Congregational Study Action Item (CSAI): Dismantling Intersectional Oppression

submitted by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Lowcountry – Bluffton, South Carolina
December 28, 2017

Contact Person: Carla Golden – carlagolden [at] hargray.com – (843) 816-6179

Click: Dismantling Intersectional Oppression – CSAI full text

Issue: “Systemic injustices intersect across environment, race, gender and all other forms of oppression. Identifying the underlying mechanisms which enable systemic and intersecting injustices enables us to mitigate their harm. Intersectional justice calls us to work together across oppressions and become a movement of movements.”

Click: Supporting Resources – full text

Click: UUA.org CSAI page

• Thursday, June 21st 4:30-5:30pm Proposed Congregational Study Action Issues for 2018-2022 in Conventional Hall 2215A

• Friday, June 22nd 1:30-3:30 pm CSAI vote during General Session IV

• Please visit the First Principle Project/One Earth Conservation booth #424 for more information and conversation

CSAI Introduction to be delivered at UUA General Assembly June 2018 – 2 minute limitation

This CSAI is a call to expand our determined focus on solving the problem of white supremacy to include solving the problem of human exceptionalism. Historically being fully human has meant being fully white, male, wealthy, abled-bodied and heterosexual. Anyone of any other color, gender, class, ability, or sexuality was deemed inferior, less than human, subhuman, 3/5 human, savage, or animal. This unscientific “human vs. animal” scale of privilege and oppression is rooted in America’s 400-year old Eurocentric patriarchal system of domination. Maligning people with animals is one way oppressors justify actions of power and exploitation.

White supremacy intersects with human exceptionalism and both share a core oppression of domination. For example, our enormous industrial capitalistic food system results in food disparity (1), negative health outcomes (2), environmental injustices (3), domestic and substance abuse (4)(5), and economic slavery (6) at rates disproportionately higher for people of color and the poor because commodifying and consuming nonhuman animals flow from a domination mindset. As long as we maintain a demand for exploited nonhuman animals, we will uphold intersecting systems of domination.

This CSAI is a call to go wider and deeper with science and compassion into the interdependent web of all existence to seek holistic intersectional justice for every being. We need not accept a forced choice between protecting people or animals when the shared bedrock of intersected oppressions can be fractured by expanding the strategy of intersectional justice and liberation for all.

Trailblazing Activists of Holistic Intersectional Justice:

Aph Ko & Syl Ko, authors of Aphro-ism

“What separates the “human Others” from the “Ideal Human” and what distinguishes the human Others from each other is their ranking on the human-animal scale. I don’t think it’s apparent to most of us that the notions of “human” and “animal” are racially constituted. The racial hierarchy tracks not just a color descent but also a species descent. At the top of the hierarchy sits the white male human and at the bottom sits the shady and necessarily opposite figure of “the animal.” These two poles signify two contrary moral statuses – the closer your category is to the white male human, the more you “matter.” The closer your category is to the shady, vague “animal,” the less you “matter.” The organizing principle for racial logic lies in the human-animal divide, wherein the human and the animal are understood to be moral opposites. With these poles set in place those who authored this system placed themselves in the former position and from there divided humanity along a spectrum that went all the way “down” to the “animal.” This model of the human is still in use today. So in black reappropriation movements, activists effectively begin to disrupt the modern, imperialistic understanding of humanity. But because they leave the foundation untouched, the dismantling can never be complete. We need to go beyond the racial categories and subvert their anchor: the human-animal divide.” Syl Ko

“”Animal” is a category that we shove certain bodies into when we want to justify violence against them, which is why animal liberation should concern all who are minoritized, because at any moment you can become an “animal” and be considered disposable. If the dominant class is lying about black folk – telling everyone that we’re lazy, that we have no culture, and so forth – imagine what they have invented about animals: that they can’t feel pain, God put them here for us to eat, they have no culture, and so on. As long as animals are oppressed, a long as “animal” mean something degrading, we will never be set free. The inferiorized should be the authors of the change because we have an intimate understanding of what it means to be the subhuman aggregate.” Aph Ko

 

Dr. Breeze Harper, author of Sistah Vegan

“I’d like to say Sistah Vegan is not about veganism. It’s about using veganism as a platform to explore the intersections of structural racism, sexism, classism, and capitalism, and how it plays out in the lives of mostly black women.

For me, it’s questioning how capitalism has colonized our minds. Depending on what type of situation you’re in, most of us have given up that agency to so-called experts who don’t care about our health and care more about profit.

I remember there were times when I didn’t understand that certain things—like dandelions, nettles, and burdock—are not actually weeds. What are the politics of naming something a weed, and how do these social constructions benefit biopharmaceuticals? What does it mean for me to decolonize my mind and realize these are really cheap, accessible holistic herbs that I can use in place of toxic and damaging things that women or young girls are taught to consume when they have menstrual cramps? That I can do chamomile over Advil? Just thinking about these things is what it means to decolonize.

From that point, looking at my own specific geographical, social, financial location, how do I start to make myself healthy in a way that doesn’t support neoliberalism and neocolonialism? Which, of course, is not 100 percent [achievable] because by default, just being here, I do benefit from those systems. I think it’s about mindfulness and awareness: being aware of the extent I should take care of my own needs, but also not exploiting others, the environment, and nonhuman animals. I’m trying to find that balance.” Redefined Palate: Sistah Vegan Project’s Breeze Harper Dishes on Mindful Eating

“Yes, my brothas and sistahs in the United States, even if you’re one of the many human beings on the planet who aren’t concerned with nonhuman animals rights at this point in your antiracism and antipoverty praxis and spiritual path, your consumption of unsustainably produced animal products may not only be increasing your chances for cancer, obesity, and heart disease, you may be (in)directly oppressing and causing suffering to people who look just like you. I was astounded to learn that the poor and people of color have a much higher chance and likelihood of suffering and dying simply because they don’t have rightful access to clean water, water that has been polluted and/or misused for our American addiction to flesh foods.” Dr. Harper in Sistah Vegan

 

Brenda Sanders, founder of Afro-Veganism

“Rejecting animal products is a rejection of the current food systems that are specifically targeting black people with unhealthy, processed animal products that are a major contributor to the health disparities that exist in our communities.

The systems that are currently commodifying animals’ bodies for profit have a direct connection to the exploitative systems that have commodified human bodies for profit around the world both historically and in the present day.

Discontinuing our financial support of animal agribusiness is a major step towards taking responsibility for the displacement of indigenous rainforest communities, mass species extinction and environmental degradation directly connected to the animal agriculture industries.

Every one of the animal use industries – from food and clothing to entertainment and animal testing – ALL include some form of brutal and perverted practices that most of us would find disgusting and want nothing to do with if we knew about them.” Brenda Sanders, What is Afro-Veganism?

 

Tracye McQuirter, MPH, author and founder of By Any Greens Necessary and featured in The Invisible Vegan film

 

[A free screening of this film, hosted by Hip Hop is Green KC, Organic Soul KC, and VegLife, is being shown in Kansas City on Saturday, June 23rd at 2pm just blocks from the GA location. More info and free tickets HERE.]

“And it’s important to note that just as there were 313 extrajudicial killings of black people in 2012, there were more than 300,000 preventable deaths of black people in 2010 caused by diet-related chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, and hypertensive disease.

This is not a comparison game. Rather, it’s a reminder that unhealthful diets are a social justice and human rights issue, as well, since there are state-sanctioned reasons that low-income African Americans, in particular, do not have access to healthful foods.” Keep Eating for Activism

“Our Black Student Union brought Dick Gregory—the global human rights activist and Civil Rights Movement icon—to campus to talk about the state of black America, but, instead, he decided to talk about the plate of black America. About the health, politics, economics, and culture of what we ate, and why we should become vegetarians. Though it wasn’t yet called “intersectionality,” discussing the interconnectedness of the myriad issues facing African Americans was the norm—and, for Dick Gregory, food was part of that conversation.

Dick Gregory continued his activism throughout the next three decades, supporting a wide range of causes, including equal rights for women, Native American rights, rights for people living with disabilities, and protesting police brutality, the prison industrial complex, and nuclear weapons.” This Civil Rights Activist Is the Reason I’ve Been Vegan for 30 Years

 

lauren Ornelas, founder of Food Empowerment Project

 

“One of my motivations for starting Food Empowerment Project was my frustration with animal rights activists who did not like me talking about the suffering of human animals in various industries, including chocolate, when I was asked by interviewers if animal rights people only cared about the suffering of non-human animals.

My passions were also stirred when I went to speak at the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela, and realized so many issues that I also cared about, such as workers, the environment, indigenous rights, immigration, etc., were all related to food. I wanted to have an organization that strove for justice in all of these areas.” lauren Ornelas, Food Is Power

 

Julia Feliz Bruek, founder of Veganism of Color and editor of Veganism in an Oppressive World: A Vegans of Color Community Project

“Vegans of color exist, and we stand against all oppression. Our oppression is connected to nonhuman oppression, and we will not find liberation as long as nonhumans remain otherized and used to otherize people of color.

Veganism of color rejects speciesism in addition to anti-blackness, colorism, racism, xenophobia, ableism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and all other -“isms”. Consistent anti-oppression, inclusive of nonhumans and anti-speciesism, in the social justice spectrum is a must if we are going to successfully create a just world.”

Citations

1. Food Deserts by the Food Empowerment Project

“Food deserts are most commonly found in communities of color and low-income areas (where many people don’t have cars). Studies have found that wealthy districts have three times as many supermarkets as poor ones do, that white neighborhoods contain an average of four times as many supermarkets as predominantly black ones do, and that grocery stores in African-American communities are usually smaller with less selection.”

2. Biased Food Guidelines Ignore African Americans by Dr. Milton Mills

“The consequences of weak and racially biased dietary policies are not just higher health care bills, but also preventable suffering and lost human potential. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans must be much stronger and sensitive to the health needs of ethnic and racial minorities.”

3. Environmental Racism by the Food Empowerment Project

“Typically found in communities of color and low-income communities, industrial polluters such as landfills, trash incinerators, coal plants, and toxic waste dumps affect the well-being of residents. The food industry, with its factory farms and slaughterhouses, can also be considered a major contributor of pollution that affects the health of communities of color and low-income communities, because more often than not they locate their facilities in the areas where these people live.

Among the corporations that harm the environment and the health of communities of color and low-income communities are those that run industrial pig farms. Research has shown that these pig farms are responsible for both air and water pollution, mostly due to the vast manure lagoons they create to hold the enormous amount of waste from the thousands of pigs being raised for food. Residents who live near these factory farms often complain of irritation to their eyes, noses, and throats, along with a decline in the quality of life and increased incidents of depression, tension, anger, confusion, and fatigue.”

4. Slaughterhouse Workers by the Food Empowerment Project

“Like other divisions of agriculture, slaughterhouse and “meat”-processing workers are predominantly people of color living in low-income communities. Historically, a significant percentage of the workforce has been African American. In recent decades, an influx of Latin American workers has been seen across the country, partially due to active recruiting by the corporations. Today, approximately 38% of slaughterhouse and “meat”-processing workers were born outsideof the U.S..”

5. The Psychological Damage of Slaughterhouse Work by PTSD Journal

“Slaughterhouse workers face a variety of physical strains and dangers on the job, but there is increasing evidence that mental suffering occurs as well. These employees are hired to kill animals, such as pigs and cows, that are largely gentle creatures. Carrying out this action requires workers to disconnect from what they are doing and from the creature standing before them.

This emotional dissonance can lead to consequences such as domestic violence, social withdrawal, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and PTSD. There is also evidence that this work leads to increased crime in towns with slaughterhouse factories.”

6. Poor Health: When Poverty Becomes Disease by Clair Conway at the University of California San Francisco

““So, cyclically, poverty leads to poor health and poor health leads to poverty,” says Bibbins-Domingo, who holds the Lee Goldman, MD, Endowed Chair in Medicine. “If that cycle happens across generations, then you are talking about major, seemingly intractable effects on communities living in poverty.””

Footnote

Clean Meat is an emerging technological innovation that crafts meat from cells rather than animals. “Rather than obtaining meat from animals raised on environmentally destructive factory farms and slaughtered in filthy slaughterhouses, clean meat is produced by taking a small sample of animal cells and replicating them in a culture outside of the animal. The resulting product is 100 percent real meat, but without the antibiotics, E. coli, salmonella, or waste contamination – all of which come standard in conventional meat production.” Learn more from The Good Food Institute at CleanMeat.org