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Are white animal rights advocates who promote veganism inherently racist by not taking into account different cultures’ perspectives on animals? Are non-white people who argue that meat is a part of their tradition being speciesist?
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I’ll state upfront that I am a white-skinned (half-Persian by birth), queer, feminist vegan who advocates for animal rights and ethical veganism in my writing for both niche and mainstream media, and recognise that anything I say is coming from a position of white and class privilege and white racialised consciousness.

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Sydney hosted its first major feminist conference in 15 years in April 2010. Many of us attending believed the catering for such a conference should be vegan so as to avoid supporting an industry that relies on not only the killing of predominantly female animals (meat) but the control of the reproductive systems of female non-humans (dairy, eggs) – more on why animal rights are a feminist issue is set out in my article here.

Some people said that this would deter both Indigenous and other people of colour from attending and would show a lack of respect for many people of colour whose traditions and cultures involved eating meat. Some said that doing this was racist. Others, including me, countered with saying they were in turn being speciesist. This dialogue continued on the online forums along these lines.

Many women (majority white, but not all of them) approached me and other animal rights advocates after the conference to say they believed feminist and activist conferences should be catered vegan but were afraid to say so publicly lest they be labeled racist, and that arguments against this were speciesist.

Meanwhile the anti-racism and other social justice campaigners, both white and people of colour, were left with the impression that animal rights activists and vegans are a bunch of insensitive imperialists with little or no regard for marginalised people of colour.