Veg*nism--A Quick Revisit

Over at Joan Kelly's, on her post about BfP's wonderful, thought-provoking follow up to a post I wrote about my thoughts about veg*nism for me, I commented that BfP makes lights go off in my head. Not a particularly prosaic phrase (and it might be a mixed metaphor), but how else to describe the fact that, after reading her post and Joan's comments, I was lying in my bed and had a moment of realization that made me roll over and jot things down on the notebook I keep under my pillow.

See, as I explained, one of the main reasons that I think about veg*nism is because of my experiences with and love and knowledge of people who work in the poultry processing industry. It is an industry that I think is cruel to the plant workers who are overwhelmingly black, Latin@, and Southeast Asian, cruel to the rural, mostly white farmers who have very few guarantees, and cruel to the chickens, as well. So, I think I've constructed veg*nism as a panacea in my mind, an act, a way of living, that would allow me to withdraw in some way, from the cruel way in which meat is made.

And that construction has been thoroughly challenged as I tried to answer BfP's not-so-simple question, "Is a vegan lifestyle really a “cruelty free” lifestyle?" How could I overlook the stories that she tells of her father, who picked strawberries, and "worked on his hands and knees for hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks at a time?" Of Maria Vasquez Jimenez? Of the cherry pickers I recently posted about? Of my own grandmother who picked cotton, purple hull peas, and other crops until she simply couldn't?

And at the same time I was thinking about BfP's question, I was reading Joan's comment, especially these parts:

I feel like greed is what is hurting the people and the animals in the processing plants.

That's a simplistic and obvious statement I know. I mean that I don't think it is inherently immoral to eat meat. I know it is possible to eat meat without torturing animals and slow-killing people to do it.
[snip]
Given that right now, the way most all meat comes to be meat is via torture of animals and torture of the people who work in processing plants, I see this incarnation of meat-eating as obviously corrupt.
[snip]
I want to know how to shift the focus and the solutions to: it is unacceptable to treat people these ways. It is unnecessary to treat animals this way, on top of the unaaceptability. We don't actually all have to stop eating meat - we have to stop harming people and torturing animals as a means of producing meat.

And that is the heart of my concern, the way food, all food, is brought to our tables, the unbelievable sacrifices that are demanded.

So that I must acknowledge, even if I choose to give up meat, that is not the end of my obligation. From PICO:

Own the debt. It's not just about changing diets. It's about changing industries, wages, working conditions, immigration paths, global trade treaties, and stepping out of the hierarchical, patriarchal way of looking at women and people of color and animals and Earth and, yes, even plants. It's about a whole-life stance, not about what goes on the plate.

These are all goals I care about, of course, but I have never thought of them in this context. Well, I have in a way, but not as fully as I am now.

BfP has a follow-up to her follow up (:-p) with links to people who are thinking about the issues she has brought up. I have been enthralled by following this conversation and how these questions hit people so personally. I am not done myself; this is, as PICO labeled it, another fucking growth opportunity.

A few links:

Wild Chihuahuas
Grad School Mommy
Joan Kelly
Your Daughter Is Obsessed with Meat and Produce
Vanessa
Noemi
Three Rivers Fog

Where to Begin

Inspired by BFP

Poster from a talk, based on one of my dissertation chapters, that I gave in February

So, a number of things have me thinking about vegetarianism/veganism. One, as noted above, are the thoughtful discussions BFP has about potentially becoming a veg*n.

Another is the nature of my work. Invariably, when I talk about my dissertation, I talk about conditions in poultry processing plants. For the workers, there is exhausting, dirty work, at unbelievable speeds. There is routine underpayment of wages. There are supervisors who treat you as if you are nothing. There is the huge company that will do almost anything--legal or extralegal--to keep workers from organizing. There is the exploitation of the most vulnerable workers. There are the "chicken" rashes, bone splinters, musculoskeletal disorders, cumulative trauma disorders, cuts and amputations, slippery, fat-slick floors, extreme temperatures, dealing with frightened, live chickens and dead ones that rest in a "fecal soup."

Here are the hands of a 22-year old man who works in live hang.

What happens in live hang really troubles me. The workers are scratched, pecked, and defecated upon. Frustrated and hurt, they take their anger out on the chickens. They throw the birds against the wall. They break their necks. One employee told me that once, a chicken scratched him so deeply, he took out his pocket knife and stabbed it.

I am also struck by this merging of memories that my mind has done. The first dates to the serious burns I suffered when I was twelve or so, the memory of seeing my skin actually blister and become translucent.

The second occurred when I was pledging. One of my line sisters, Ginger, was a vegan (I didn't even know the word back then). We loved her but thought she was so out there--she used to sit in our meetings drinking rice milk and twisting her short fro into what would soon become the beginning of locs. For one of our meetings, we decided to pick up some Popeye's chicken for dinner. Initially, it was in the car with Ginger and another of my line sisters. I was in the car behind them. Ginger flagged us down and three or four cars pulled over on the shoulder of the freeway; we all knew something terrible must have happened.

Ginger got out of the lead car, marched to where I was sitting and thrust the chicken into my lap. "Here," she said. "I cannot stand the smell of cooked flesh." We rolled our eyes, mumbled about how dramatic she was, and continued on. But her phrasing stuck with me. And sometimes when I have meat and I watch as it cooks, I am turned off by the blistering and browning of the flesh, remembering how horrible my own ordeal was.

Finally, I think an animal-free diet would work wonders for my health and my son's. He doesn't really eat a lot of meat, but his digestive system is in a mess and has been since he was small. He's on a 30-day glycolax prescription right now to ease chronic constipation and soiling.

But I am afraid. I have sworn to myself several times that I'm going to give up meat, one animal at a time. And I'm scared to do it. I think it is the result of this that BfP mentions, "many black feminist vegans I have read/talked to say that veganism is unfathomable as a choice to most of their community."

First, I spend an inordinate amount of time cooking. It relaxes me. I love trying new recipes. I love seeing things emerge from a group of ingredients to a beautiful, tasty whole.

But I also cook to nurture. I know that's problematic--to encourage people to seek comfort in food--but it's something that I know and am hesitant to unlearn. I cook for people I love. I cook for families when they are bereaved. I cook for friends when they're having parties. I cook when my closest friends and I are sitting around doing nothing. I cook for the kids at my summer job. It is something I like to do, something I take pride in, something I am comfortable with.

So imagine the idea of shaking all that up. What if people don't like my cooking anymore? What if I'm no longer good at it? What if I can't share meals anymore?

And then there is the outside resistance. My family looks at me crazily or with smirks when I bring it up. The other day I tried to discuss it with my mom. She stopped in the middle of sweeping and looked at me. "Why would you do that?" she asked. She sounded genuinely offended.

"Think about the processing industry, for one thing, Mama," I said.

"elle, I work in a plant and I eat meat." That threw me, gave me the feeling I get when I see people appropriate others' struggles/pretend to know more about others' plight than the people themselves. Did I sound like I was contemplating it for purely academic reasons? Was it a luxury I could afford to think about when so many other people cannot?

So there are times when I "don't feel right" about eating meat and others when I "don't feel right" about the idea of giving it up.

At this point, however, I have vowed to at least try.