Rundown

In this episode, Mexie talks with anti-oppressive, anti-speciesist activist and lecturer, Christopher Sebastian, about the intersections between race, class, and species. We discuss the links between speciesism and white supremacy, the ongoing bigotry and racism in vegan activism, and the connections between the Black Lives Matter uprisings and anti-speciesist activism. We end by touching on the importance of queering animal liberation, or moving away from a patriarchal and heteronormative approach to vegan activism.

Sources and Links

* Christopher Sebastian’s website: https://www.christophersebastian.info/* Christopher Sebastian on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ChristopherSebastian* Christopher Sebastian’s lecture, Race, Class and Species: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ebX07H4wM * Christopher Sebastian’s lecture, Queering Animal Liberation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkRke88QKPs* Marjorie Spiegel, The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1046666.The_Dreaded_Comparison* David Nibert, Animal Oppression and Capitalism: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Animal_Oppression_and_Capitalism_2_volum.html?id=F6UxDwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y* Patrice Jones, Queering Animal Liberation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36oPVbrU5uY

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Transcript

[MUSIC] Oh, those rich people.  Always flying off somewhere.

MEXIE:  Hey everyone, welcome to the Vegan Vanguard.  It’s Mexie and today we have a very special guest on the show.  This is someone that I have looked up to quite a lot in the movement for quite some time; the one, the only, Christopher Sebastian.  So, Christopher, welcome to the show.  Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today.

CHRISTOPHER:  I am really thrilled to be here.  Thank you so much for having me.

MEXIE:  Oh my goodness, yes.  I was just saying off-air that I’m just thrilled to be finally meeting you.  I mean, e-meeting you I guess, because yeah, I was really excited to meet you at VegFest Calgary and it didn’t work out but yeah, this is just fantastic.  For anyone who’s new or who doesn’t know who Christopher is, Christopher Sebastian is a super-rad anti-oppressive anti-speciesist activist, author, researcher, and lecturer.  He is the founder of VGN, he’s the Director of Social Media for Peace Advocacy Network, he’s on the advisory council for Encompass, and he’s a senior fellow at Sentient Media.  You can find all of his work at christophersebastian.info and on Patreon which you should definitely subscribe to because then you can join his live interactive lectures.  We’ll put those in the description box below.  I guess first off, I guess how are you?  How are things in Prague with this pandemic?

CHRISTOPHER:  Things are going pretty well for me personally, here.  But obviously the rest of the world is falling apart, so it’s — you take all of that in stride.  It’s one of the most difficult things for me.  I’m in a very privileged position because I work from home so I don’t really have to go outside at all except for to walk the d...