Book Review: Brotha Vegan

 

Image: The cover of the book is a Kelly Green background with an illustration of a medium brown skinned Black man standing to the right side. He is shown from the waist up and is holding a large basket of fresh fruits and vegetables. His t-shirt is also kelly green with a stencil of a raised fist in a circle. He wears a brown backpack and a purple bandana around his neck. He has natural black hair a few inches long and a cropped beard. He stares into the camera with a slight smile. To the left of his head in white letters is, "Brotha Vegan: Black men speak on food, identity, health, and society." Across the bottom in white letters is the editor's name: Omowale Adewale.

I finally had the opportunity to sit down and finish Brotha Vegan, edited by Omowale Adewale, and I will spare you the reasons for my delay. I want to start by saying that this is a book I am cautious about reviewing as a white vegan. Part of that is because this book, like Sistah Vegan that preceded it a ways back, is in part created to reclaim the narrative centering white vegan voices- especially those who tell Black vegans how they are allowed to discuss their lives and experiences with veganism. I also don't want to infantilize or treat Black vegans as incapable of being human or criticized. So, I am going to do my best and stay open to criticism myself.

Brotha Vegan was initially an effort by Breeze Harper intended to be published soon after Sistah Vegan, but many things got in her way and it never came to be. Luckily, Omowale Adewale picked up the torch as editor many years later, allowing it to be published today. I was very excited to pick up this book as soon as I heard about it.

One of the first things I will say is that the definition of vegan that I personally follow is an amalgamation of the vegan society's definition of avoiding all animal exploitation as far as is possible and practicable and an expansion based on tenets of collective liberation- meaning I see it as a social justice movement intertwining human and nonhuman animals. I do not believe any of these things can be divided from one another if something is called veganism. Not everyone agrees with that- including many authors in this book (and many also disagree with one another.) So, I admit that with the first few essays of this book, I struggled to power through. They focused mainly on plant based diets for health and weight loss. While I agree health is is a critical element in the equation, especially involving food justice aspects and healthcare empowerment, these discussions often teeter dangerously into the realms of making sweeping unsubstantiated claims based on anecdotes, ableism including the erasure of chronically ill and disabled vegans, and general fat antagonism (that also erases fat vegans.) The editor does acknowledge that there is ableism in vegan communities in the introduction and thus I assume he knows the danger in the texts. His goal is to foster conversation about these things rather than to offer a bible of perfection, which is definitely fair. I also can't get behind veganism without any inclusion of other animals, so I notice when there is no mention of them whatsoever. 

In the beginning, there is also an interview with brilliant food justice advocate and vegan chef Bryant Terry where I immediately got excited, only to find it cut off after only a few questions. After this, is a much longer interview with a man who basically claims that CBD cures cancer based on an anecdote and I began feeling frustrated. I asked myself if the Sistah Vegan book I got so much from was like this as well. I know there was at least one anti-vaxxer in there, but overall I recall it being quite enlightening. Did I just not remember due to it being so long ago?

I believe I answered my own question when I got to the entry that is a conversation between Dr Breeze Harper and Dr Ietef Vita. I was immediately taken back to how her writing has affected me over the years and the conversation between these two was lovely and stimulating to read. So, there was definitely something special about Sistah Vegan that I was having trouble grabbing at in Brotha Vegan at first.

I did appreciate that there was a gay contributor and a genderqueer trans person often read as male. The editor is the first person to really tackle the direct inclusion of nonhuman animals in his entry. But, Kezekial McWhinney-StLouis- the genderqueer contributor- is the first to mention oppression of animals as their primary motivation. I immediately became excited to hear all about what veganism meant to a Black, fellow genderqueer trans person. I was dismayed to find that the interview was almost entirely the same generic questions cis people ask trans people about their transition and gender. Some of them were worded more respectfully, but I honestly held my breath wondering if they'd ask invasive below the belt questions which is often where these things go. The interviewer thankfully did not. Kezekial brings up animals and their ethical veganism more than once, but for the most part, the interviewer keeps going back to their transition and trans women being murdered and so on. It's one thing when a trans person decides to write something about being trans, but this was not that. I left knowing very little about their veganism and found that to be really disappointing. I looked them up online but could not find much from them, so this was a missed opportunity to put their way of looking at the issue out there and instead was a nonbinary trans 101 for cis people.

I am glad I stuck with this book though because it really improves as it goes along. It almost seems as if they chose to keep more simplistic entries in the beginning and move on to the more complex vegan entries as it went along. With the exception of the entry by a former police officer- who, while acknowledging Black folks bad relationships with police, still manages to defend cops and policing as a whole- I liked almost all of these entries even when they veered into dangerous aforementioned territory. I would have loved to hear from a Black disabled and/or chronically ill vegan or two who were dealing with illnesses and disabilities not reversed, cured, or mostly healed by veganism. I'm a long-time vegan on permanent disability due to multiple conditions (some mentioned by people in these essays as being reversible by veganism.) So, those voices are missing, but many others are present and it was really interesting to read all of the perspectives out there.

I particularly liked Milton Mills' piece, but not for the reasons people often focus on him. He's a medical doctor actually trained in nutrition, but what I enjoyed most were his statements on the importance of redefining masculinity and what it means to be a man in resistance to the eurocentric and colonialist toxic masculinity forced upon us. His discussions about how Black men are only allowed to be villains or objects of sexuality and entertainment were very important to the wider discussion of veganism. I really wish he would have included citations though because he makes a ton of health claims from studies without citing sources. Other contributors definitely include sources, so I am not sure why he decided not to. A couple of things he mentioned are things I have had since before veganism and for me, they were not solved by plant based eating, thus I am interested in reading the studies themselves. But, my own experience doesn't take away from his really well rounded and accessible way of describing the ways that environmental racism, white patriarchy, food insecurity, healthcare inaccessibility, oppression of animals, and so on intersect with each other in discussions of veganism.

Both members of dead prez get their own interviews which were both great reads. Hip hop and other music play a big role in the lives and professions of many other contributors and their veganism as well. Multiple men discuss how plant based nutrition lead to them later embracing nonhuman animals as part of the struggle- an important lesson to people (self included) when they see people attracted to plant based eating for health alone and that being equated with vegan movements as a whole. There were lovely stories such as how Dr. Anteneh Roba's fostered-then-adopted dog opened his heart and being to an entire wider world of experience and how Charles McCoy's alter ego PlantHero not only brought joy and education to his child and her classmates, but landed him an excellent job that allowed him to take his education about plants and other animals to wider lengths. There is an interesting discussion about comparisons of Black human oppression and that of other animals by BabaBrother-D B. Aammaa Nubyahn that is a topic many people are very uncomfortable with. I still believe that that is definitely a conversation to continue between Black folks- particularly Black vegans- but was interesting to read nonetheless. 

Among the conversations about health benefits of plant based eating that did not veer close ableism, we hear multiple inspiring stories about people and communities able to take control of their health and food access that white supremacist society has worked hard to rob from them. Multiple men describe not only their health improving, but their entire lifestyles and ways of looking at the world. The things shown in a lot of studies to be lessened in severity or reversible by whole foods plant based eating- type 2 diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, etc- were overtaking the lives of many contributors before plant based diet education offered them a way out or at least great relief. Many describe their medical doctors offering no nutritional education, being very ill informed about nutrition, and/or being actively hostile towards the idea of plant based nutrition. Outside of general health trends suffered by men, Black men are disproportionately affected by many due to lack of access to care but also due to straight up lies still spread in medicine passed off as fact (such as the eGFR lab tests being separate for African Americans, leading to them often not being diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in time to properly take measures to halt its progress.) Plant based eating and lifestyles have allowed people treated as disposable by these systems to take control of themselves and their communities in greater ways.

Overall, I am glad I read this book and glad I stuck with it. There are a lot of important voices and stories in here. I definitely left thinking, "I want to speak with someone about what I just read," as the editor stated as his intent in his introduction. Brotha Vegan adds a valuable volume to books I'd recommend to those seeking a world of knowledge outside of mainstream white veganism.

This was also posted to my goodreads.