Many intersectional movements assume liberation rests in finding newer intersections of oppression and creating new terms to add to the lexicon of oppression. Aph Ko is a theorist and indie digital media producer, and founder of Black Vegans Rock, currently residing in Florida. This book isn’t about race or veganism, per se—the book is about the perspectives of black veganism, a construct which they describe.

Society has a very vivid idea of what a "human" is, and as such it can justify anything "below" that as an "animal". She is co-author with her sister, Syl Ko, of Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters.Enjoy” may be an unexpected word choice for a series of essays meant to challenge thought on issues of humanity connected to animality in the context of race, but I’m one of those people who loves for my ideas to be thoughtfully challenged. Now, more than ever, is the time to engage in critical thinking and an honest consideration of what is. If this kind of debate is any indication of the depth of the contemporary animal rights movement, if these are the kinds of connections we’re fighting one another and the public to make, then our movement is doomed. It also includes rituals that are perceived as distanced from nature, something as simple as eating at a table instead of on the floor.

It deconstructs Eurocentric views (aka white supremacy + colonialism) in relationship to its founding roots in animality.Where we] have to create new blueprints and imagine new ways of interacting with people and doing things. I feel strongly that, provided the speech is not damaging or hateful, you don’t have to agree with everyone something says to consider it and to give different views the chance to impact yours. Ko believes that " Racism uses animality as a vehicle to oppress any being that is not considered ‘human. That is, there was no sense in which we - human beings - were over here as perceiving subjects or knowers whereas nature was over there, a passive object to be experienced and known. People assume differences must be bad or divisive because we’ve always served up differences within hierarchical logic.

She is the founder of Black Vegans Rock and co-author of Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters. She is the author of Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out, [7] which was described by UK Center for Animal Law as "Establishing the connection between white supremacy and animal use, Ko urges a new form of resistance.Every time, their work is eye-opening, revisiting the connections between animal liberation and human liberation in a way that is as much critical as constructive and inspiring. Aph and Syl’s anti-racist and anti-speciesist framework shifts the paradigm of nonhuman and human liberation. In other words, those who are most eager to juxtapose these kinds of images or discuss how animal slavery is relavently like human, black, slavery many times are the same people who tend to be dismissive of, or resistance to, views in which animal oppression and human oppression are thought about together and in the same spaces with the aim of taking to task racism, sexism, speciesism, ableism and so on, or coloniality in general, in tandem.

For vegans or minority activists, this book should challenge, or at least provide some expanded ideas, on your views. It allowed me to be present in a conversation where, in life, my presence would change the terms of or even close down that conversation.

The same arguments we use to disregard hurting nonhuman animals today were used then - they don’t feel pain, don’t have culture, don’t have attachments to each other, don’t understand what is happening to them. Her writing challenges species-centric terminology and dominant conceptions of veganism, encouraging brave and imaginative shifts in thinking that prioritize multispecies justice. Colonialism has given us an image of the ideal human (something like a white, european, able-bodied, male) and the further you move from this point, and the more “animal” you are seen, the worse. I appreciate being challenged like that and I hope I'll be able to become a better ally with what I've learned throughout my reading. Un libro spettacolare che amplia la discussione sulla questione animale facendo un parallelismo con il razzismo.