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.
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Most veganism is coming from the experiences of those living in a modern, industrial society, completely removed from where food comes from. It comes from people trying to close that distance and being shocked by what they find. And it is awful. The way we treat livestock needs to change, and that's something I think everyone here agrees on, vegan or not.
But there's another side to things. Humans are animals. We are naturally part of an ecosystem, fulfill our needs by taking fron that ecosystem, and we change that ecosystem to suit out needs. In this context, humans hunting and eating meat is no different than a wolf or bear doing so.
I'm a vegetarian. In my life, I don't think eating meat can be justified. However, not everyone has my life. I can't expect other people to come to the same conclusions I do when their relationship to food and to the natural world are completely alien to me.
Somewhere between those two points, early human ancestors and industrialised farming and slaughter, I think there's a line to be drawn where our relationship to other animals becomes unnatural, exploitative, and downright evil. I don't know where it is. Is the invention of horticulture when we lost the right to kill? The industrial revolution? Was domestication a mistake? Can we include animals in our economy at all? Should we separate ourselves from nature entirely? What's exploitation and what's symbiosis? Does the act of pondering these questions leave us with obligations other animal species lack?
It's hard to answer these questions even for yourself, but then trying to impose your answers onto others becomes problematic because you came up with your answers in a completely different context.