BeamBrain

Carnists:
Vegans:

"Ackchyually backyard chicken eggs are vegan"
"Ackchyually honey is vegan"
"Ackchyually horseback riding is vegan"

SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU'RE NOT VEGAN AND NEVER CLAIMED TO BE, STOP TELLING ME HOW TO DO VEGANISM

Happens to me at least once a week. I'll dream I get some horrible irresistible craving and end up eating a meatball sandwich or something. Makes me feel like shit every time.

I find that, ever since going vegan, I miss dairy more than I miss meat. Sure, there are decent-to-good vegan substitutes for most dairy products out there, but I have yet to find a vegan restaurant that offers milkshakes - which is surprising to me, since they're ridiculously easy to make. So I figured I'd post the recipe I use here.

You need:

• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
• 1 pint non-dairy ice cream in the flavor you want the shake to be
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 cup crushed ice

Drop all the ingredients into a blender, set to puree, blend until you're happy with the consistency, pour into a tall glass.

This isn't a moral argument. It's a tactical one.

If you are a white vegan arguing with a carnist and that carnist brings up indigenous meat eating to associate veganism with colonialism, you may appear to be in a double bind. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to go on the attack without associating the vegan movement with colonialism and thus damaging it. But if you back down without fighting, then the carnist's point goes unchallenged, strengthening their position and weakening that of veganism.

That doesn't mean you don't have options, though. Think of the carnist's argument as a heavily fortified military strongpoint. You don't attack such a position head-on. You infiltrate. You hit it from its blind spots. You attack the weaker flanks and encircle it.

Instead of attacking indigenous people who eat meat, point out how cattle ranchers drove bison to the verge of extinction to force Native Americans to become dependent on their product. Talk about how commercial overfishing threatens the food supplies of coastal indigenous communities. Ask them about the vast portions of the Amazon being cleared for cattle grazing. Remind them of the exploited immigrants getting PTSD from their work in slaughterhouses. In short, confront them with the fact that carnism does far more to harm indigenous communities than veganism ever has or (owing to carnists having vastly more political power than we do) presently could.

All of this, of course, assumes that the person you're talking to is not indigenous. If they are indigenous, there's a good chance they'll already be sympathetic to some of your views. In fact, indigenous communities have actually been at the forefront of fighting some of the worst excesses of western carnism, such as when the Inuit got Canada and four other countries to ban commercial fishing in the Arctic. It's important to recognize that they're probably closer to our position than an average westerner, and that they're doing meaningful work to advance goals that align with our movement. No, most indigenous cultures aren't 100% vegan as we define the concept, but as Lenin said, you can't make a revolution in white gloves.

Sometimes, we eat during meetings - or rather, they eat. I can confirm from the food served and their willingness to eat it that very few, if any of them, are vegan. I always decline food but don't say why, but eventually, I'm sure someone's going to ask.

And that's the moment I've been dreading. I've been on Hexbear since it first went online. I've seen, firsthand, how much non-vegans - even the communists here, who have better politics than 99% of the people I know - fucking hate us. I'd go so far as to say at this point that I'd be more comfortable telling an average lib I'm vegan than I would a communist. At least the lib will probably just see it as a strange personal choice rather than accusing me of being a fifth columnist.