Book Review: Antiracism in Animal Advocacy

Image: The cover of the book is on a white background and centers the profile of a person from the top of the shoulder to the middle of their head. They have short cropped hair and dark brown skin barely showing through the image contained within. Inside the borders of the partial profile is a landscape of a green hillside with a group of humans of various racial backgrounds, 3 brown and white cows, and two pink pigs shown from the side walking up and down the hill. Across the top in small uppercase dark grey letters is "The Encompass Essays" with "encompass" in green. Below that in larger grey letters is "Antiracism in animal advocacy." Below that in small green letters is, "igniting cultural transformation." In the lower right corner of the cover in alternating grey and green text lines is, "Jasmin Singer, Editor. Foreword by Aryenish Birdie. Afterword by Michelle Rojas-Soto."

 Antiracism in Animal Advocacy, released in September from Lantern Press, is a tough book to review. This is not because it's a horrible book or anything, but it goes in a lot of directions that made me wonder who the best audience was for it. It is a collection of essays tackling racism and white supremacy all too present in white dominated sectors of animal rights activism. I admit I initially missed the text at the top telling the reader these are "The Encompass Essays," so I did not realize until I began reading that all of the essays would be from people involved with the organization Encompass. I am generally out of touch with all of the nonprofits out there as there are so many, but Encompass' goals seem very important and noble to try to achieve. Not everyone in this text is included on the website, but judging from the entries, all of them are or were involved in helping Encompass achieve goals of better racial inclusion in animal advocacy movements. 

Around half of the essays in the book are by self identified Black, Indigenous, & People of the Global Majority (BIPGM,) which is one of the things that makes it difficult to categorize. Because the burden of tackling white supremacy should rest on the shoulders of white people, and mainstream animal advocacy movements with the most funding are dominated by white people, sharing essays by white animal advocates discussing their antiracist journeys and practices make sense. And it is true that the representation of BIPGM in this book is much better than in animal rights organizations in the west at large. But, I wouldn't recommend essays by white folks to people who already experience racism and know what it is unless they are interested in knowing which white folks are at least working at it. At the same time, the contributions by BIPGM are stellar and I believe most if not all people of various backgrounds could benefit from their wisdom, if only for the sense of comradery. Perhaps I should just let go of my love of boxes and let this book exist outside of one. If you're white, especially if you are new to committing to truly fight racism and white supremacy within and outside of yourself, you should read this book. If you're BIPGM, you may want to stick with the half of the book written by BIPGM and even then, they may be sharing things you already know from personal experience.

 I've done a bit of the never ending work of learning about and fighting racism both within myself and systemically. (I have much more to do.) Thus, I found the dominance of white voices in this to be a little disappointing. However, if I think of myself around 15-20 years ago- embarrassingly ignorant of so many of these issues and how entrenched they are in my life and the world at large- I can see myself benefiting from these essays immensely back then. With all of this in mind, I'd say the people that need to read this book the most are the white folx who are still in the early phases of their awakening. In the promotional quotes for the book listed in the beginning, Omowale Adewale calls this collection, "an excellent springboard for white people and their entities to do antiracist work while strengthening the infrastructure of the animal advocacy community." That sums it up quite well.

I do have some criticisms of how some of the entries by white people come off as shallow in terms of their goals, particularly one essay by Rachel Huff-Wagenborg that is basically a list about how she'll think about and challenge her white privilege as the action points she's taking. That's less than the bare minimum. Michelle Graham rightfully acknowledges the racism in the "effective altruism" movement, but does not criticize EA itself for being notoriously ineffective in their research and implementation, funneling large amounts of money into already wealthy (often white) organizations (who of course are more "effective" than small ones because they are rich.) I admit it has been some time since I looked into how they operate, so perhaps they are better at this than they were years ago. Other white authors like Cailen LaBarge do a better job of discussing both personal and systemic issues and how to tackle them both. 

I especially appreciated authors of multiple racial backgrounds bringing up the shameful issue of organizations going after farm workers and not the farm owners and operators, often doing Purdue and Hormel's PR work for them by allowing the blame to fall on "bad apples" whose behaviors they "don't condone" despite literally inventing them. To add fuel to the systemic fire, they end up laying misdemeanor or felony charges at the feet of people already so down and out that they're doing some of the most traumatic, dangerous, and dirty work in the world. Overall I would have liked to see less talk about personal privilege from middle to owning class white people (whose experiences also don't translate often to many poorer or multiply marginalized white people) and more discussion overall of systemic issues and how to fight them.

The best essays in the collection are that of Malina Tran, Dana McPhall, Christopher Eubanks, and Michelle Rojas-Soto. My book is littered with page flags here and I will not include long quotes so as to hopefully entice you to go out and grab a copy of the book and read the full essays. All of their entries bring great depths of understanding as well as giving the gift of vulnerability in sharing their personal experiences with these issues as well. These, and other BIPGM in the book are people that not only have been fantastically active animal advocates, but they have done so while navigating the immense barriers placed before them by racism in white dominant animal rights groups and movements. Readers- especially white ones- should read these entries and realize not only how incredibly horrific and unjust it is that our movements for all animals often exclude the most marginalized of humans, but also realize just how much we are all missing out on by excluding them. Everyone benefits from dismantling white supremacy. Yes, everyone. 

I acknowledge the hypocrisy in devoting much of this review to critiquing white essays while complaining that too much time is spent on white people in this book. This is all very messy and I don't have easy solutions. Like many authors state, there is no perfect way to do this and there is no way to do this without failing at times. Being uncomfortable is a good thing as a white person fighting racism. Don't run from it.

I think Jasmin Singer did a decent job editing the collection overall. While I have criticisms of the demographics, I don't have an easy solution. 2 books divided into BIPGM and white accomplices? That would come with its own set of issues. Perhaps this book is right where it should be- a bit of something for everyone. Anthologies often are that way. The editors and authors of this book never claim to have all of the answers. I think this book is a valuable contribution to these ongoing conversations and the actions that hopefully grow from them. I wonder what my activism would have looked like had I been handed a book like this 20 years ago. 

This was also posted to my goodreads.