Racism in Veganism

For most vegans, racism could not be more distant from veganism. As a rule, vegans abhor it as much as or more than speciesism.

However, veganism, being something of a counter culture, often finds fertile soil in the same minds that are attracted to other more fringe ideas from Flat-Earth to unfortunately racism and White Nationalism; and unfortunately a tolerance of these beliefs and their advocates is being promoted as well as analogous to tolerance of meat-eaters.

The Harm

Number six of the Seven Deadly Sins of Bad Vegan Activism is "Loudly advocating unrelated fringe claims."

Vegan Nazis, white nationalists, and other racists are certainly harmful to veganism (these aren't popular beliefs, even among conservatives who are more tolerant of them), but racism is special among most of those claims.
Where something like Flat-Earthism is ridiculous and makes veganism look ridiculous by association from people who advocate both, it's otherwise relatively benign (aside from promoting scientific ignorance and conspiratorial thinking). We're at no risk of hosting social policies or electing Flat-Earther political candidates who will act in accordance with those beliefs to do actual harm. Racism is different: it's actually harmful.
In the United states, in an unfortunate turn in 2016 for the once respectable Republican Party, Donald Trump courted support from avowed racists and the Ku Klux Klan, propelling him into the highest office where he has done substantial harm to immigration reform and emboldened white supremacists whose terrorism is on the rise while Trump cuts funding to fight it[1], despite the number of deaths resulting from right-wing terrorism being only slightly less than Islamic terrorism[2] although spread out over a larger number of attacks, which may make them less sensational to report on and create a reporting bias[3].

Racism will lose. This is not a viable ideology, and there is no serious risk of White Nationalist policies taking hold. However, in their struggle to bring their beliefs to fruition make no mistake: racism is not a benign absurdity. Both promoting and apologizing for racist beliefs is inherently harmful.

Relevance to veganism

Racism is harmful, so what? Why do we, as vegan advocates need to care?

Guilt By Association is one reason; we don't need literal vegan Nazis sullying the image of veganism. But beyond fighting something evil in the world: a little bit of good social karma? Vegans are often accused of only caring about animals, and ignoring harm to humans done by our own only reinforces that even if nobody assumes veganism and racism are related. Vegans have some obligation to police bad behavior among our own, if not intrinsically, then by mandate of general opinion. We see the same kind of mindset in the belief that Muslims should be doing more to speak up against Islamic terrorism. There's something to be said for not overdoing it and becoming vegan police, but beyond the possibility of a vegan going on a serial killing rampage, this pretty much takes the cake. It's also a very politically safe position to take; racism isn't going to grow in popularity; if you're worried about coming down on the wrong side of history, don't be.

This does NOT mean expelling anybody from our ranks with the slightest appearance of racism.
Disagreeing with affirmative action, or some other political position, isn't racist.
Not usually being attracted to other races isn't racism (being against other people having interracial marriages is).
Voting Republican isn't racist. Not thinking the racist things that candidate has said are more important than other issues isn't either.

Conservatives should be welcome, and that includes people who are even -- in effect -- a little bit racist. "Racist" in the most general baseline sense of cultural racism.
They might make some bad jokes, or laugh at them. They certainly fail implicit association tests, and they sometimes say things like "I'm not racist, but... [insert something that sounds kind of racist]" without thinking about it. There are a lot of people who simply don't realize what's inappropriate, or might not have thought about these things much or may hold some misconceptions about race. There's nothing malicious or intentional there. This common passive form of racism is a social problem, but it's not something to condemn individuals over when they can be educated, and in many cases it's probably not worth bringing up directly; they just need to have some friendly contact with people outside their social bubbles.

The problem comes from the overt, and even proud, racism, white nationalism, and open promotion of the pseudosciences and ideologies these people rely on.

Vegan Nazis

Adolf Hitler

Hitler wasn't vegan, and he probably wasn't even a vegetarian by modern standards (he does seem to have avoided most meat for reasons of a sensitive stomach). The Nazi party, however, did have some strong policies on animal welfare for the time (which seem ironic given how they treated other humans). It may have all been propaganda, or there may have been a legitimate concern there (Even Hitler probably wasn't pure evil).

Whether there's a hint of truth in or or not, the point is that many Nazis believe the propaganda about Hitler as an animal lover, and that has seen a disturbing trend of vegan Neo-Nazis, particularly among Nipsters (Nazi Hipsters).

Vegetable Police

Created a "Vegan Nazi" tshirt and advertised it on youtube Echoed a series of Haulocaust denialist claims

Probably isn't an actual racist, and has tried to distance himself from the mistake, "Not a Nazi, just stupid"

Vegan Reich

An actual Vegan Nazi on youtube promoted by Vegetable Police during his brief affair with Nazism.

White Nationalists

Cory and Tara McCarthy

Tara has owned the title "racist" while Cory has rejected it on semantic grounds, insisting that racism is based in hate. They're both outspoken white nationalists.

Apologists

Isaac Brown

Isaac has made a hobby of defending Cory McCarthy, and echoing and confirming the racist beliefs of much of his fan-base, defending himself with the claim that they're just facts, and arguments like 'facts can't be racist'. "Facts" absolutely can be racist when they are unsubstantiated or imply certain underlying beliefs that are not substantiated. That is, when "facts" about race are false, and are only shared as talking points of racists, and you choose to believe them without research and parrot them without qualification, you're either a racist or playing it up to please your racist fans (it's unclear if that's better or worse).

The Golden One

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