Black lives do indeed matter and we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. It is essential to end police brutality and all other forms of white supremacy, institutionalized racism, and systemic injustice against Blacks and other people of color, who have been disproportionately victimized, including in terms of disease, health, and healthcare. Because Black lives matter, Black health matters. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who described racism as “maximum hate for minimum reason” with the “maximum of cruelty for a minimum of thinking”, was a friend of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and they marched together for civil rights. Inspired by Rev. King and Rabbi Heschel, we oppose all forms of racial discrimination and seek to reverse racism. We are aware that in the four centuries of Blacks in America, the forms of racism have changed, but the reality of racism has remained constant. Within the universe of institutionalized racism and violence, there is another, often-neglected issue that also causes disproportionate harm to Black people. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The most violent weapon on Earth is the table fork.” Charles Patterson, PhD, author of Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust, provides some historical context: “The domestication/enslavement of animals was the model and inspiration for human slavery… the breeding of domesticated animals led to eugenic measures as compulsory sterilization, euthanasia killings, and genocide, and… the industrialized slaughter of cattle, pigs, sheep, and other animals paved the way, at least indirectly, for the Final Solution.” Indeed, Coretta Scott King stated that veganism was “the next logical extension of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s philosophy of non-violence”. African Americans suffer far more from diet-related diseases than non-Black Americans and Black Africans. African Americans are far more likely to suffer and die from heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and other diet-related diseases than Whites. Diabetes is one of the most problematic and devastating of the common chronic diseases in western countries and in Black communities. Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes are many times more prevalent in Blacks living in western nations relative to those living in west African countries eating a more traditional low-fat, non-dairy, plant-based diet. Research shows that once an African American develops diabetes, they are over 240 times more likely to suffer a limb amputation and over 100 times more likely to go blind from retinal damage or end up on hemodialysis from renal failure. The African American community has the highest rates of renal insufficiency in the United States. Research has consistently shown that both the risk for, and severity of, type 2 diabetes can be markedly lessened, or even reversed, by adopting a plant-based diet. According to Dr. Greger’s strictly non-commercial, non-profit, science-based, public service NutritionFacts.org, colon cancer is over 50 times lower among native African populations than among African Americans. For African Americans in their 50s, over half have diverticulosis, compared to less than 1% among Africans eating traditional plant-based diets. African Americans have a five times greater risk of dementia than Africans in Nigeria.
“I want to try to live my own values as consciously and purposefully as I can. … Being vegan for me is a cleaner way of not participating in practices that don’t align with my values.” NM Vegan | 25 ~Cory Booker
