Webinar: Beyond "Cruelty-Free": A Critical Race and Decolonial Approach to Ethical Consump

New Sistah Vegan Project Webinar:

Beyond “Cruelty-Free”: A Critical Race and Decolonial Approach to USA Ethical Consumption

Instructor: A. Breeze Harper (PhD Candidate)

Date: August 18, 2012; 10:00 am – 12:00 pm PST.

Webinar Cost: $30

Pre-requisites: Though all are welcomed to enroll, this class is for beginners who are curious about how race, class, and ableism operate within consumption philosophies. Open-mindedness and willingness to listen to ideas about privilege and power that is silenced in the mainstream vegan and alternative healthy foods rhetoric is also required.

Length: 2 hours (1 hour lecture; 1 hour for questions and discussion with your webinar mates)

Spaces left: Update as of July 25 —>6 out of 10 (If I get a lot more people interested than expected, I will offer this class more than once. Don’t worry if the spaces fill before you can register).

Technology requirements: high speed internet, web video camera, microphone. Sorry, but at this time, I don’t have technology of creating closed captions for those who are hearing impaired. However, I hope to get this in the near future. If you have no video camera that is okay. You can listen in but we won’t be able to see you. If you have a camera but don’t want to be seen , feel free to turn it off 🙂

Payment: Please enroll by sending $30 to the paypal email of breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com. Please type in the message box of the payment as “August18Webinar” and the subject heading “August18Webinar” too . Once The payment is received, you will be emailed the call in number and pass code to access the webinar. If you don’t like PayPal , send me an email and I will provide a mailing address you can send a money order or check to .

Webinar Description:

It seems like everyone is talking about ethical consumption in some way, shape, or form. And it also seems like there isn’t a universal agreement on what is ‘ethical’. Some folk think eating animals is ‘ethical’, as long as the animal didn’t suffer living in confined quarters and was ‘free range.’ Some folk think veganism is the way to go, but don’t think about the humans who may labor in cruel conditions to provide them their vegan foods, or the humans and non-human animals who are displaced to source ‘cruelty-free’ palm oil for vegan butter for example.

This webinar will help you think more critically about how you consume, why you consume, and how to alleviate suffering through mindful consumption that is pro-vegan. This webinar will acknowledge that all people are different and that due to racial, class, and geographical privileges (or lack there of), access to ‘ethical consumption’ varies; you will not be judged or shamed. I will meet you where you are at in your process.

In this pro-vegan oriented critical thinking course, I will teach you how and why you should consider how structural racism, classism, neoliberal capitalism, normative whiteness, and ableism affect what you think is ‘ethical consumption’, ‘healthy,’ and ‘perfect body.’ Upon finishing this webinar, you will have a better understanding of how to think critically about being a vegan consumer that is both mindful of non-human animal suffering and the suffering and pain that structural ‘isms’ (such as racism, sexism, etc) cause to human beings who labor throughout the food chain. You will be able to bring this information to your organizations, friends, and family in a way that is compassionate and loving, not shaming or judgmental. Though there are many human injustices that the global food economy relies on, this webinar will pay close attention to the under-represented topics of how structural racism/whiteness and ableism operate within a neoliberal and capitalist driven consumer economy in the USA. This webinar is not about finding one sole solution to ‘ethical consumption’. Instead, this webinar will help plant the seed of more critical thinking in your consciousness and allow you to then self-train yourself on how to determine what pro-vegan ethical consumption lifestyle, principles, or philosophies best suit your own social, geographical, and financial statuses. This self-training will always be a process that is neverending. You will become better at it each day; this webinar will plant the seed to get you started. For example, once you learn about the human slavery used to produced certain cocoa products, this will engender you to think about the source of your vegan cotton and research if people are exploited to produce a supposedly ‘cruelty-free’ product.

Feel free to email me at breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com if you have questions.