Editor’s note: This is not a spoof of an Onion article. This actually happened in Fort Mill.
Each generation faces its own civil rights battles. Will women be allowed to vote? Will diners serve blacks food with the general population? Will lawmakers recognize same-sex marriage? Will vegans ever be treated as equals?
Fort Mill vegan Karen Norman said a local greenway was less than thrilled after she pitched an idea to serve samples of vegan pizza, cookies, sausage and other snacks to partygoers at a yearly Earth Day Celebration.
The 56-year-old owner of The Painted Parrot, an art studio, has worked with neighboring Anne Springs Close Greenway in the past during fall festivals, where she helped children paint pumpkins and such, but when she presented her idea to serve vegan samples and show a video linking veganism to conservation she realized the organizers had a beef.
Norman was given the cold shoulder as soon as she tried to explain why the project would fit into the event’s theme of conservation, preservation and preservation. Mina MacDonald, events and volunteer coordinator at ASC Greenway, told Norman that organizers thought her booth would be too political and might offend some meat eaters.
“It’s not a big deal,” Norman said. “I just want people to know how good this food can actually be.”
MacDonald did not respond to requests to comment on this story but Denise Cubbedge, director of development at ASC Greenway, said that Norman was turned down because the Earth Day Celebration is a sort-of birthday party for the greenway that showcases its recreational activities. She would not comment on the conversations between Norman and MacDonald, during which MacDonald allegedly told Norman, “I know how vegetarians are.”
Norman is far from the Moosewood, book-thumping extremist you might expect to see standing in front of a meat-packing plant with posters depicting slaughtered seals. In a Charlotte Applebee’s, she spoke about the confusion she felt after McDonald always ended their phone calls after just three minutes.
Over a Bud Light (she’s careful not to order a Guiness because they use fish bladders in their brewing process), Norman said she is used to being shut out as soon as anyone around her hears the word “vegan.”
“People get a really bad attitude [with vegans]. They’d just rather not hear or see this stuff,” she said.
Norman began her journey into full-fledged veganism a year ago after seeing the popular 2011 documentary Forks Over Knives, which advocates for a plant-based diet as a way to fight off various diseases. She immediately felt better after removing certain products from her body and said that her arthritis went away completely.
While her overall health improvements inspired her to want to share her experience with others, she soon became more aware of the way animals were mistreated as they were prepared to be eaten. She soon gave up the fish and other guilty pleasures that had hung around in her diet and joined the vegan army with enthusiasm.
Norman hates politics and only on her private Facebook page has she shared some of those videos of animal-cruelty-through-farming that many people would rather keep out of sight, out of mind when trying Taco Bell’s new XXL tacos.
The video she planned to show at the celebration was an educational one based on sustainability that did not touch on any political or offensive nerve. At one point, the amount of feces that adds up daily due to animal agriculture was compared to the Minneapolis skyline. The graphics resembled everyone’s favorite Emoji and the word “poop” was used multiple times. Not enough to disturb the most conservative parent.
“I believe in educating people and letting them make up their own mind,” said Norman, whose family has played along with some of the more minor aspects of her new life but for the most part continues to eat what they please. “I don’t believe in scare tactics. I don’t believe in ramming things down someone’s throat.”
Norman feels it’s important to tell people about the health effects of veganism but perhaps more importantly the effects of animal agriculture on the planet. It’s a part of veganism many people aren’t aware of and there are plenty of corporations in the country that would like to keep it that way, she said.
For that reason, Norman has become a bit more proactive as she comes up on the one-year anniversary of her enlightenment. In January, she served a petition to the town of Fort Mill to stop the pig races that have long been a part of the annual South Carolina Strawberry Festival. She does not believe in animals used for entertainment in any way, which would assumedly put her in a strong anti-YouTube stance.
Despite the petition, which had over 800 signatures, the races will not be stopped, yet Norman was very happy with the response she received. Town staffers introduced her to the farmer who owns the pigs, who assured her that her concerns, such as the animals being starved before the race, were not an issue.
ASC Greenway staff said they offered her a spot in a Health Fair, but the email they referred to just offers to forward her information to other organizers. Nothing else was heard on the Health Fair front. The ASC Greenway is a private nonprofit and is not affiliated with Fort Mill.
“There’s no compromise, there wasn’t anything. I was shrugged off in every conversation we had,” Norman said.
This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2014.
A common M.O. of the Left is to preemptively ban something because “it might offend” someone. Now the shoe’s on the other foot and they break out the wah-mbulance. Sorta like screeching about the Redskins’ name but not saying a word about Dear Leader using the code name “Geronimo” for Osama bin Laden.
Ain’t nothing conservative about that white suit, fam.
I really don’t understand why people want to make veganism political. It’s everyone’s world, we (left, right, middle) all should be concerned. If you think the name vegan is synonymous democrat, think again. Vegans come in all walks of life, religions, party affiliations with many different views. They are living a selfless life trying to better the world for the animals and people. They are thinking of 11,000 children dying of hunger every single day, 1.5 acres of rain forest being cut down every second, and the killing of land animals at the rate of 50 Billion a year. Science has linked to eating animal products to many cancers, heart disease and many other illnesses. We don’t NEED to eat animals in a modern society, it is just a want. It is reprehensible the way we treat farm animals. They are treated as things, not living creatures..Yet they have the same feelings as your dog has and they feel sadness, joy, loneliness, and fear. The problem is that many people are not aware of these things nor educated on the effects of animal agriculture on our planet. For example, it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. It takes 18 times more energy to produce animal calories versus plant calories and you can feed 50 times more people per acre of land. Animal agriculture pollutes the air more than all forms of transportation combined. If we took the grains we give our farm animals , we could wipe out world hunger. So we have a group of people that really care and are actually living their lives ethically and people want to bash them for it. It’s a messed up world, indeed.
>> We don’t NEED to eat animals in a modern society
Tell that to the president you voted for who ate a $300 dinner in Japan that included endangered bluefin tuna sushi.
I live in Fort Mill and while I would like to see such information and samples at the Earth Day celebrations at the ASC Greenway and the Strawberry Festival, I would also like to note that this article may be slightly misleading particularly in reference to the pig races. Admittedly, I did not even know they did this, it sounds horrific. However, it can’t be an event that has been going on for very long since the Strawberry Festival has only existed for 4 years, excluding the one beginning this May. It does seem odd that the ASC Greenway, whose mission was “to save a few trees” in this area, is not interested in other methods of conservation and spreading that knowledge to the public.
ODB, I did not vote for Obama. But I do care about health, I do care about our planet, and i do care about animals. You are using assumptions that only people on the “left” can hold these attributes. I bed to differ. You want to make this political, but it’s not. Stop using things like left, right, or tell it to the president. Just look at it for what it is. It has nothing to do with politics, nor party. We must be educated as new science and studies show us things. We can’t just live in the dark ages just because we always have.
Some people are incapable of seeing past the little D or R after a politician’s name and feel the need to twist everything they see or hear into an attack on “the enemy” in the other party.
Think how much more we could accomplish if we worked together.