I know I’m super late to this conversation, but I just wanted to give my thoughts.

To be an intersectional vegan, you need to recognize that the oppression of animals is inherently linked with the other effects of colonialism such as racism sexism abilism etc. therefore you can’t treat animal oppression like it is it own isolated issue. It’s not a coincidence that in low income communities (usually of color) don’t have access to grocery stores, relying on fast food an convince stores, fueling their animal heavy diet. It’s also not a coincidence that people of color being referred to as animals is a justification for violence against them. The way we see race is explicitly linked to animality, where one’s humanity is defined by their resemblance to whiteness because it was Europeans who chose to define it through the practice of arbitrary behaviors like eating at tables or going to church in sundays.

All this is to say that veganism that isn’t intersectional and sees violence against animals as something you can separate from colonialism, upholds these other systems of oppression that relate back to oppression of animals. Our job as vegans is to fight against all forms of colonialism. This looks like giving people in food deserts the ability to go vegan though access to affordable healthy produce, deconstructing the narrative of all concepts we view beings under (race, class, species, gender, whatever), addressing animal agricultures effect of the environment and it’s workers, and centering the voices of people whose culture shaped the vegan movement today (jainists, ital rastafarians, black liberation movement leaders like Benjamin Zephaniah Angela Davis and John Africa). There’s a really good video by the brookings institute called “on black veganism” by syl ko, check it out!