PINOLE, PRIVILEGE, AND “PERCEPTICIDE:” PLANT-BASED CIVIC PROGRAMMING

In 1912 my great-great grandparents Santina and Giuseppe Sassone brought their children Marie and Nino across an ocean and a continent to build a better life for themselves and future generations. After a long boat ride through Ellis Island and a train trip from New York to California my family arrived in Pinole, California so that my great-great grandfather could work at the Hercules Powder Company (a dynamite factory). My family put down roots in Pinole, purchasing property and raising children who continued to come home after venturing out into the world to fight in World War II and/or attend college. My family’s bones rest under our little one-block long street, which I named my nonprofit after, and children now visit Quinan Street to build confidence through arts education, good food, and community. Because of this relationship to place, Pinole has been my home for my entire life and will be a part of my identity for however long I live; this is why I have decided to create an initiative in Pinole to encourage our small, locally owned restaurants to expand and improve their plant-based menu options.

In the summer of 2020 I decided there was no better time to try out a plant-based diet. It was something that had been on my mind and on my heart for quite some time as an omnivore who deeply loved and felt connected with animals. I had always assumed that veganism was for a certain kind of person and a fat Italian who loved cheese wouldn’t be able to hack it. However, because of lockdown I was cooking most of my own meals at home and was in a recipe-rut anyway. I also felt that if the changes in protein and calcium caused any health issues I would be safe at home rather than out and about teaching and performing as I did before lockdown. This anxiety was not created in a vacuum, either. My mother introduced a vegetarian diet to my family in the 1990s when it was trendy, but my memory of that time was that my immune system couldn’t handle it. While my mother did everything “right,” I still got sick every other week, my brother’s skin broke out, and my father became anemic. Before we knew it she was cooking us liver and onions to get our iron back up.

Looking back on this dietary shift in my household I realize that my mother may have done everything “right” by 1990s-Oprah-watching-Boomer-mom standards, but likely loaded us with cheese and carbs instead of nutrient-dense and nutrient-diverse foods. As Milton Mills writes in Brotha Vegan, “many nutrients, such as fibers, and a variety of essential phytonutrients can only be found in plant foods."[1] I was also nervous to alter my diet as I am a survivor of disordered eating and diet culture, so the concept of treating this as a ”diet” was not something I was interested in. Indeed, the issue of how to grapple with dietary restrictions within vegan activism is relevant across the movement, but as Alka Arora states: “it has become increasingly clear to me that an integral feminist vegan pedagogy must address issues of diet culture, body image, and fat­phobia.”[2]  

My call toward veganism was rooted in a desire to increase my compassionate and ethical relationship with animals and, through this deepened empathy, expand my spiritual connection to Mother Earth. Once I did stop consuming animal products I immediately felt this kinship with nature and all living creatures. I suddenly saw myself on the same plane as skunks, spiders, snakes, flies, deer, and every other living creature I made eye contact with. Both domesticated and free nonhuman animals became instantly friendlier toward me (including carnivores) and I firmly believe that this is because they can sense that I mean them no harm whatsoever.

Ultimately, though, what this choice has done for me as an activist is expand my embodiment of nonviolence. With no blood or tears on my plate I am now more deeply filled with horror at blood and tears anywhere else. My compassion and empathy for all living creatures not only extends to my commitment to justice, freedom, and liberation for all marginalized people, but has deepened significantly. As Leela Fernandes aptly states: "A philosophy of non-violence [sic] requires a rethinking of existing conceptions of power and justice."[3] In my opinion it is important to question who is benefitting from normalizing the consumption of animal products, as the answer usually points to the 1% and not the average person.[4] While I am by no means a perfect vegan, I agree with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assessment that "There is nothing quite so effective as a refusal to cooperate economically with the forces and institutions which perpetuate evil in our communities."[5]

Regardless of why we become plant-based or vegan, the positive benefits are difficult to ignore. Between the environmental impacts and the health benefits, some people become plant-based or vegan without even thinking of the billions of animal lives they are sparing; not just nonhuman animals killed for meat, but also the billions of baby animals who will benefit from their mothers’ milk, or the chickens and other fowl who perhaps get to make a choice about whether or not they wish to be parents (let alone stay alive).[6] However, finding accessible vegan and plant-based options can still be tricky, and rather than seen as an issue of accessibility diverging from the omnivorous norm is, instead, politicized and pathologized (particularly for women).[7] For example, my hometown of Pinole has only recently begun to move toward a progressive and youthful culture. The overall culture of the City is still rooted in much of the Boomer-era citizens’ image, despite the fact that we recently had our first mayor who was under the age of 30, Black, and openly gay. The City is creeping toward progressivism in many ways, but still needs support to make lasting changes that will positively affect its citizens for generations.

As an historical Pinolean it is important to me that my hometown reflects my values and the values that I know my ancestors would share if they were here today. In their book Embodied Activism: Engaging the Body to Cultivate Liberation, Justice, and Authentic Connection--A Practical Guide for Transformative Social Change Dr. Rae Johnson outlines the concept of “percepticide” as “a term used to describe the mechanism through which oppressive social forces require us to deny the truth of our senses in the face of chronic or pervasive threat.”[8] It is my belief that the dominant omnivorous culture not only suffers from percpeticide, but commits it, as well. For example, if your local restaurants do not visibly offer vegan or plant-based foods it would be an easy assumption to make that being vegan is inaccessible. But to someone awakening to their senses, as Johnson encourages, and to the harm done by the animal agriculture industry, it can leave the sensitive soul reeling from the realization that this percepticide has been penetrating their awareness for their whole life.[9]

This is all to say that I do not anticipate turning my entire town vegan. As we know from activists who have come before us people tend to get defensive before they enter the learning phase. As Fernandes illustrates:

In other words, one of the main difficulties of teaching about these issues is that the students' resistance to addressing such questions often stems from an implicit identification with the structures and privileges being questioned even as they claim that they want to transcend them. What I mean by this is that the confrontation of one's own personal privilege only produces resistance or discomfort if one identifies with or is attached in some way to that privilege.[10]While Fernandes is more explicitly talking about facilitating a space where students may begin to dismantle their own white/financial/other privilege, this concept still applies to those benefitting from the privilege of being able to walk into any restaurant and eat any item they like.

By employing these ethical frameworks I have decided to spearhead an initiative in partnership with the City of Pinole to support local, small businesses to expand, label, and improve their vegan and plant-based offerings. With the partnership and collaboration of Pinole Community Development Director, Lilly Whalen, and Sustainability Project Manager, Kapil Amin this initiative is going to add visibility to the positive benefits of increasing plant-based foods in a person’s diet and highlight the ways that our small businesses may already be participating without realizing it. Working with the app Happy Cow and their standards for naming and highlighting vegan and vegetarian options on their app we are going to encourage our locally owned small restaurants to expand their minds and techniques to be more accommodating and inclusive.[11]

Drawing upon inspiration from Johnson, Fernandes, King, and the activists at BeautifulTrouble.org, I have been attending the Pinole Farmer’s Market to connect with the community and collect data that will be presented to local restaurant owners.[12] After only one Saturday morning shift I have met gourmet mushroom growers who would love to partner with our restaurants, an elder who has been cooking plant-based for decades and would be willing to share tips and tricks, and a couple who lives on Quinan Street whose doctors have been advising them to cut back on meat and dairy. I also had the pleasure of engaging with a city council member who had serious questions about her perceptions of veganism in relation to her history as an indigenous Latina woman. Thankfully I had the tools and resources to communicate my own anti-colonial stance and the difference between being in harmony with nature and taking a life for food versus the senseless murders happening in factory farms. This explanation seemed to resonate with the councilor.

Overall, I am grateful for the opportunity to take on this project. I am passionate about the positive effects of veganism on the planet and humanity and I am thrilled to be able to share this piece of my own spiritual activist pedagogy with my hometown community.

Bibliography

Akhtar, Aysha. Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies. Simon and Schuster, 2019.

Arora, Alka. “Pedagogy of the Consumed: An Integral Feminist Lens on Veganism in Higher Education.” Feminist Animal and Multispecies Studies, 2024, 143.

Beautiful Trouble. “Beautiful Trouble,” June 19, 2024. https://beautifultrouble.org.

Boyd, Colin. “The Nestlé Infant Formula Controversy and a Strange Web of Subsequent Business Scandals.” Journal of Business Ethics 106, no. 3 (March 1, 2012): 283–93.

Fernandes, Leela. Transforming Feminist Practice : Non-Violence, Social Justice, and the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism. 1st ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2003.

“Find Vegan & Vegetarian Restaurants Near Me - HappyCow.” Accessed November 5, 2024. https://www.happycow.net/.

Fraser, Heather, and Nik Taylor. “Women, Anxiety, and Companion Animals: Toward a Feminist Animal Studies of Interspecies Care and Solidarity.” In Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness, edited by Carol J Adams. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2018.

Johnson, Rae. Embodied Activism: Engaging the Body to Cultivate Liberation, Justice, and Authentic Connection--A Practical Guide for Transformative Social Change. North Atlantic Books, 2023.

King Jr, Martin Luther. “Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom.” In A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr, edited by James Melvin Washington, 54–61. HarperOne, 1991.

Mills, M.D., Milton. “A Sacred Obligation.” In Brotha Vegan: Black Men Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society, edited by Omowale Adewale. Lantern Publishing & Media, 2021.

Stanescu, Vasile, and James Stanescu. “The Personal Is Political: Orthorexia Nervosa, the Pathogenization of Veganism, and Grief as a Political Act.” In Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness, edited by Carol J Adams. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2018.

[1]. Mills, M.D., Milton “A Sacred Obligation,” in Brotha Vegan: Black Men Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society, ed. Omowale Adewale (Lantern Publishing & Media, 2021), 94.

[2]. Arora, Alka, “Pedagogy of the Consumed: An Integral Feminist Lens on Veganism in Higher Education,” Feminist Animal and Multispecies Studies, 2024, 161.

[3]. Leela. Fernandes, Transforming Feminist Practice : Non-Violence, Social Justice, and the Possibilities of a Spiritualized Feminism, 1st ed. (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2003), 17.

[4]. Boyd, Colin, “The Nestlé Infant Formula Controversy and a Strange Web of Subsequent Business Scandals,” Journal of Business Ethics 106, no. 3 (March 1, 2012): 283–93.

[5]. King Jr, Martin Luther ,“Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom,” in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr, ed. James Melvin Washington (HarperOne, 1991), 54–61.

[6]. Akhtar, Aysha, Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies (Simon and Schuster, 2019).

[7]. Heather Fraser and Nik Taylor, “Women, Anxiety, and Companion Animals: Toward a Feminist Animal Studies of Interspecies Care and Solidarity,” in Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness, ed. Carol J Adams (Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2018); Vasile Stanescu and James Stanescu, “The Personal Is Political: Orthorexia Nervosa, the Pathogenization of Veganism, and Grief as a Political Act,” in Animaladies: Gender, Animals, and Madness, ed. Carol J Adams (Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2018).

[8]. Rae Johnson, Embodied Activism: Engaging the Body to Cultivate Liberation, Justice, and Authentic Connection--A Practical Guide for Transformative Social Change (North Atlantic Books, 2023).

[9]. Johnson, 49.

[10]. Fernandes, 29

[11]. “Find Vegan & Vegetarian Restaurants Near Me - HappyCow,” accessed November 5, 2024, https://www.happycow.net/.

[12]. “Beautiful Trouble,” Beautiful Trouble, June 19, 2024, https://beautifultrouble.org.