In June, 2019, Dr Milton Mills gave testimony before the USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee about their persistent recommendation to include dairy in our diets.
Dr Mills short presentation was not what I was expecting to hear.
Instead of just repeating the overwhelming body of evidence showing that cow's milk is not a healthy or suitable food for humans, he put the debate in the context of racism.
He said, “I actually came here today to call out the racism that is inherent in the US dietary guidelines, but then as I got a look at this committee, I suddenly understood why it's such an intractable problem. This committee bears no relationship to the general American populace, and whoever put it together is clearly still practicing the optics of tokenism.”
After that, Dr Mills shared the evidence. He noted that that most non-whites lack the genetic variation that allows them to digest lactose. He pointed out that mandating the inclusion of milk in school lunches systemically harms people of color. And since African American women tend to be less prone to osteoporosis, insisting that this population consume dairy for calcium makes twice as little sense.
A couple of his zingers:
“We have no more reason to suck on the teats of a cow than we do to suck on the breasts of a post-partum weasel.”
“Drinking dairy for its nutrient content is equivalent to inhaling cigarette smoke for its oxygen content.”
Watch Dr Mills' 3-minute presentation here:
At a vegan conference in September, I ran into a plant-based policy advocate (white) whom I've known for a while. I mentioned Dr Mills performance with admiration, and she quickly cut me off: “He did no favors to the movement with his anger.”
I was too shocked to speak, so I let the moment slip away as she headed off down the escalator.
But it stayed with me.
When we deny anger to those who have been oppressed, in the interest of “effective communication” and “civility,” we're doing more than being strategic. We're invalidating their suffering, and we're actually propping up the status quo.
After all, it's very easy for society to oppress people in a civil and polite way.
While racism is obviously a problem “out there,” the question I had to ask myself was, “Is it a problem ‘in here'?” Because I hadn't registered that the entire nutritional guidelines panel was white – as I looked upon their faces, I didn't think, “That's odd – where are the people of color?” It just looked “normal” to me.
Until Dr Mills called it out.
And I'm not the only one in the plant-based community who has been blind to my own internalized racism. Dr Mills deals with this all the time in conversations at vegfests and conferences.
As he insisted during our conversation for this podcast, “I'm not a magic Negro.”
Meaning, he has no responsibility to suppress his anger, Jackie Robinson-style, to make sure my feelings aren't hurt and that I don't feel any discomfort.
In August, Dr Mills and Josh LaJaunie came to North Carolina for the Triangle Vegfest. The organizer, Helene Ann Greenberg, asked Dr Mills to speak about racism in the vegan community, along with vegan trainer Korin Sutton. Dr Mills asked me and Josh to join the panel as well, probably to help bridge the gap between his experience and that of the white folks in the audience.
Here's a hastily-shot video of that panel discussion:
Plant Yourself listeners and I have learned a great deal from Dr Mills over the years. He's taught us about comparative anatomy and physiology. He's educated us on the human gut microbiome.
And today, he shines a light on the internalized racism that lives in each one of us.
It certainly lives in me. And it makes me feel bad. And for many years, that was enough to keep me from doing the work of educating myself, of changing myself, to bring it to the light and expunge it.
Dr Mills has been a powerful ally of my soul, helping me recognize, acknowledge, and work on my own shit. Just as other allies have pointed out my sexism, homophobia, transphobia, disability-phobia, and others.
I'm not a bad person for having held these views. They are societally instilled, part of the culture.
The black American scholar Ibram X Kendi wrote an entire book, How to Be an Antiracist, to chronicle his own racism and how he came to challenge and transcend it, step by step.
We can't expect to be non-racist, or better, anti-racist, out of the gate.
Those of us in the plant-based and vegan communities, whose values center on compassion and harm reduction, naturally find it hard to see the parts of ourselves that are not compassionate. That do not advocate for justice. That are not kind.
Which is why I'm so grateful to Dr Mills for having this difficult conversation with me, so that I might stand as a proxy for all of us who strive to make the world a just, kind, compassionate, and loving place.
He talked about the “Michael Vick Double Standard” – how vegans are unwilling to forgive Michael Vick for his dog fighting even after he has repented and become an advocate for humane treatment of animals, while we are happy to forgive ourselves for all the cruelty we supported when we were eating meat and drinking milk.
He annotated the tropes about the scary, violent Black man, and showed how Michael Vick checks all those boxes.
Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.
Links
Dr Mills testimony before the USDA Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Dr Mills on Plant Yourself: Comparative Anatomy and What Humans Should Be Eating
Dr Mills on Plant Yourself: The Marvelous Microbiome
How to Be an Antiracist, by Ibram X Kendi
White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
The Black Image in the White Mind, by George M Frederickson
Black Vegan Leaders Mentioned in the Podcast
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Knocking it out of the park with this one, Howard. It takes a warrior’s heart to step toward hard truths. Thanks for showing us how it’s done.
I very much appreciate this podcast. I’ve had these same conversations about Michael Vick with some other groups I belong to. And some of these are people that still eat meat. I mentioned the same thing ‘I’ve changed, you’ve changed – is it so hard to believe that he changed?’. I got nowhere. I know I’m racist. I try to at least be open to seeing it within myself, when it rears its ugly head, as it does regularly. I guess we can’t lead people to a place they’re not ready to be. We can only take responsibility and work on our highly imperfect selves. It’s a full time job in this shit show of a world.
Couldn’t agree more. Working on my highly imperfect self is actually a lot easier and more satisfying than my old strategy: pretending that I didn’t need to change. Glad we’re on the same team! 🙂