What an absolutely fantastic Conscious Eating Conference 2020 we hosted this year! Our theme was Making Connections: Overlapping Oppressions and the caliber and content of the speakers was amazing. UPC president, Karen Davis, gave a powerful presentation on the pros and cons of comparing atrocities, noting that while every oppression is incommensurable, each unique occurrence paradoxically expresses the larger fabric of life to which no single individual or group can lay claim as the sole proprietor. Author and Activist Christopher Sebastian McJetters offered a fascinating look into the world of White National Identity and how the alt-right uses meat and animal exploitation as a calling card for nationalism.
Filmmaker Jasmine Leyva talked about her important film The Invisible Vegan exploring how, for her, veganism went from an adversarial space to a powerful force for change in her life and for the African American community. Author Carol J. Adams described how, despite the availability of multi-oppression analyses for the past 40 years, these analyses have been silenced by dominant white male discourse, a dominance that is now being, and must be, disrupted in the interest of all oppressed groups. Food Empowerment Project's lauren Ornelas challenged us to incorporate the experience of communities of color into our understanding of how we can most effectively promote the benefits of veganism and liberation for all of us.
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