PETA being douchey with the ability to write big checks.
I’ve gone through cycles of carnivorous, veggie, and veganism throughout my life as I’ve struggled to learn what it means to live causing the least harm possible.
Right now I’m on what I believe to be a vegan renaissance coming into my life as my food tastes are undergoing a dramatic shift as I just got a taste bud upgrade and the new software is unprecedentedly sharp. This might have to do with quitting smoking as well. Nevertheless, I’m aware that there is a mental changing of the guards taking place and I’m letting my body lead the process in the new twists my paradigms of food and eating twirl once again.
This would be well and good but PETA has a brick and mortar location in my city of Oakland in a neighborhood that I frequent. Every time my eyes fall on their sign, I have a moment of frustration. PETA dedicates themselves to making as many people feel bad about their food choices, bodies, identities, class, gender, and pretty much anything else they can think of and their huge media reach means that lots of people have felt very bad at their hands. It’s created a view that food ethics are solely about self-righteous white people.
Oakland is a city with a lot of social justice movements inside of it. PETA may have the overwhelming share of global attention, budgeting, and common knowledge but they comprise a sliver of food justice actions taking place within the city and there is no clear reason why they have a branch office in Oakland, especially with a perpetually offensive stream of ads with unquestioned jerkwadded thinking and the quick defense that they’re just trying to raise awareness by being “provocative.”
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Filed under activism, community, culture
Tagged as activism, body shaming, ethics, food, food justice, food sovereignty, oakland, PETA, social justice movements, urban, vegan
