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Will Shetterly wrote:
> "Racist" seems a rather strong word. I'd suggest "thoughtless."
I agreee -- racist is a strong word, and one sometimes used too quickly
and too often. You are also right about thoughtless as an alternative.
At some point, though, continued and perpetual thoughtlessness in the
face of evidence, and similar thoughtlessness in the face of the
concrete experiences of dozens of generations of people from India,
becomes more than thoughtlessness. That's why I used the term racist.
Actually, a deeper reason for me was sitting on this panel, and feeling
very offended at how this person, a dietitian with a PhD and a member in
good standing of the CDA, could so easily dismiss our experience, and
way of life. What I felt was more than thoughtlessness. It is not
often as a white person that I feel the sting of racism, but that day,
as a Hindu, I felt it. After the panel, and the hurried exit of the
dietitian, I spoke with the two MDs on the panel, and explained how I
felt. They, both white, by the way, understood why I used the word
racist.
And then we spoke of the issue of healthy youngsters from birth on
vegetarian diets, and decided the critical factor isn't the lack of
meat, but probably the fact that so many kids in North America are
weaned from their mother's milk at an age much earlier than elsewhere in
the world.
>Americans
> are not taught to examine their assumptions. I suspect many Americans
> assume that the only vegetarian children abroad are the children of the
> very poor, who can't afford meat. The American meat industry has long
> taught that meat was necessary for health; the people on your panel may
> simply have been the victims of bad education.
You're absolutely right. But the problem again, is if the dietitians
who hold themselves up as _the_ experts don't have correct information,
how can we reasonably expect others to be well informed?
> If you're interested in vegetarianism in America, I highly recommend a
> magazine called "Vegetarian Times."
Excellent magazine.
Thanks for the feedback.
Daly
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