Vegan Morality and anti-oppressive theory

Hi y’all, I’m a vegan and a social work student, and I’m just starting to get really frustrated with everything so I’m ranting a little.

One of our main focuses right now in my course is anti-oppressive theory and social work practice…and all of our conversations about the theory is just so vegan, it’s the same with the love ethic.

It’s consistently infuriating that I’m in a room of kind and compassionate people who can’t extent their morals to animals. And it’s not even something I can bring up in class as it would end up de-railing the conversation leading to my class mates and I missing important information for our assessments and exams.

I just feel so distraught that there are so many kind people, and so few who oppose the exploitation of animals. How is it so normalised??? How can’t these people who are in classes that constantly ask them to examine their own biases and preconceived notions about oppression, racism, classism, power imbalances, ect…don’t critically think about how it can be applied to their every day actions??? Especially when we read literature that says to “promote love and collectivist action to transform systems of equality and power for a world of peace, equity, justice, and wellbeing for all living species” ( N.J Godden and S. Peter, 2023, The love Ethic: Love and activism for evidential justice.) that’s not sighted correctly but idc….bcs how does it not click to meat eaters when they read this???? How can they not see the similarities of veganism???

Realistically im not expecting everyone in the course to see the similarities to veganism and immediately become vegan, but the fact that it doesn’t even clock to them as a concept. They don’t read that quote and think about the animals they eat, and I just find that insane.