Vegan Hood TV

I came upon the site Afrikan Raw Vegan Talk last week, which is the first awesome thing I have to share today. Take, for example, this extract from the post “I Am an African Vegan”:

I’m a Nigerian vegan. We exist. We can come out. All that pastureland chewed off by browsers, we could feed so many more Africans with what we could grow on it than what is fed by the brutally slaughtered animals. Spare their lives. Make Africa the garden that can feed ourselves and the world. Not by giving Nigerian land to white Zimbabwean farmers and displacing black folk all over again. Not by bulldozing the rainforests, nor flooding the Delta with blood and oil.

Maybe African vegans are too sophisticated, too futuristic, too iconoclastic for this world right now. But we are coming out. We exist. We are dedicated. We know about racism and speciesism and sexism and patriarchy and neocolonialism. We know how awesome eating stacks of fresh veggies and fruits makes us look and feel, preventing disease, preventing the African dictator-/ corrupt official-gut. Africans not addicted to meat, nor to rage and anger. Africans loving their own selves, their land, their bodies, their families, the collective Afrikan.

And then from the coolness there, I also learned about Vegan Hood TV. The Precision Afrikan says this of it: “I’ve been checking out VeganHood TV on Youtube for the past couple weeks. They are excellent. Black vegan men in Brooklyn. Showcasing the realness and teaching the family. These are the sort of cats I’ve got to collabo with once I move to BK later this year. They should win awards based on their theme song alone, I love it.”

I love it too. Below is the first episode, hosted by Mental Sun. Yes, it does take a while to get through the coconut chopping, but stick with it. The grocery store trip alone is worth the watch. I love how he highlighted all the gorgeous, colorful, healthy vegetables (“the good”) before moving on (complete with warning scrolling across the bottom) to juxtapose that with pans of substances like “Nasty Ass Stewed Cow Stomach” (“the bad”) in the deli area.

There’s definitely a primary – and important– focus on human health (in particular in the black community, the show’s primary intended audience) running through this series, but it’s clear from various commentary that VeganHood TV is concerned for animals too. And they’re also working to show, as highlighted in the theme song, that “you don’t need to be wealthy” to eat more healthfully (and, obviously, compassionately). Like I said, it’s awesome.

Here’s the YouTube channel where you can watch episodes following the one below [edit: you can also view several embedded videos in one place at the African Raw Vegan Talk post mentioned earlier]. I took just a quick glance at the start of parts 1 and 2 of the second episode, and it looks like the members of the Vegan Hood team have been continuing to develop their video-making skills as they go. And that’s great. But I’m not terribly concerned with judging the aesthetics right now. I just think it’s a fantastic concept and outreach effort.