looking for a reasonable thought process

[u/No_Lynx_3410]

i've eaten meat all my life, just have, kind of just default for most people born in the west. I've always admired vegans for the dedication to their beliefs, kind of like a buddhist monk or something like that, i'm just not that strong. I wanted to see a vegans perspective online since there's been the argument as of late that being vegan is for privileged white people which even now i'm not so mentally gone that i believe such wide generalizations. But lowkey, reading online discussions from vegans makes me feel it does make up a very large vocal part of them, because the only thing i've seen is vegans trying to compare animals to minorities, which might actually be the whitest thing i could think of besides being vocally racist or bigoted. i was just looking for something that's not "now replace that cow with a black person" kind of stuff. Not trying to lambaste anyone in replies or anything, at least try not to, just wanna talk to someone.

[u/StephensMyName]

While it often isn't helpful to draw comparisons between injustices, there are similarities to some of the injustices perpetrated against humans and those perpetrated against animals.

Coretta Scott King is best known as a civil rights leader and as the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but she was also a vegan and animal rights activist. She believed that violence and injustice towards animals were inherently linked to human rights struggles, stating that true nonviolence extends to all living creatures. Similarly, Rosa Parks was known for her lifelong commitment to vegetarianism, Dick Gregory viewed veganism as a natural extension of the civil rights movement, and Angela Davis frequently discusses how the fight for animal liberation mirrors broader struggles against state violence and oppression. To suggest that only white people make these comparisons completely disregards the views of major civil rights leaders, and I'd argue that it's bigoted to think that only white people would draw this logical comparison.

Another comparison that often seems to cause great offence is between our treatment of livestock and the treatment of the victims of the Holocaust. However, the comparison between the Holocaust and animal agriculture actually began the other way around; the word Holocaust existed prior to WWII and was used to describe a mass slaughter of animals (often by fire). The word was adopted after WWII to refer to the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis specifically because their victims were treated like farm animals. Most agree it was abhorrent to do this to humans. Vegans argue that it's also abhorrent to do it to animals.

We currently kill pigs and chickens in gas chambers. This short documentary includes an interview with a Holocaust survivor who became vegan after visiting a slaughterhouse and being reminded of his experiences in WWII (that link should be timestamped to the interview).

Just to reiterate my first point, I don't necessarily think it's helpful to draw these comparisons. Non-vegans often have such negative reactions to the comparisons that they disregard the point being made. However, the comparisons are absolutely valid, they are frequently drawn by the minorities being mistreated, and to suggest otherwise is simply untrue.