White male vegan paternalism: Or, how to offend Black Veg*n Reiki Community
In this video I speak about how white male middle-class paternalism ended up offending and upsetting an African American practitioner of vegetarianism and Reiki. This video is an example of how white middle class paternalistic rhetoric becomes an impediment when communicating with “other” communities that don’t fit into the racial-class-gender status quo’s conception of ‘logical healing systems’ or ‘morality.’ I also didn’t say this in the video, but my friend kept the identity of the person who moderated the listserv, a secret, and sent me the quoted response she got from the moderator, in terms of she wanting to post about Reiki.
In this video I speak about how I am also raising money to finish my PhD/dissertation.
If you like what you hear and believe in the necessity of anti-racist and critical whiteness analysis within veganism (in order to help build coalitions and solidarity), please contribute to my fund. I am seeking $10,000 by September to register for school. Thus far, I have received $3200 in contributions (Thank you!!). My critical race and critical vegan dissertation fellowship was not renewed for 2011-2012 year, so this is why I’m seeking assistance. You can email a paypal donation to breezeharper (at) gmail (dot) com. If you’re not comfortable with that, you can email me and I can provide a postal mailing address. Thanks.
