Earlier today a vegan made a post with a white supremacist dog whistle by satirizing a person who's people "have been eating dog for thousands of years". Another Indigenous person and I did our best to call out the white supremacist nature of the discussion, so the poster later edited the title to specifically reference European people, which may have been well intentioned but only served to gaslight us by making it look like we were over-reacting and looking to be offended.
I came here for the leftism, and stayed for the Trans Rights. I'm a 2-spirit, native leftist. I have myriad reasons why I may or may not choose or even have the choice of veganism and any moralizing or condescension that comes from white vegans is an extension of over 500 years of an imposition of an alien value system which is profoundly disconnected from this land and the plants and animals which are our blood relations.
Yeah that whole dog-meat thing was inadvertently validating some really racist shit too. Like I get it that it's a contradiction - for a lot of the world, but it's also not a contradiction for a lot of other people, who constantly get shit on by white people because they, or just their parents or grandparents, ate the meat of the types of animals they didn't happen to fetishize and form cultural bonds with. "What kind of barbarian would eat a dog??" is not a good leftist through-line.
I'll also say that just because some white peoples' cultural connection to meat goes as far as like, butterball turkey breast slices, doesn't mean that vegans should assume all white people have a shallow relationship to animal products.
Like, since they don't have to worry about their culture getting wiped the rest of the way out, I'm not nearly as concerned about their relationship to meat... but THEY fucking are. I wouldn't be so hurt by a lack of meat but seriously, a lot of people would rather get beaten and pissed on, than have you take their meat away. And I'm not talking about the over-intensity of white peoples' resistance to being told little things, like wearing a mask for instance. No, I mean in their hearts, the idea of mandatory veganism is worse than getting their faces pissed on. For a lot of people this too-rich diet is like the last vestige of wholesome happiness in their lives, and veganism is some omega-Bloomberg shit. "Remember- no meat, and NO SODA!"
And it's not just the food itself, it's one of the only things tying them back to anything communal or wholesome. Maybe it's fucking crazy but it's absolutely true. And in areas with hunting cultures, yeah there's mayo-brained consumerist shit sometimes but for a lot of people, they have an actual cultural practice going back, and in many cases it's the glue holding family clans together. I think it's probably right to be a vegan, but tying aggressive mandatory veganism to leftism is some bad shit. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say it's worse than tying economic equality to getting your face pissed on.
Also, so I don't do the same thing I'm criticizing - I'm talking about non-consensual face pissing. You do you.