UC San Diego Talk: “On Being and Not Being the Wretched of the Earth” on November 30 2011

This is the talk I gave at UC San Diego on November 30, 2011. Talking about veganism, whiteness, etc. This is a chapter in progress from my dissertation in critical food geographies and critical geographies of race, which is tentatively titled, “Situating Racialization, Racisms, and Anti-Racisms: Critical Race Feminist and Socio-spatial Epistemological Analysis of Vegan Philosophy in the USA.”

This is similar to the talk I gave at Vassar College in 2011 October. However, my memory card only had 50 minutes on it and the camera didn’t record the entire Q&A for this San Diego talk.

Video available:: Afrocentrism, vegan methodology of the racially oppressed, and revolutionary black feminism

Last night I spoke at UC Berkeley, and explained the Afrocentric approach to veganism that is race-gender conscious, decolonial, and revolutionary black feminist. I did this because I wanted to explain that there are more than just Eurocentric philosophical ‘ethics’ behind why some people choose veganism. By Eurocentrism, I mean the philosophical canon of ‘ethics and animals’ that dominate the mainstream academic literature in the USA. While Eurocentric philosophy focuses on the ‘ethics’ of non-human animal consumption and non-human animal exploitation, Afrocentric veganism (through Queen Afua) focuses on how veganism becomes a decolonial tool against the unethical abduction and enslavement of Africans and the institutional of chattel slavery; an unethical institution that took away their original plant-centered dietary philosophy and “forcing” them to eat a carnicentric diet. This is what a vegan methodology of the racially oppressed can look like! Video of talk and Q&A :

Part II

If you comment in a way that is obvious you didn’t watch the video, but are “annoyed” that I am looking at race, whiteness, and decolonial theories as a way to understand vegan consciousness, I will not post your comments. For me, it simply doesn’t make sense to receive passive aggressive comments from people who don’t know anything about my work, haven’t watched the video, but then feel like they are “experts” on the subject matter and then wish to “educate” me about my “incorrect”  4+ years of dissertation research and 35 years of racialized-gendered bodily experience as a black female in the USA.  If it’s not enough that I have been “educated”  at Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and now University of California, learned how to engage in qualitative research, and document ongoing themes in vegan cultural practices (themes that are influenced by race, class, gender, whiteness, neoliberalism), then what more can I offer? (I’m being funny with educated in quotations, because of the mainstream assumption that if you just “educate” non-white folk through the “proper” Western university educational system, they will “assimilate” and agree with the perceptions of the white middle class status quo. But if they don’t, they must simply be ‘irrational’ and ‘angry’, and must be “educated more”)

Breeze Harper to speak at UC Berkeley, November 16, 2011 for Critical Animal Studies Series

 

“White Talk”, Discursive Violence, and Dysconscious Racism: From Vegan Consciousness to Vegan Commodity

Update: So far you have contributed $6900 to my “PhD finish” fund. Thank you so much! I have $3100 to go. We’re getting close! (My funding was not renewed and I couldn’t register for the past fall quarter. If you enjoy my work, you can contribute via Paypal, using the email address breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com.)

Also, this is where you contributions are going to. Below is the talk I gave at Vassar College last week (October 27, 2011). It is from chapter three of my dissertation. It’s only 1/2 of what I had written. Had I chosen to use the entire chapter, that would have been a 2 hour talk.

Part I

Part II

Sistah Vegan and “Old McDonald Had a Farm [Sanctuary]“

In this video I talk about my experience at the recent 2011 San Francisco world Veg Festival, Food Empowerment Project , my ideas about a vegan friendly nursery rhyme, updates about my funding for my dissertation , and other stuff going on in my life.

Food Empowerment Project: http://foodispower.org/

The video above talks about my funding project in brief, updating you on my campaign to get enough money to finish my dissertation: Below is the video that I recorded this past summer that talks more about this.

 

 

 

 

 

Critical Vegan Interventions: Black female slave vivisection, non-human animal experimentation, and the foundation of Western gynecology

Update: Before watching the video about “Critical Vegan Interventions: Black female slave vivisection, non-human animal experimentation, and the foundation of Western gynecology” I just wanted to say that if my work has benefited you, or you have enjoyed watching my critical race scholarship and/or health advice over the past few years, I’m wondering if you can return a favor. My fellowship to pursue critical race and critical vegan studies at the doctoral level was not renewed for 2011-2012, through University of California, Davis. I would like to finish my PhD and need some help. I know the goal may seem overwhelming, but I have about a combined support network/friends/followers of 1000 people (through Facebook, blog subscribers, and Twitter followers). If you could spare $10 to $25 a piece, then this goal could be met I think.

Paypal email donation: breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com or go to the right side top of the screen and click on donation link.

UPDATE: As of June 11, 2011:

Donated: $2230

Needed for completion of goal: $7,770

Deadline: September 2011 (so I Can register for 2011-2012 academic year)

In this video, I speak of how Black female slaves were forced to undergo ‘vivisection’ by Dr. Marion Sims, the ‘father’ of Western gynecology. I also speak of how this fits into colonizing both ‘the other’ (Non-white peoples and nature) and how vivisection on non-human animals today is connected to the interlocking system of oppression and suffering that allowed Dr. Sims to repeatedly cut into black female slave’s vagina’s (without anesthesia, remorse, or regret).

The next video is me talking about how you can help me finish my goal of completing my PhD.

Books for further explorations on these intersections:

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South

Animal Welfare and Anti-Vivisection 1870-1910: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Mission (History of Feminism)

Hood Health, Animal Defense, Feminist Ethics of Care

This video reviews the books that are adding to my epistemological foundation of intersections of animals, veganism, and critical race feminism. password to video is “hoodhealth”

(1) Carol J. Adam’s  Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals

(2) C’BS Alife Allah and Supreme Understanding’s The Hood Health Handbook: A Practical Guide to Health and Wellness in the Urban Community (Volume One)

Breeze Harper To Speak at UC Berkeley February 12, 10-11am

Breeze Harper and Sun Harper-Zahn at Sistah Vegan Book Signing, Farm Sanctuary (Orland, CA)

I will be giving the keynote talk at a UC Berkeley feminist studies oriented event on Feb. 12, 2011 , 10:00am-11:00am.

My keynote speech (and women of color caucus following) will be held at 101 Morgan Hall http://berkeley.edu/map/maps/AB23.html. The other workshops will still be taking place at Wheeler Hall if you’re interested in checking them out.

I’ll be talking about how to engage in intersectional analysis in feminist theory, using intersections of critical race theory, vegan studies, and black feminist theory as example. I’ll also be drawing on the importance of coalition building and thinking about how feminist inquiry must be tackled through understanding interlocking systems of oppressions. I’ll be reading excerpts from Sistah Vegan as well a draft chapters from my dissertation, tentatively titled: Situating Racialization, Racisms, and Anti-Racisms: Critical Race and Black Feminist Analysis of Veganism in the USA.

Breeze Harper Available for Speaking and Consulting

In the video below, I am offering my intellectual knowledge as a paid professional to lecture about diversity issues, as it relates to ethical consumption and alternative food movements in the USA. Though I am known to focus on vegan and animal rights issues, I am able to talk about the core issue of diversity and race in the USA at your school, organization, book club, or other institution. I have written two books, book chapters, and journal articles that address issues of diversity, ethical consumption, and animal rights/veganism. View CV: http://web.mac.com/sistahvegan98/research/Curriculum_Vitae.html

I am about to receive my PhD from the University of California, Davis in Critical Food Geographies. I am also available as a consultant for groups and institutions who can use my expertise as a researcher and writer to address diversity issues within ethical consumption, alternative foods, veganism, and animal rights. CLICK ON THE BLUE ‘HD’ BUTTON TO TURN HD OFF AND TO AVOID VIDEO STUTTERING IF YOU DON’T HAVE A FAST CONNECTION.

and

Click on the video on the left to hear what I offer specifically. You can always email me at my new business email: sistahvegan@gmail.com or call me on my business line: 510-564-7870

Harper’s “whiteness and speciesism” essay in forthcoming book: Sister Species

New book coming out in June 2011 that I have contributed an essay to. My essay looks at intersections of whiteness and speciesism, as well as the necessity to engage in questions of white privilege within mainstream animal rights USA.

The book is called Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice edited by Lisa A. Kemmerer. It’s available for pre-order through Amazon.com. I am excited about this book since the ‘scholarly’ books that represent the philosophies of animal rights are dominated by mostly white male academics. This book has a racially and ethnically diverse body of contributors.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO PRE-ORDER FROM AMAZON

 

From Amazon, here is the Product Description:

Sister Species: Women, Animals, and Social Justice addresses interconnections between speciesism, sexism, racism, and homophobia, clarifying why social justice activists in the twenty-first century must challenge intersecting forms of oppression. This anthology presents bold and grippingosometimes horrifyingopersonal narratives from fourteen activists who have personally explored links of oppression between humans and animals, including such exploitative enterprises as cockfighting, factory farming, vivisection, and the bushmeat trade. Sister Species asks readers to rethink how they view “others,” how they affect animals with their daily choices, and how they might bring change for all who are abused. The astonishing honesty of these contributors demonstrates with painful clarity why every woman should be an animal activist and why every animal activist should be a feminist. Contributors are Carol J. Adams, Tara Sophia Bahna-James, Karen Davis, Elizabeth Jane Farians, Hope Ferdowsian, Linda Fisher, Twyla Francois, Christine Garcia, A. Breeze Harper, Sangamithra Iyer, Pattrice Jones, Lisa Kemmerer, Allison Lance, Ingrid Newkirk, Lauren Ornelas, and Miyun Park. Lisa Kemmerer, associate professor of philosophy and religion at Montana State University, Billings, is an artist, activist, and wilderness adventurer who has travelled the world extensively. She is the author of In Search of Consistency: Ethics and Animals and Curly Tails & Cloven Hooves, a poetry chapbook. (Source: http://www.amazon.com/Sister-Species-Animals-Social-Justice/dp/025207811X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1292018808&sr=8-1)