About vegaphobia

Vegaphobia

Increasingly, there are any number of articles on Vegaphobia, a classic instance of which is exemplified by Jack Astor's attack on vegans in 2015 and in 2018, in fact marketing that vegans need Rehabilitation.

A more recent example is Hyundai mocking vegans in its Super Bowl ad.

We reference some of these articles in our sources. Vegaphobia involves an aversion toward or discrimination against vegans.

In October of 2018, a vegan journalist, Selene Nelson, and William Sitwell, the Editor of Waitrose Food magazine, got in a pickle over vegans. In a private email exchange, Sitwell offended Selene Nelson, who had advanced the invitation to do a "plant-based meal series" to Sitwell for the Waitrose Food magazine -- the food and recipe publication for the British supermarket chain.

Nelson said, in response to being offended, “If William Sitwell wants to continue eating meat and hating vegans, that’s his prerogative, but to have this attitude towards others when he’s representing Waitrose is seriously bizarre.”

Let's take a look at what Sitwell had said on October 23, 2018 in response to Nelson's suggestion for a series:

"Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat?” -- WILLIAM SITWELL

I read Sitwell comments and obviously thought it was a joke. He was clearly not, in reality, in any sense, even of the weirdest and widest interpretation, advocating the actual killing, trapping, interrogation to expose hypocrisy, and force feeding of vegans? In fact, he was doing the opposite I figured: Exposing the offensive stereotypes we hear all the time. He was being sarcastic, and perhaps that was lost in the tweet. But I still think he should have refrained from attacking vegans.

I knew Sitwell as vegan friendly, publishing a disproportionate number of vegan recipes, and commenting on the rise of veganism in a joking way, as a "snowball." I tried to take his comments in the best possible light.

However, that wasn't the end of it. Sitwell wasn't done. When Nelson asked about his opinion of vegans and vegan food, he replied: "I like the idea of a column called The Honest Vegan; a millennial's diary of earnest endeavour and bacon sandwiches..."

Nelson, who has written for HuffPost, SUITCASE Magazine, Food Republic, The Culture Trip, Salon, Think Progress, Elite Daily and JustLuxe, made the decision to reveal Sitwell’s emails publicly. Among other things, she also said, "I wasn’t telling him to go vegan, or not eat meat, or that it’s bad to -- I was just suggesting including some more plant-based recipes in the magazine."

Sitwell resigned as Editor after a spokesperson from Waitrose said they'd take it up with him privately. And he apologized: "I love and respect people of all appetites be they vegan, vegetarian or meat eaters, which I show week in week out through my writing, editing and broadcasting. I apologise profusely to anyone who has been offended or upset by this."

Sitwell had also said, earlier in 2018, of the avalanche of vegan cookbooks, "Then, like an avalanche of Tory ministerial resignations, came the vegan snowball. It had slow beginnings among shampoo-averse hippies in the 1970s, but now vegans are parking their tanks on all of our lawns." I took this to mean that the vegan snowball was a good thing, that parking tanks was something that showed strength.

Vegaphobia is not what this is, I reasoned, perhaps in retrospect, a little too quickly.

Sitwell, in the context of what he deemed to be a private exchange, made a joke. It's very clear. That does not mean every joke in any context is fine. But this was made in the context of what he deemed to be a private email exchange, and with the expectation it was to be held private. Had Nelson wanted, she could just as easily have responded how meat eaters are hypocrites, or ought to be killed, trapped, interrogated to expose their hypocrisy, force fed soy -- to parlance Sitwell's comments into a fruitful discussion. She could have written “lol so when can we meet?”

On October 30, 2018, she tweeted that it wasn't a private email exchange and that she'd sent her initial suggestion to the email address on Waitrose’s website. I presume she took that to mean it was professional, and Sitwell responded as an individual, not as a representative of Waitrose. Had he realized he was going to be outed and deemed a representative, he might have responded differently by saying, yes or no, both of which would have generated no backlash, no protest, no outcry, and no petition to have his position terminated. But he didn't see the consequences.

On November 26, 2018, Nelson said in a BBC News article: “I am sorry that William Sitwell lost his job, but I don't regret exposing his email.”

Sitwell’s joke may not sit well with vegans. In reality, he’s posted a disproportionately high number of vegan recipes and never said anything askance, except possibly about the hippies morphing into tanks. Nelson has apparently, according to The Sunday Times, even gone for a conciliatory lunch with Sitwell, who even said they may be able to work together at some time in the future.

Sitwell’s comments met with a lot of vitriol from vegans and even non vegans who saw him as a representative of Waitrose. I think there was a good opportunity to open up debate about what Nelson rightly expressed, that it underscores how quickly people attack us. “Those who defend Sitwell say it was ‘just a joke’, but that’s not the point. This isn’t about him, it’s about why it’s accepted or considered funny to speak to vegans with hostility and anger,” wrote Nelson in an article in the Independent on October 31, 2018.

Sitwell's email is vastly different from the conduct of Michael Hunter. Hunter owns and operates a restaurant in Toronto, called Antler Kitchen & Bar. He had written a message on a chalkboard saying, “Venison is the new kale.” Vegans protested outside Antler, apparently also as it has “items” on the menu that some vegans consider odious. It should never, however, be about “items” or treatment. All animal exploitation is morally wrong. That is the reason humane meat is impossible and the concept incomprehensible. It doesn't matter if it's veal or foie gras. (As long as we regard animals as sentient beings, who are capable of suffering, and whom we don't need to slaughter and eat, we morally shouldn't.)

There was a series of protests, and Hunter ultimately carved up a deer's leg in front of the vegans, near the windowsill, in full view.

Vegans had wanted Hunter to post a sign saying, “Animals’ lives are their right. In their desire to live and capacity to suffer, a dog, is a pig, is a chicken, is a human. Reject speciesism.” Instead, he later went on Joe Rogan podcast and carried on insulting them, along with Rogan joining in.

Just about everything Hunter did is vegaphobic. He saw a threat to his business. He said on Rogan’s show that what he does is somehow not as bad as getting animals from factory farms. He missed the point that exploitation of animals, not treatment, is the hallmark of ethical veganism. He didn't understand the vegans at all, because he decided to get rid of them.

Vegans react viscerally to seeing animals slaughtered, as do many meat eaters. The cognitive dissonance that enables meat eaters to continue eating animal parts, allowing them to separate the moment of slaughter and the animal part (lamb, turkey, deer) does not exist for vegans. I've heard it described as a light switch, or a wall in one's brain. Whatever it is, it allows meat eaters to eat that deer's leg, where vegans see the deer. Hunter carved it to upset them.

Hunter threw that visceral response in their face. He may think he was on side with his customers. Who cares about whiny vegans out to spoil their meal? But no vegan deserves what Hunter did. While I had no objection to his initial joke about venison and kale, I do find his behavior cruel. But that is irrelevant. Vegaphobia aside, the real victims are not the vegans but obviously the deer and other animals Hunter slices up and serves up, away from the window, at Antler.

Sitwell quit his job. He apologized. He can engage in a fruitful dialogue with us, and we will welcome him to our table. He also had, in his view, an expectation of privacy. That does not justify it but explains what he was thinking. He was joking in what he took to be a private email exchange. Apology accepted. Waitrose would be fortunate to have him back.

Hunter did not have any expectation of privacy. He wanted to publicly outrage vegans and get rid of them. There's a difference between slicing up a deer’s leg in front of vegans, and making a joke in email. Hunter's display of vegaphobia is not easily forgotten, because he made a point of it.

Hunter felt targeted. He probably saw customers being bothered. He admits he was frustrated. He decided that he would make the vegans go away. His conduct unfortunately attracted new customers who lauded his behaviour, in comments and reviews, just like the litany of historical public attacks on women's rights or gay rights may have been lauded and supported years ago, before anyone thought subjugated groups were a force to be reckoned with, even after being subjected to centuries of injustice. I realize it's a false dichotomy. But injustice is injustice, and there's a continuum, and there's intersectionality.

Hunter will be remembered as the restaurant owner who carved up a deer's leg in front of vegans -- who were protesting animal exploitation. The deer had a life in the wild and did nothing to us.

The deer was sentient. The deer suffered. The deer had a mother, a brain, a heart, eyes, and was living a life apart from Hunter and us. That life was snuffed out, the body turned to a menu item at Antler, the leg now a caricature of Hunter himself.

It doesn't a hero make to slice up a deer's leg. Hunter became a vegaphobic trope in Toronto, at a restaurant that to vegans has no soul, and made a public display of mutilation just to upset vegans. Nothing should give us more assurance that we will win against vegaphobia than Hunter's antics -- the bravery and bravado of a real man who can tear apart a dead deer's leg with a barrier between himself and the mob of vegans whom he so fears. Hunter denounces them because they attack his ethics and livelihood, and because they call​ him out on animal exploitation. However, Hunter is only meeting the demand of our species to exploit animals, and that is the real problem.

Time will judge who was on the right side of history, but the victim is the deer and those who knew that deer, who may be as capable of recognizing one another as our dogs and cats and pets are, and of love, and of fear. Hunter is a recent symbol of vegaphobia. He's not the problem. He's the result of what we became as a species: Exploitational and indifferent to suffering. He's just meeting the demand for meat.

He and the Antler customers do not need a sign to understand the truth that “Animals’ lives are their right. In their desire to live and capacity to suffer, a dog, is a pig, is a chicken, is a human. Reject speciesism.” But that message is still too opaque and complex by far. The customers at Antler don't have to read vegan philosophical manifestos on speciesism. The real message is simple​: End exploitation by ending the demand for the deer’s leg. I honestly believe that the Michael Hunter’s of the world will one day scratch on their sandwich chalkboard, “Veganism is the new kale.” When Hunter and his ilk go cruelty free, I will be the first to visit the ex-Antler. When demand ends, Antler will have a chef carving zucchini not legs consisting of bone, muscle, tissue, fat, blood, and tendons,like our legs, those of a sentient being, capable of suffering, once alive and experiencing the world we share.