Podcast Transcript
Hope
Welcome to the Hope for the Animals Podcast sponsored by United Poultry Concerns. I’m your host, Hope Bohanec. And you can find all our past episodes on our website, hope for the animals podcast.org. And if you’d like to get in touch with me, my email is Hope at UPC – online.org.
On today’s podcast, we have a very special guest, the fun and fabulous Jasmine Leyva. And she’ll be joining us soon. She is a filmmaker who has created the film, The Invisible Vegan, about veganism and the African American community. And we’re going to talk all about that very important project of hers soon. But first, I want to share something with you that I think is really valuable to talk about. And that is language.
How we use our language is really important. It’s how we perceive our world really, and language shifts and evolves all the time. Our language around animals is especially important because it can shape how society thinks about animals how we feel about animals. So I’m going to offer some suggestions on how we can change and improve our language to help animals. To help animals be seen as individuals, to be recognized beyond property to be recognized as sentient beings deserving our protection and respect. I also want to offer a couple of suggestions for language when talking about groups of animals and the terms that we use, and how those can shift and change as well. Terms like factory farming, which I encourage us not to use anymore. So if you’re curious as to why stay tuned, we will get there.
So starting with an easy one that I know a lot of people already do. But please be sure to call individual animals he or she, not it. Calling an animal it is very common. It’s common in journalism. And we really need this to change. Even if you don’t know the gender of the animal you’re talking about just pick one. Or you could use them or they. The singular they is getting more and more widely used. So this can be used for animals as well. But please be sure to call animals he or she or they.
Another change you can work on with language is calling animals bred for food, farmed animals instead of farm animals. Farm animals evokes a picture of Old MacDonald’s farm and happy animals and green pastures. Just changing the word slightly to farmed animals, it attempts to bring in the reality of the situation that they are farmed against their will and it’s not happy pastoral situation. So that’s another way we can shift our language to be more accurate to the situation of animals and say farmed animals.
If you’re talking about animals being killed in animal agriculture, please don’t use the term euthanasia or euthanized in reference to the mass utility killings of animals. We were seeing this used by journalists to talk about the mass killing of farmed animals during the COVID supply disruptions, the slaughterhouse disruptions when producers were having to mass kill animals before they reached the slaughterhouse. Please don’t use the term euthanasia for this. You can use words like kill, destroy, exterminate. They exterminated the animals they destroyed or killed the animals. These are more accurate terms to use. Euthanize means a good and painless death and this is never the case with farmed animals.
Karen Davis, the founder and president of united poultry concerns who sponsors this podcast has written extensively about this particular language issue and many others. And I really encourage you to read her eloquent article called Understanding Euthanasia when life and words become worthless. I’ll put a link to this article in the show notes.
The industry uses terms that really erase the animals. They’ve done this by designating chickens bred for meat as broilers and chickens bred for eggs as layers. Instead of those words, which really detach the animal, ideally, the best thing to say is chickens bred for meat or hens raised for eggs, something like that. But if you don’t have the time or space for that, please at least add the word chickens to the end. So saying broiler chickens or layer hens, bring the animals back into the picture. The industry, they really try to erase or hide the animals any chance they can get. And language is one of the ways they do that.
Okay, so I want to talk about a term more extensively that I very much feel we need to retire and I’ll explain why. I feel that we need to stop saying factory farming. It can certainly be said that possibly a lot of the progress that we’ve made for animals in the last 30 years is the result of this strategic denouncement, this powerful term factory farming. For decades animal activists have been inscribing the motto in factory farming into brochures, splattering stop factory farming on protest signs. It’s really an incriminating term and conjures up the images of the endless rows of animals and barren cages and filthy windowless warehouses and animals suffering and dying on manure covered concrete floors, the reality of animal farming. The images and conditions associated with the term factory farming, it has called for massive condemnation. It’s done its job. Everyone can rally together and agree that we must stop factory farming. However, this rallying cry has created an unforeseen consequence. One that animal exploiters are taking full advantage of. Producers who sell the flesh and fluids of animals can simply state now that their products are not factory farmed. And how they do that is through labels, like organic or local or humane or cage free or free range or any number of misleading labels. And on the consumer side, when consumers hear these offensive two words, factory farming, they now think, oh, but my meat isn’t factory farmed. I buy it at Whole Foods, or my eggs aren’t factory farmed. They’re free range.
Another statement that I want to point out here and denounce, which is really just an extension of the term factory farming is when you hear advocates say 99% of meat, dairy and eggs are factory farmed. This is a staple statement that we blindly repeat as a community. I see it on memes on social media, I hear animal advocates say it again and again. 99% of animal products are factory farmed. So again, now consumers hear this and will think that they’re humanely labeled animal product is the 1% that we’ve told them is acceptable because it’s not factory farmed. Do we really believe that 1% of animal agriculture is somehow pampering the animals with comfortable, relaxed, happy lives? That there’s no separation of families no painful body mutilations. No terrifying slaughter? No, it’s simply untrue. No matter the size or scale of the farm, we know that there are inherent cruelties that are universal to producing an animal product. As long as animals’ bodies are commodified, there is exploitation and suffering. So please don’t just blindly repeat this. Think about it. Do we really condone 1% of animal farming? Because that’s basically what the statement says.
Because we have been so successful in denouncing factory farming. It’s unfortunately inadvertently created a demand for products labeled with these euphemistic terms that are associated with alternative or small scale animal farming. This was not the initial intent of this term. Most all groups originally used the term factory farming for the purpose of ending all exploitation and killing of farmed animals. But that’s not necessarily how the term is perceived now. There’s been a shift in the last few years. The industry is adapting to the criticisms. There’s a shift toward labeling animal products as humane. And now everyone it seems can get behind ending factory farming, the animal rights activists as well as the consumers, and the producers of the meat, dairy and eggs. I’ve even seen a pork producer, put on their website, don’t support factory farming; buy our pork. This is unintended and dangerous common ground where the language of the animal rights movement has now been appropriated by our opposition to promote the very products that we seek to condemn. Now when we are denouncing animal products with the term factory farming, we are ironically repeating some of the marketing slogans of an increasing sector of the animal industries.
Factory farming has come to imply that only the conditions the animals are kept in are of importance. And that taking an animal’s life, the slaughter itself is unproblematic. The marketing experts of the animal farming industry are using these new labels to make people believe that as long as it isn’t a quote factory or an industrial setting, as long as it’s not a mega sized farm, as long as the animals had some kind of minimal natural or comfortable life. And that’s not the case at all. That’s just marketing, then it’s okay to slaughter the animal. I have done extensive research into smaller farms with supposedly better conditions. And the information that I’ve compiled is in my book, The Ultimate Betrayal. And what I found was that no label tells the whole story and alternative farming can be just as bad and in fact no different from so called factory farming for the animals and for the environment.
The term factory farming no longer implies a vegan message. It no longer necessarily suggests a desire to stop the exploitation and killing of farmed animals. And those of us who work towards this important goal, I really believe that we need to abandon this term, or we risk inadvertently repeating what’s become a marketing slogan for the industry. It will be difficult, it’s always difficult to change language, it’s always difficult to change something so ingrained. I still slip up and say it sometimes. But I think it’s very important to pay attention to.
So what should we say instead, we should simply use the term animal agriculture, or animal agribusiness. We need to encompass all animal farming in our language. We need to be careful to speak in ways that express the truth that all farming of animals is exploitive. All farming of animals is abusive. All animals suffer in animal agriculture, and that there can never be a humane way to breed and confine and kill animals for their flesh, milk and eggs. Let’s shift our language and the consciousness around this issue and push beyond humane exploitation. It’s time to retire the term factory farming.
Hope
Okay, so I want to bring in our guest now. Today we have Jasmine Leyva. She is a filmmaker and actress. She lives in LA, and she has created the film called The Invisible Vegan. And The Invisible Vegan is a 90 minute independent documentary that brings to light the health and wellness possibilities for the African American community through plant based vegan diet and lifestyle choices. This documentary offers both historical and contemporary perspectives on the dietary trends among African Americans. And she’s going to tell us much more about all that. Jasmine spoke earlier this year at UPC’s conscious eating conference that we just snuck in in February, we got lucky and it was one of the last in person events that we had for the year. Just before COVID hit and we were so happy to have her there. And we’re really happy to have her on the podcast today. So welcome, Jasmine.
Jasmine
Thank you for having me. It’s good. Well, it’s kind of nice seeing you again. It’s good hearing you again.
Hope
Yes. Yes, that is the world we’re in now. The online world but yes, wonderful to connect. And you are in DC right now I believe for a visit and you grew up in DC. And you yeah, you eventually moved to LA. What got you into veganism and activism? What’s your journey? Tell us about your journey?
Jasmine
Absolutely. So first I want to say that I do not have a noble journey like some of my fellow fields. I came in for purely superficial reasons. I was at this restaurant because I was working on this show, My Black is Beautiful. And the owner of the restaurant, Chef Babette, and the restaurant is called Stuff I Eat in Inglewood, California. At the time, you know, she was a middle aged woman, and she was walking around in a tank top, like a little tank top and some booty shorts. And her body was off the hook. Okay, okay. What is she doing? Cuz I need to do that. And then there was a young lady working at the register. Well, I thought she was a young lady. I thought she was like, 27. Turns out, she was like 50 and I never heard of veganism before. So I’m like, okay, what’s going on in this restaurant? Where it’s telling you that everybody’s drinking from that I’ve never heard it. So they told me they’re like, yeah, you know, he plant based and Chef, I bet says she ate 70% raw, I believe. So then. Okay, that’s what she’s doing. I need to do that, because I want to be like her when I’m older. So I started, I started the vegan diet, you know, I got rid of all the milk, dairy, meat. And I started on my vegan journey.
And then yeah, like, I noticed, I started to tone up, I started to drop weight. And then a lot of the health problems that I thought were just natural, you know, just started going away, like, at the time I was, my acne was growing out of control, and I was getting really self conscious about it. So then my acne start clearing up. And you know, I was having digestive issues that I thought were just a normal part of growing pains, they start going away. So even my you know, menstrual cycle, which has always been a pain in my ass is returning to this like, cute little friend that visits once a month, like it’s a totally different experience. It took away all the pain and the heavy bleeding. So that while there’s so much more to this, so I started reading books about veganism and kind of watching all these cool documentaries that were on streaming services. And that’s where I learned like, Whoa, it’s more to this than just having a nice body. This is affecting my health. This is lessening my chances to get certain degenerative diseases, which I thought were mostly hereditary. This is, what I put on my plate determines climate change, how, you know, animals are treated. So I just realized it was so much deeper than the superficial reasons that got me involved in it initially, which was just to look nice. And some booty shorts.
Hope
Wow, what a story. Yeah, I love that restaurant Stuff I Eat. I’ve been there. And it’s fantastic. Yeah. So I want to hear more about your film, The Invisible Vegan. So what gave you the idea to make this film? What was the process? What were your goals in making the film? How did you even get into filmmaking? For that matter? How long did it take? Tell us all about it?
Jasmine
Okay, so that whole journey, I went to school for film, media and TV. I was young, I wanted to be a movie director. I have videos of myself, like eight years old, telling the world when I grow up, I want to be a movie director. I was that kid. I’ve always had my eye on the prize. And I went to school for film, media and TV. Then I started working in production. You know, I’ve cast the shows for Food Network. I’ve done court shows, and then documentary series. And then kind of two things happened at once that changed my trajectory from just working for someone else’s vision to create my own vision. First, I want to, I was working on a documentary series. And I wanted to start writing on that series. And I talked to the executive producer about it. And I remember he laughed. He laughed. And then I was just like, you know what, I can’t stay here and wait for someone else to realize that I’m talented enough to do this. I have to do it for myself. So that’s what gave me the push to actually do my own project. As far as the topic, I was, you know, kind of going on this vegan journey. I’m reading all this stuff. And I’m getting excited about it. I’m telling my black friends from DC and they’re dismissing it you know, they’re laughing me out at all. You go to Hollywood and now you, you eat like, you can’t eat your regular food anymore. You’re on that white people stuff. And they kind of took it down that route and like, wait, why don’t they get it. And then I started looking at a lot of the mainstream of vegan media, and even the documentaries I love, like Food and Cowspiracy, Veducated, like I noticed, I was like, wow, as great as all these films are, and I even, you know, credit them with inspiring me to do my film. But as a collective, they’re marketing to the same group of people. Like you’re, you’re hearing like kind of the same type of music the same, you know, the experts kind of look the same. The stories always have, you know, a white centerpiece, that people of color are usually the examples of how, you know, oh, look, this is the poor family who eats Burger King all the time and needs reform, or were brought in, like at a token level. So I’m like, this is why a lot of my black friends are not getting it because this message is not marketed to people of color. So those two things like me realizing I had to do something for myself, and me realizing that wow, V game is only marketing to mainly white affluent, skinny people who want to be skinny. So I just decided it’s time for me to be the change that I want to be in the world and kind of fill that void. So I just from there, you know, I just started researching, I’m like, okay, who are some, there has to be more vegan, black vegans out there, because I didn’t know that before. And so I started researching. I’m like, wow, look, there’s Angela Davis, and what Coretta Scott King. And then I started seeing all the people in my film Dr. Milton Mills, and Stic of Dead Prez, John Salley, and I’m like, these are people who would be able to relate to the people in the community that I come from. So I just reached out to them, and I told, you know, put together email kind of told them what my intention was. And they all just jumped on board. They’re like, yo, we’re here for it. And so I just made it happen. I was on go green light ever since.
Hope
That’s awesome. And it’s really widely available. I think it’s on Amazon Prime, right? I’ve seen it on Amazon Prime, where else is it available?
Jasmine
So it’s on Amazon Prime, it’s on www.tubi. tv, which is a free app. So no excuses. It’s LED TV, which is the first black female owned, streaming service. And I also put it on YouTube in chapters, again, free because I did a crowdfunder to complete the film. So I’m like, Well, if the people helped me create it, then, you know, I kind of, it’s for the people. So it’s a everyone kind of has a free access to the film.
Hope
That’s great. And I’ll put all those apps and options for viewing it in the show notes. So people can watch it if they haven’t already. So what’s been the response to the film? What kind of feedback have you gotten, from all communities?
Jasmine
I’ve gotten, you know, an overwhelmingly positive, like, a lot of black people in my circle, who I would have thought they would never even consider being vegan even if they saw my film, like, you know, they watch my film, some of them stop eating meat. You know, one person said to me, they’re like, looked as I watched your film, I’m not gonna go vegan, right now. But you gave me something to think about. And now I get it. And that response right there, I was just like, you know what, that was the goal right there. For you know, for someone to magically become vegan overnight, I would love that. But I’m just grateful that this film planted a seed. So that was positive. A lot of, you know, a lot of white people that watch the film, I guess, in their own activism, they didn’t realize certain cultural landmines that they were stepping on. So a lot of them were very grateful, like, Oh, thank you. Like, I didn’t know that I was kind of participating in this dynamic. So now, you know, if they want their messages to be greeted with better reception, if they’re marketing to other cultures, they kind of know like, okay, here are the nuances I need to look out for. So I was thanked for kind of presenting that case.
And on the negative side, I did have people in the animal rights community who complained that, you know, the animal rights portion of the film wasn’t big enough, or long enough and important enough. And my response to that was, even though, you know, as someone who’s, who’s been, you know, doing the vegan thing for years and years, I know that I have to meet people where they are, and you have to pay attention to the concerns of the people you want to market your message to. So the people that I’m marketing my message to like right now, and they’re more concerned with their grandmother’s diabetes than, say, a cow or chicken. So it’s like if I’m creating a film for that group, I have to take that into consideration. And I have to say, like, look, this is, this might be a great way of living to help your grandmother. And then look, you can also play a more harmonious role in helping the planet by being kinder to the sentient beings that we share the planet with. So, you know, some people didn’t like that order. But yeah.
Hope
Well, you know, you know, your audience, and you’re the filmmaker. And that’s, you know, something that, and we’re gonna talk more about this, I think, but, you know, we need to understand as a movement, that, that there are lots of different audiences. And, you know, we may be in a lens that is very narrow. So I’m grateful that there are people in numerous communities that are creating content, creating media, around vegan issues that are geared to different communities and different perspectives so we’ll reach out further.
Jasmine
Yeah, I agree. Like, I just watched, um, there was this documentary Gather. And it was, it’s not necessarily a vegan documentary, but it talks about the food culture of Native Americans, and just, you know, having people you know, kind of informing themselves, about different food cultures of different cultures. So you know, when you are like marketing to someone who’s say, in Mexican community, my fiancé is Mexican. So I know, he loves you know, menudo. Like, there’s certain dishes that he likes. So it’s like, I can use that knowledge of his food culture, to kind of inform my advocacy when I go to those groups like, Hey, you know, I have this great menudo recipe, you know, they’re interested in kind of keeping their cultural way of eating, because I’m like look, I know a way to do that, because I’ve kind of done my homework in that area, if I want to talk to that certain group.
Hope
Yeah, yeah. And more and more of that exists, which is great. I heard you say that you had seen a video of Angela Davis that inspired you. And I’m curious what she said that inspired you.
Jasmine
So she was talking about the food, you know,
Hope
And maybe and just I would hope everybody would know, but maybe a little bit about who Angela Davis is?
Jasmine
Oh, ok yeah.
Hope
I mean, hopefully everybody knows, but you never know. So?
Jasmine
Yeah, no, I’m Angela Davis, she was a very prominent member of the Black Panther. And she was fighting for civil rights to the extent that she was actually jailed for her contribution. And so she’s been a huge icon in the African American community. And one wish she taught when she talked about, you know, just how sentient beings are commodified in this country, and she was criticizing the food industrial complex. And the thing is, it wasn’t even so much what, you know, the exact details of what she said, but just knowing that this is a messenger, like, Oh, this is something she stands for, like, this is something, this vegan thing, this is something she’s on board with, because a lot of people, we look up to people, and if we see someone fighting for a certain cause, like just by seeing a certain person associated with a cause, then we’re more likely to give that cause the time of day, you know, so for me, it was like, Oh, this woman who, in a sense, she’s fighting for the same thing that we’re fighting for today. And this is something she cares deeply about. Okay, cool, then this is something that I need to research more for myself.
Hope
That’s great. So at the conference, you spoke about when you were a child, you spoke at a city council meeting, I believe it was or some kind of something like that. And you made the connection between the indifference of the all white counsel to seeing animal activists protesting for the care and respect of animals, and you kind of made a connection there. And, you know, it always breaks my heart when I hear someone say that they don’t see themselves in the vegan movement, or that they don’t feel represented in the animal rights movement. And I really believe this is a big problem. And that’s on us as a movement, we need to do better, we need to reach out further. So tell us about this incident when you were a child and what you learned and also what we can do better as vegans.
Jasmine
I grew up in DC, and I went through the DC public school system. So as you can imagine, we didn’t get the same kind of funding as private schools. There was one year where we didn’t have you know, like our AC and our heat wasn’t working. So they had us as children, we had to go testify before City Council. And so I remember, you know, just being a child, you know, a young black child, and I’m fighting. You know, I’m like eight years old fighting for basic necessities, you know, in DC, it gets very cold in the winter, it gets very hot in the spring and summer, how can you expect kids to concentrate on math if they’re cold, you know? I just remember when I was there, and I was in and we would testify a lot, there will always be all these black people, they’re kind of fighting to get stuff for us. So growing up, I saw black people fighting for black causes. And then as I got older, I’m seeing this animal rights movement. And I’m only seeing, you know, this pool of white people. But the thing is, they’re so passionate. You know, they’re fighting with such fervor, you know? And I made the connection, like, wow, when me as a black person, when I’m fighting for basic necessities, this group is absent. But when it comes to animals, they’re fighting passionately.
So the takeaway for me was, okay, white people care more about animals than they care about us. And I now know, because, you know, because I’ve traveled the world. I live in Los Angeles, you know, my scope, my vantage point is way bigger. So now I know like, no, there’ve always been, and there still are a huge percentage of white people that fight for human issues, even black issues, even though that wasn’t in my scope at the time. I think you have now a lot of black people who still kind of have made that connection too. And so when a white person approaches a black person about animal rights, it’s almost triggering, because it’s like, oh, you care about this issue, but you don’t care about ours. And sometimes that mode of thinking is validated. Because you’ll have people you know, you’ll have people who fight for the animal rights movement. And then when someone says, like, well, Black Lives Matter, then you know, that white person’s like no, we’re talking about the animals. And to me, it’s the equivalent of, you know, if I have cancer, and then you come to me, you’re like, Jasmine, let’s fight for heart disease. And then I’m like, Yeah, but I have cancer, and I want to fight for that. And you’re like, I don’t care. We’re talking about heart disease. It’s just like, that’s not, you can’t get people on board with your cause. If you don’t give a crap about theirs.
Hope
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually kind of leads into my next question. I, I wanted to read a quote of yours, something that you said at the conference, because I think it’s really important, and I want us to talk about it. You so you said this at our Conscious Eating Conferences here. This is a quote, a jasmine quote. Oh, yeah. Okay, so you said, If I bring up race, gender, sexual orientation, or another group or topic that doesn’t feel directly related, my objective isn’t to dissenter, the plight of animals and hijack their platform to talk about my oppression. My objective is to help people in the animal rights community, to advocate more effectively to people who come from oppressed groups. And I think this is really important for people to hear, I think that we, we need to remember that we’re not taking energy away from animals by addressing other social issues. Systematic oppression is deeply connected. And I think that the younger generation is really getting this and embracing this, but some longtime animal advocates, I think, still kind of need to understand this. Can you talk a little more about this?
Jasmine
I honestly think, you know, if you want, you know, if you want someone to listen to your cause, like for me, if I want someone to support me, one of the things I do is I support them. You know, whenever my friends have things going on, you know, I’m a filmmaker, I need supporters. So whenever my friends have things going on, the first thing I do is support them. So then when I have something going on, they’ll be like, you know what, Jasmine, listened to me, Jasmine was there for me. Jasmine has supported me now I’m going to listen to her and support her. So I think the same thing kind of needs to happen in, you know, animal justice conversations, where if you have, you know, you are passionate about animal rights, and you run across people who are passionate about, you know, their own plight, you know, they’re passionate about their own food justice issues that might be impacted by race. Instead, you know, take the ego out of it. Like I know you feel like your cause is number one, but you have to realize like, just because this cause is number one to you, it might be number two, three or four to someone else. But that is okay. If you really care about the cause you do not want to hurt the integrity of the cause by causing a stigma and giving someone else a negative review, you know, a negative, you know, like a negative thing. Yeah, you don’t want to give them a negative feeling about it. So it’s just important that we, you know, we just take the ego out of it, and it kind of, and it goes both ways as well. Because when I now, if I have to be careful, because if I say that I’m, you know, an advocate for animal rights, then I might have black people that look at me like, Oh, well, we have, you know, all these black men dying by police, and you’re worried about the animals. And it’s just like, I need them to take the ego out of it and say, like, Look, friend, I can care about more than one thing, because I’m multitalented like that. So I think it is both sides these to kind of get rid of the ego. And there needs to be more listening to the other person side, and just more understanding and more asking questions instead of attacking.
Hope
Very true. So as United Poultry Concerns, of course, we are focused on and concerned about chickens. And so I wanted to ask you about the complicated history of blacks and chicken or fried chicken. Of course, this is a terrible stereotype. But as you revealed at our conference, there’s really an interesting history there, and adds a kind of a layer of complexity to it all. And you also said that, that chickens are regarded as sacred animals in some African cultures, which I love. Can you speak to all this?
Jasmine
So yeah, I was, you know, when I was invited to speak at the conference, I’m like, Okay, let me just take the time and just learn about chickens, you know, and I did, I ran across some cool stuff, like I ran across, you know, even in Egypt, like they would, you know, they would have pictures of chicken eggs. And that was supposed to, it was supposed to make the Nile River more bountiful. And even going beyond just African culture, Greek culture, you know, chickens were, well, roosters were a sign of virility. So we dumb chickens down to this stupid animal, which they weren’t historically. And for black people in particular, what I wasn’t familiar with, before I did my film was a lot of black women got their entrepreneurial footing from chicken. hen they came over from Africa, they already knew about, you know, frying foods with palm oil. So when they came, and they were slaves, they needed to, you know, think of a food that would keep well, something that would keep them satiated, while they worked in the heat. And also something that you know, tasted good. So fried chicken was to go to. Now I don’t, you know, of course, I don’t like the fact that, you know, chicken, you know, any animal was killed. At the same time I look at it like, wow, during such a horrible time in human history, in a sense, you know, this animal is what kind of saved groups of my people and kind of got them through hardship, and just kind of building on that kind of sacred spiritual relationship, which we don’t do in this culture. Like we’re all about, you know, finance, financial stuff, sexual stuff, we’re not about inner well being, we’re not about spirituality. But I think there’s a deep, there can be a case that there’s a deep spiritual connection that we have to these animals, for getting us through that hardship. And even after that happened, taking that recipe, peddling that fried chicken up and down the railroads. So you would have money to be able to afford you know, your own land or your own home. And just knowing that relationship existed, it kind of just, I don’t know, it made me look at chickens in a different light. Me personally.
Hope
So it almost it could be that, you know, in a way, and I think this is for all cultures, we kind of owe the animals since it’s true that there were times when we had to eat meat and dairy products and eggs that it was really the only way to survive when things were scarce, when there were droughts and that kind of thing. You know, no, it’s not that way now. We have an abundant amount of food of plant based food available to us that we can eat now. It’s almost in a way like we owe the animals a debt of gratitude that they got us through those times. And now that we’re in modernity, and can choose plant based that we should, and allow them to live.
Jasmine
I agree. I agree. And that’s something you know, like I said, in our culture, you know, we’re not really about psychological intelligence and spiritual intelligence. And something like that, to me, lends itself to spiritual intelligence, just kind of having that compassion, you know, for an animal that did so much for us and having that empathy, and actually wanting to show reciprocity and respect, you know, for life because of the life that we were given. But, you know, we’re not, sadly, like, we’re not trained, we’re trained to think for profit, and it’s hurting us and it’s hurting them.
Hope
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. We need to have more of a spiritual mindset, a compassionate mindset. And not just commodifying the world.
Jasmine
Exactly.
Hope
Yeah. So you’re right now, I know, visiting your mom in DC. It’s her 65th birthday so happy birthday to mom. What has your family thought about your journey, your vegan journey and your film? How did they respond? What have they said about it?
Jasmine
You know what? It’s so funny that you ask that. Because my film came out years ago. And even then, like I noticed that my family would be more prone to try vegan recipes. Even when I have friends over who would be like, eh, don’t take me to no vegan restaurant! You know, they would come over, try some of my vegan chili. Next thing you know, I’m getting a text message, like hey! Can you send me the recipe for your vegan chili? So they started coming around slowly. So even now, like I’m home for breakfast, my mom, making, you know, potatoes, cabbage and she got one of those, you know, vegan Beyond sausages. And that wasn’t the case when the film first came out. And even one of my aunts, you know, she, she got, she went to the doctor, got high cholesterol and now she’s like, nope, I don’t want to do that! She’s making, you know, marinated carrots for hot dogs…
Hope
Oh nice.
Jasmine
…and went vegan. So it was a thing where, you know, people just saw enough of it and I think they, you know, saw the example that I set which didn’t include any, you know, yelling at anyone or preaching to anyone. And they just came around on their own time. Like I would recommend, you know, my mom, I’m like, hey mom, you checked out my doc, why don’t you check out Forks Over Knives? And she did. You know, she checked out this stuff. And then she got interested. Yeah, and I also, you know, and some people get frustrated. I think I don’t get frustrated because when I think of my vegan journey, I think about all of the books that I’ve read and I think about all of the movies that I’ve seen. And I look at whoever I’m talking to and I’m like, ok, this person probably has never picked up a book about food. And they’ve been taught something by their mothers, their grandmothers, their teachers, and their doctors so I’m going against all of that. So it makes sense for them not to just openly say, oh yeah Jasmine, I’m gonna switch to what you’re doing because you’re the alpha omega and you said this is the right thing to do. So what I try to do is refer them to other sources. Like, now it’s great because I have a film. But you know, if I’m talking to someone I might be like, Hey, have you seen Forks Over Knives on Netflix? Like, can you do me a favor and check it out? Cause then they’re going to see doctors talking about this stuff and not just me. That’s also another thing I do. I like to refer people to sources more so than me trying to do the heavy lifting.
Hope
Yeah. That’s good. That’s smart because films and books are so powerful and can give a lot more information than we can in a 5 minute conversation. So, yeah.
Jasmine
Yeah and people, when they, when you read a book or when you watch a movie, you’re in a passive state. So that’s an hour and a half that somebody is willing to just sit there and listen. Versus if I’m talking to someone, more than likely they’re just sitting, they’re waiting for a pause in the conversation so they can get their point across.
Hope
Right.
Jasmine
So they’re not in a passive state. So already I’m kind of set up to fail if I’m trying to talk to someone who already has their own set of beliefs that they’re passionate about.
Hope
That’s right. Yeah. And a podcast! You can refer them to podcasts! So Jasmine, we need to wrap up soon so I wanted to ask you if you have any upcoming projects you want to share with us, anything you’re working on? What can we look forward to?
Jasmine
Ok so I am working on two other kind of follow up projects, smaller form, they probably won’t be feature length. Both relative to food because I think food is just one of the most important things. One is about food and the prison system, so just advocating to get healthier foods for people who are behind bars. And I picked that group because I feel like they are, you know, in a sense, voiceless and when people fight for groups, like, they’re probably the last group that people will fight for. So I’m like, let me fight for them. And then also in the food disorder space. I, whenever I see food disorders kind of represented in the media, kind of like with veg, kind of like how veganism was a while ago, it would always be kind of white, somewhat affluent, skinny women. And I’m like, wait. If you keep marketing this problem this way, then if you have people of color who struggle with eating disorders, which they do at alarming rates, it doesn’t always register. You know, they don’t even know what they’re dealing with. And they think, you know, because I was like that. I had a problem with binge eating. At one, you know, small, you know, fraction, small time period in my life. But I didn’t even put two and two together that I actually had an eating disorder at the time because I didn’t see, I just thought, like oh, that’s something that white girls that want to be skinny do. So those are the next two projects.
Hope
Those sound really fascinating. I look forward to those. And do you have any final thoughts for us?
Jasmine
I just overall, I think that as a country, as a people, what we consider success is not always success. And they teach us success is about, you know, getting a certain amount of money, getting a certain type of home, and getting a certain career. And I would just like to disrupt that and say, you know, success is about enjoying your life, and learning how to be self-sustainable, being spiritually healthy, and developing a harmonious relationship with the earth and its inhabitants. So if more people just kind of acted with that ideal of success in mind, and I think people will move with a lot more love and compassion. So I just hope to see more of that. I hope to see more holistic, just love, let’s all kumbayah it out. And that’s what I hope to see going forward.
Hope
That sounds beautiful. I want to go that church. I want to go to the church of Jasmine.
Jasmine
I know, I know, I know.
Hope
Oh, well this has been a lot of fun. And I really appreciate you being on. Thank you for sharing your wonderful compassion and vision and thanks so much for being with us.
Jasmine
Oh no, thank you! Thank you. I’m so, I’m so happy and honored to be on this platform and just to be doing something positive and promoting something positive. So thank you for what you do and inviting me to be a part of it.
Hope
Absolutely. It’s been great.
Thank you so much for listening to the Hope for the Animals podcast. Please be sure to watch The Invisible Vegan if you haven’t already and share it on your social media pages. Again, there will be links to how you can watch it in the show notes. And please help us to get this podcast to more listeners by leaving a rating, a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. We really appreciate that support. And let’s remember to lift up and support vegan voices from black communities, communities of color. And help create together the diverse, compassionate, interconnected vegan world that we all want to see. And please live vegan.
