) Violence towards women

Again, assuming that the overall purpose of PETA is to promote a more humane lifestyle, why should we accept a campaign entitled “Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom out of Me” as acceptable when it so clearly plays on the idea of the dominant male and the women who continues to cater to his needs while ignoring the damage it is doing to her? Compare some of the “People’s Stories” clips with this domestic violence PSA and tell me the marketing team didn’t use it for inspiration.

3) Rape culture

This newest campaign seems to be built on the idea that vegan men have an overactive sex drive, and the women in their lives (admittedly, there is one homosexual couple referenced in a video, but the overall content is incredibly heteronormative and lacks any major ethnic or racial diversity as well) must cater and adapt to it. Why? Because deep down they want it as much as the newly virile man, and despite temporary blindness, displaced hips, concussions, repetitive stress injuries, and other dangerous consequences, they just can’t resist the allure of their “man of steel” and his newfound superpowers. Of course, these men turned sex machines are powerless in controlling their new desires, and trying to discourage it is portrayed as foolish. So, PETA is nice enough to suggest several ways to handle the repercussions of having a vegan boyfriend. Hmm, suggesting that it is up to the women to control a man’s sexual advances since he is incapable of controlling them seems familiar. Where else have we seen this myth promoted?

4) Virility and being a man

Not only does the newest campaign, as well as so many previous to this, promote a stereotypical view of women, it also promotes the common misconception that the true value of a man is found in his ability to please his partner sexually. The fact that these newly vegan men may have chosen their lifestyle based on compassion and love for other living creatures, a desire for better health, or a variety of other reasons is not promoted at all. No, the true reason to go vegan, which popular media already promotes as the reason to do anything, is because by being able to “knock the bottom” out of your partner you will obtain the title of a true man. Just check out the video of the guy bragging about the great sex he just had with the attractive girl behind him all because he went vegan. Of course, there is no real portrayal of vegan women being great in bed and their partners having to deal with that at all. Apparently, these specific benefits are bestowed upon the men only.

And the list could go on…

Working toward a well-balanced meal with the family

When we released issue six we hoped to give people a platform to discuss and consider so many of the things that intersect with veganism, and this campaign is a perfect example of why such a view is necessary to make true and beneficial change happen.

So, if anyone needs me, I’ll be sitting at the kiddie’s table. Sure, there may be food fights, but at least the jokes will be innocent and a lot more mature than what our uncle typically brings to the table.

Photo credit: PETA

Please let us know what you think, and share it with your friends if you love it.

Issue Six Download

The following is an excerpt from a focus piece written by Noemi Martinez, which will be available in issue six later this week.

Being a vegan is as much an identity to me as being a poet, being a Boriqua/Chicana and living on the borderlands, both literally and queerly speaking. It seems only natural that my eating habits find themselves in my poetry and writing. As a single parent, unschooling around the kitchen table is common as well as something I call edupunk, a mix of DIY and punk ethics education. Many of our conversations revolve around food, justice, the environment, oppressions and what it means to be brown bodies living in our society. I am largely truthful about the real world to my two children. The other day I spoke to my son, River, about the high percentage of Latino and Black men in United States prisons and how one in six Latino and Black boys have a chance of going to prison in their lifetime — that is a painful reality check as a parent to a young Chicano. Both my daughter, Winter, and River, grasp that the work I do on domestic violence, DIY (do it yourself) media and racial inequalities is just as important as my veganism.

Dinner for Two

I have not tried one recipe
from the cookbook you gave me.
I finger through it some days.
The foods- elaborate experiments
you thought I’d make
when I became a vegetarian.

It’s just like you
to give me something
of little use,
like flowers that die
when I needed seeds
to take root,
plants in soft dirt,
clay to form words.

Time-the residual effect
can’t be measured by scientific methods
and can’t be seen but
we are as one
even now
when I sense your
brooding thoughts
100 miles away
when I haven’t seen you
in ten years.

Rose Colored Thread

I grew in love with you
around the table
stalking flowers we
couldn’t afford to plant.
We laughed and you let me sleep
instead of touching my hand.
We could have mended
each other’s
bloody noses with
slow nights.

Next spring, there will be time
to tend to this garden
to wake me up,
tell my stories
that make the edges of your
mouth crinkle into a smile.

It’s been touched on a bit here and there through the magazine and the blog, and I’m certain I’ve discussed it with numerous people in person, but I feel it bears repeating. Especially when the words written by Stephanie Lai are better than those I’ve written on the subject.

So, for your consideration, here is an interesting discussion on the intersectionality of racism and classism in animal rights activism, and why it’s an issue that may be just as important as many of the other ones that are focused on daily.

Addressing racism and classism in animal rights activism (thescavenger.net)