Here's the surprisingly black history of veganism. If your only mental picture of veganism is white ladies and little women knocking back shots of wheat grass, then you're way off. In fact, you may be surprised to find out that this new veganism trend is actually not that new and it's not all that white either. In fact, veganism can be traced back over 2,000 years to the ancient cultures in India, the Mediterranean basin, and drumroll police, Africa. Now when it comes to a lot of traditional black American cuisine, you wouldn't be wrong to say that it features well a lot of meat. But this hasn't always been the case. There's always been like this river of African Americans who've been pioneers in the vegan movement. Originally, beer were plants and people were eating plants. I mean, that's the natural thing for us to eat. That's what we gravitated towards. That's what looked good to us. That's what our bodies were made to eat. So this is just nothing new. But this vegan tradition changed when European adventurers, aka colonizers, introduced more commercial farming methods, which produced a lot more animals, but also fewer indigenous crops. So the veganism of today is actually more of a nod to the traditions of Africa rather than a recent phenomenon. Now, while the vegans of yesterday were largely driven out of necessity, these days, folks from all backgrounds are going vegan for a whole host of practical, personal, and philosophical reasons. And thanks to Google, there's a whole smorgasbord of information to back these reasons up. Like the study from the American Society of Animal Science that calls out how bad livestock production is for the planet, turns out that 2.8 gigatons of toxic gas from Calibubu is an all that great for the environment. Or the recent study from the American Heart Association that details the benefits of a plant-based diet. But if you still think the veganism is more for Becky than for B, here's another study for you. It's been reported that black people are more than twice as likely to be vegan than the average US citizen. Guess the proverbial cookout is about to get a whole lot greener. I'm never, ever, ever, ever, sought that I would be a vegan. My sophomore year digger agreed came to campus and they talked about the plate of Latin America and how unhelpfully most folks eat and why we should become vegetarian. That talk literally rocked my entire world. Within a year, I was a vegetarian and within a year and a half, I went vegan. I started out with the anti-racist activist and it wasn't until I started reading some more like animal rights scholarship that I thought like well how do actual animals factor into this racial conversation? And so a lot of black veganism is not just about black people eating like kale or whatever. It's talking about the world, talking about oppression in a totally different way and re-envisioning a more liberatory world taking into account animal experiences as well. There are no shortage of prominent black vegans either. As a game changes like calling capronink, taraji-ti-henson, Erica Badu, Jay-Z, and Asa Brocky. They miss a whole lot of rappers. Well that's no coincidence. Hip hop and veganism lately are going together like Kanye and a muted color palette. In fact, plants are so hot right now, there's even a rapper who goes by the name of Casey Veggiez and he's not vegan but he likes big beets and a kale out loud. Okay that was bad. And there you have it folks. Veganism is for everyone. Thank you so much for watching. If you like what you saw, go ahead and give this video a thumbs up. And for more from attention, click that subscribe button.