Why Veganism and Firebombs Don't Mix

In a recent post on her La Chola blog, brownfemipower uses her experience and knowledge of feminism and other social justice movements to explain "why fire bombing will not work." She touches on many of the reasons I don't support the firebombing in particular, and the ALF in general.

Like bfp, I believe that what is needed is cultural and social change, and I agree that this requires a mass movement. I think bfp articulates how veganism works in this way when she writes:

I think animal rights organizers need to focus more on changing a culture that does not consider the needs of animals on any level at all. For example: why is it that when 99% of the people in the U.S. by a new product, they do not ask themselves, how would/does this product affect animals? Would things change for animals if this *was* one of the first questions asked?

Obviously, veganism is very much about making this very question one of the foremost things people consider. That is, veganism challenges us to question the U.S. culture of human supremacy, which is reinforced by speciesism and the privilege that come from exploiting other animals. This vegan approach can be contrasted with the counterproductive use of violence. As bfp explains:

Changing cultural beliefs does NOT happen by firebombings. Violence as a strategy has NEVER changed cultural beliefs for the better–indeed, as many post colonial and radical women of color activists would argue, it actually *reinforces* cultural beliefs, turning what once was a pain in the ass cultural standard that could be ignored or only 'performed' in certain spaces to shut up the complainers, into a standard that is severely (and usually violently) enforced and highly policed in the name of 'showing solidarity' against violence.

I think a good example of how firebombing does not change cultural beliefs, and how it can reinforce them, can be found in the opinions of White male authors Derrick Jensen and Peter Gelderloos. Both Jensen and Gelderloos are sympathetic to firebombing vivisectionist, while at the same time expressing disdain for veganism. Why is this?

I believe it has everything to do with how firebombing targets an individual whose exploitation of nonhuman animals is seen as "cruel" (i.e., "socially and culturally unacceptable behavior"), while doing nothing to challenge the social and cultural acceptability of human supremacy or speciesism. That is, Jensen and Gelderloos can dine on the flesh of a grass-fed cow while applauding the bombing of a vivisectionist's home because they aren't "abusive" vivisectionists and therefore don't feel implicated.

I think this is the sort of logic at work with hate crime laws, and why they do not challenge oppression or make people safer. A straight White Christian male U.S. citizen can applaud the harsh conviction of a member of the KKK without having his straight White Christian male U.S. citizen privilege questioned. The cultural beliefs that support systems of oppression aren't changed with hate crime laws, rather only the most "cruel" or "abusive" acts of individual behavior that go beyond what is socially and culturally acceptable are punished. In this context, firebombing is just a vigilante form of law enforcement violence.

Back to bfp's post, I think she makes an important psychological point when she writes, "as a parent, I figured out years ago that hurting my children because they hurt me to 'teach them what it feels like,' has never worked as a parenting strategy, not once."