James Wildman Interview - 101 Reasons To Go Vegan Speaker

hi there guys I have the pleasure of interviewing James today here at the animal rights foundation in Florida and James has a lecture on youtube called 101 reasons to go vegan and actually it was the lecture that I saw whenever I first kind of took this journey two-and-a-half years ago I actually I was at a Barnes & Nobles and I was checking out and talking to the cashier and she told me to watch your lecture online and then I watched it and then directly afterwards I wanted to find more documentaries and stuff online to watch and I watch Earthlings and then I decided from that point you know just to go vegan that's pretty cool and you know what uh what was your inspiration for that lecture and kind of what made you what led you to to doing it well that's my job is to go into schools universities and then give presentations on on veganism and other animal rights issues so I'm just trying to promote empathy which is I think sorely lacking in our schools and our culture but I mean I just I filmed it just so I can improve upon the presentation and I put it on Vimeo and then next thing I know maybe a few months later somebody emails me and says hey I saw your video on YouTube I think you know I didn't put on YouTube somebody else put it on and then it just kind of just went you know went on a roll from there so I mean it's great I'm glad it's up there but you know it was it wasn't my doing but I'm glad today so where did you say you you give this lecture so I speak to mostly South Florida okay I travel from from Miami to Broward County to Palm Beach County so coming fair distance and that's just this dozens and dozens of schools so I've done you know about 90% of the high schools in Broward County 90% the high schools in miami-dade West Palm Beach County or Palm Beach County is not as as a accepting of me coming into schools but I've also done most of the universities from um to Broward College to miami-dade College to FIU FAU where are you very University so you know I'm always kept busy and the fact that more and more teachers are are already introducing their students to this healthier more compassionate lifestyle so it's much easier for me to get in into schools than it ever has been what uh what's been some of the feedback from the students after you kind of do the do lecture everybody's receptive I mean it's really hard to argue when when you know when you just are sitting down and listening to the to the points so it's kind of you know either a students is gonna be like no I don't want to do it and that's it or they're just gonna say most students you know are very receptive and take literature afterwards I have a beacon shopping guide that I give them to help them with the transition the joke I make is I can get any kid to go vegan for 12 hours so after that you know it's a lot of peer pressure a lot of family pressure a lot of school schools are not very accommodating so you know um it's just a question of whether they'll follow through or not and so you know people always talk about planting seeds sometimes it feels like you're planting in a desert but other times it feels like okay this is this is just one step along the way so they'll hear it again sometime you know in the near future whether that be in college or afterwards so whatever they do in their life they'll probably hear it again the word veganism just because it's becoming more mainstream so I some of that some of the kids become vegans some go vegetarian some eliminate certain products like dairy or eggs and it's just a path that everybody is on you said that you give the lecture to college students um do you also do high school and middle school oh yeah well most of my time is actually in high schools I I kind of prefer the high school environment I always make the joke that like schools like prison I'm always get - you know dance and like person the kids can't leave so so schools are really the optimal place to give presentations just you you're always gonna have an audience there and then it's just it's much easier I think to get into to high schools because they're teaching you know 185 days a year or something like that some ridiculous amount for a college professor you know they have a set amount of time and they have a curriculum so sometimes it's harder to fit into that curriculum but I reach out to four high schools I reach out to science teachers biology physiology anatomy fizzy health teachers and then for colleges you know you can talk about ethics philosophy nutrition so stuff like that it's not that difficult so so okay so a high school student you know they're they're sitting in class and they're listening to your lecture and you know they're interested on going vegan and then they go home and then you know they tell their parents all about it and they're excited and they want to go vegan have you ever got any pushback from parents after their kids have seen your lecture and they're super pumped about veganism oh yeah I've been fed from half a dozen schools so which sucks but not I mean the I I don't know what the kid is saying to their parent I mean you know who knows maybe the kid just says oh you know some guy came in and showed this really graphic video of animals being slaughtered I don't eat meat anymore yeah I understand the parent thing would get upset so if the parent is not seeing the presentation the whole you know aspect of the presentation huh I make it very clear I'm not telling kids what to do I'm just giving them information and everything is backed up by you know most of it is government statistics from the USDA to the National Institute for Health so it's just it's a lot of statistics from the government it's not from outside sources that you would question so everything I talk about is factual and then I just get students to come to their own conclusion and a lot of times instead of parents seeing this as an opportunity to talk to their their their child and then talk to the teacher to figure out what why this person was brought in while I always brought in instead they go directly to the principal and you could have ninety nine parents who love the presentation but don't say anything and then you have one parent that hates the idea of this and then complain to the principal and the principal doesn't want to rock the boat so I'm told never to come back so how did you get the end to go to most most of the schools again just reaching out to teachers I avoid principals like the plague I just not so t individual teach and event invite you to their class yeah I mean again most there's so many teachers that are already talking about this I started over ten years ago so like teachers were showing Fast Food Nation or supersize me or forks over knives Food Inc was a big one so a lot of these kids already knew the issue before I even came in and now it's just it's just so mainstream with with more athletes more celebrities going vegan it everybody kind of knows it when I first started you know people didn't know the difference between vegetarian and vegan and I think now most people do or at least they've heard the word vegan so it's no longer this this taboo word and no board know most people are not associating with like hippies and and stuff like that anymore it's it's it's readily available to people I was actually just in the coffee shop the other day and this girl this high school girl that was sitting beside me she actually had a Food Inc book in front of her that she was reading and it was a sign from from class nice and I know that definitely kind of lifted my my beating heart up I was super super excited to see that that was coming to class right I mean they were actually actually learning about it oh yeah I mean the movement is definitely growing and you know there's there's gonna be hurdles and obviously there are but but it's definitely a growing movement so so what's what kind of inspired you you know to make that shift and go vegan yourself back back in the day um and how long have you been vegan for like 16 17 years the exact day during like that I I went vegetarian in college and and then afterwards when I graduated I read the book Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and it's like the Bible of of animal rights and it just made sense it's just so logically easy to understand so it's just like alright well if I don't have to consume animals and it's not even in my best interest and then why participate in this so that was my transition but yeah I was I was a mediator you know for 18 years of my life and never really questioned it so I when I gave presentations I always try to you know think about how how would I have taken if I was the student that class and my thing is that sarcasm I love just to be sarcastic sarcastic person so I just try to get them to laugh at their own behaviors and if you can get somebody to laugh at them babies you've won half the battle it's like a game of chess you should know you know their moves before they even know their move so you're two steps ahead so I'm just I'm just trying to answer their questions before they even think about it but what the question is and by the end of the presentation I when I talk to adults you know the presentations about 101 reasons to go vegan but when I talked to the youth high school and college for the most part they don't know who I am they just think I'm you know oh it's a substitute or something or somebody who has tattoos on their neck or something so I already have like street cred I come in there and and I don't say the word vegan until the very end so you know it's like because people still have kind of you know connotations of what vdm is so I avoid the word at all and then at the very end they go this is what veganism is but like I okay but it didn't sound so bad at all so it's just you know making sure that you're you're smart about how you approach it and you know it's most people most people are compassionate most people if if given the opportunity to to have the information presented to them you know they'll take it and they'll hopefully go apply it if not they'll at least understand the issue better so they won't have these negative patience anyway so to somebody out there that is maybe new to veganism and they're kind of wondering what to eat yeah what does uh what to you James like to make that that's easy or what it worries some of your favorite things yeah I mean I I can barely boil water so I mean that's you know spaghetti with marinara sauce meatless meatballs but I also just I mean I love I love salads but not just like your your side of a better lettuce no I mean I have like this beans and avocados and and you know sprout organic tofu in there and just just do it up it's just a huge huge bowl of everything and you know like maybe I lost sound like vinaigrette or something like that so you know I just pretty basic nothing really extravagant yesterday I had Brussels sprouts and asparagus which stuff I used to hate as a kid now it's just like pop in Brussels sprouts like candy so I love mango it's got a mango tree everyone's got a mango trees are everywhere it's why I love mango trees so when you see people buy mangoes in the grocery store when you can just grab it off somebody's yard you know just just tons of fruit I try to eat more more vegetables dig into like hummus so I just end up you know getting a lot of raw vegetables like broccoli cauliflower carrots pea pods and just basically use it as a spoon for my hummus so that's how I get my greens in but it's really easy when you think about it I mean there's just there's a replacement for everything so if you want like chicken easiest replace with veggie chicken you want a hamburger there's a veggie burger you know there's beyond meat burger which is just tastes exactly like me at least what I remember meat tastes like so you go to TGI Fridays go to Burger fly and get the beyond meat burger it's it's no different it's got it's got actually having more protein than your regular hamburger it's got less less ya know saturated well it's got less saturated fat no cholesterol so it's just like a healthier version it tastes the same why not that's really why not yeah definitely no and the price is fairly comparable animal doesn't have to die for it and then way better from the environment oh yeah better for people's health to so many different aspects so um how how long have you been with the animal rights foundation of Florida for that's going on 11 years okay what what what exactly do you guys do here so animal rights foundation is founded in 1989 so it's coming on 30 years and just been a voice for for animals in in Florida and just basically teaching respecting a passion to to animals and and again most people care most people actually you know don't want to cause animals harm and they they're opposed to animals suffering it's just that you know in our lives we just do things that they kind of contradict or suppress that that those feelings and a lot of it's just ignorance just not knowing how we're supporting the animal cruelty obviously you know the animals we we don't understand the consequences of that to do the animals to our health and to the environment but we also we work on on many different levels you know we we try to get laws you know better laws on the book to protect animals we fight for again all animals whether it's dogs and cats or or animals living in captivity so you know we were opposed to animals and in circuses and you know one of the big victories was Ringling Brothers no longer you know subjecting their their elephants and tigers and other animals to torture okay so that was you guys well is us and many others but yeah I mean we we we were protesting every year outside of American Airlines Arena so you know and they that was the last that was basically they made the announcement that when we were protesting that that was gonna be there there laughs this is their last tour so I mean it's it's a big victory it's it's big and more of these victories are happening with like SeaWorld anything there you know breeding orca whales in captivity so you know we're on the right path it's just you know like every other movement before it from women's rights and civil rights and you know workers rights it's slow you know it's a slow movement and we're just constantly evolving this isn't the pinnacle of humanity where we were bobbing to something better something more compassionate hopefully so how exactly you said you guys are working to change some of the laws and stuff how you know how do you even go about that you know so oh yeah sir so we've been working with just the local cities the commissioners and the mayor's and and South Florida has adopted throughout their like over think 40 cities communities have adopted a law banning this at the retail sale of cats and dogs so we're not we're not opposed to cats and dogs having cats but we're close to the breeding of cats and dogs coming from puppy mills and so puppy mills are large breeding warehouses where females are just forced to become pregnant they have their puppies and then their puppies are shipped off to different pet stores throughout the country and it's just a very cruel industry and and it's not very well regulated by the government so where government has failed and so which is basically taking over and saying hey look this is what we adopt where we're proposing an ordinance that bans the sale of the retail sale of cats and dogs instead we're promoting adopting gonna your local shelter going to pound pet smart pet Supermarket Petco they all work with shelters when it comes to their dogs and cats not other animals but dogs and cats and so we're just saying you know there are millions of cats and dogs being euthanized every year in the United States and this doesn't have to be this way so support your shelter these dogs and cats did nothing wrong you know they just they just you know they they didn't do anything wrong the animals in the shelter are just you know Forgotten victims so so if anybody you know out there that's watching this wants to get involved in the animal rights foundation what was some stuff that they can do to help out you can sign up for our email alerts just go on to the ARF webpage which is a rff org so AR FF dot org and then sign up for our email alerts and we'll let you know what's going on in your community and how you can help out you can follow us on Facebook which is Facebook / we're facebook-dot-com forward-slash animals Florida where just again look up animal rights foundation of Florida on Facebook and yeah and so you can you know whether it's writing a letter to the editor certain issues that are coming up there is a member 13 for the November election which is going to give the people of Florida the opportunity to ban greyhound racing greyhound racing is incredibly cruel industry every three days a greyhound dies in the Greyhound industry and it's just these animals are basically living most of their life 20 to 23 hours in cages and it's not it's not a sport we won't do this 10 yo dog so if you don't agree with it you have the opportunity to now use your voice and and so vote come November election vote YES on amendment 13 we also do demonstrations right now we're doing a protests I think we're gonna be doing it every other weekend every other Saturday at the Galleria Mall in Fort Lauderdale they are opening up a Marine Park which is just insane because it's less than a mile away from the ocean so it's just the absurdity of it is is quite apparent but you know animals don't belong in captivity and these animals many of them were captured from the ocean so you've taken a healthy animal from the wild and brought them in so that we can just observe them it teaches kids the complete opposite of empathy it teaches them that it's okay for humans to exert their power on these animals and know if the roles were reversed we wouldn't want to be put in captivity so most people don't want to be in jail so why do we why do we jail these animals and so if you're if you're opposed to it please come on out help us support the cause so again we're be protesting next Saturday which would be what the 11th and we do it from 12:00 to 2:00 right when it's blazing hot outside and just holding up signs and handing out literature and just letting people know what's happening awesome very cool what something that I find interesting and that's really kind of inspiring to me is like anytime I meet people like you that are really kind of motivated to do kind of like a selfless act and really kind of motivated to help others I'm just it kind of interests me and like what kind of inspires you and the fact that you know there's there's so many different things that people can value in life and maybe that would give people fulfillment in life whether that's you know going after making money or whether that's having a lot of material possessions or whether that's you know maybe doing drugs and alcohol or you know partying or there's so many different things in life but it's like you've chosen kind of the cause of fighting for animal rights and stuff as a way to kind of give yourself meaning and it's like what what do you think kind of led you to have that you know that that passion and that drive to fight for animal rights you know throughout the years for over a decade now well so a couple things one I when I first started college I did a work-study to get some extra money and and so one of the opportunities was working at the YMCA basically working with the teens I think that sounds like fun I'm gonna get paid to play basketball and that's really what it was and so it was it was fun to to basically just hang out and and create programs for for teenagers and then once I became vegan I realized wow like I have this you know passion for for animal rights and how can I combine it with with my passion for working with with youth and and empowering them and that's really what it comes down to I'm trying to empower them through animal rights and it's not just about animals it's all interconnected with the environment with their health and so I'm trying to empower them overall to to basically live a healthier lifestyle something that's positive for them for animals and for the environment so you can do it for selfish reasons you can do it outside of yourself and a lot of it is just anger you know once I understood the truth and realize that I was lied to that that um that I was sacrificing my compassion and health because of these stories that we were told as children anger is good it's just a question of how do you harness the anger to do something positive with it nobody likes that angry vegan you know unless they're they're good at you know being an angry vegan you know being sarcastic being funny and then that's what it comes down to it yeah how can you use that anger to to do to do good and so you know hey I've been Mike my job is basically I'm trying to get myself laid off like yeah I would love for my boss to be able to come up to me like Jase we don't need your people you done really great maybe something else my time so I'm trying to get laid off you know but it's it's it's it's it's a lot of work and but you know there's so many times when I'm frustrated by it by the reaction or just the lack of or the end the lack of empathy I see or the just the just idea of like people feeling like they can't do anything or feeling helpless and so I'm trying to to basically just keep that anger alive you know cuz that that that spark is what you kind of need to just basically keep us going so when I get down on the movement I remember like why am I doing this you know that anger comes back and it's like all right now I feel like you know it's like my Red Bull the energy riddle sucks yeah that's basically what keeps me going all right well thanks for thanks for talking and doing this interview today and do what you're doing it's prepend thank you it's been cool cool me Mia and figuring out you know what what kind of things motivate you and hearing about your your journey yeah and definitely thanks again for post in that lecture because that's ultimately one of the things that led me to being vegan and sitting here today interviewing you yeah and I think I mean the other thing is that you know hopefully more people will do what you're doing you know social media is key to this movement but giving presentations like I said school is just such an easy way of promoting it to so many people and again Internet is great just because you're reaching millions but you know getting that one but not one on one but that like one on 30 you know intimate setting where you're given maybe 60 to 90 minutes to really discuss the issue so if that's something that people were interested you know you know he's contact me James at a rff dot org I can help you out with like you know materials that you might need but you know it's just it's just another way of promoting the cause so what you're doing what other people are doing just keep doing it keep fighting the good fight awesome and if you guys haven't seen his lecture online 101 reasons to go vegan I'll put a link below where you can definitely check that out and I really do like the way that she added the humor into it I was definitely there's lots of parts that are pretty funny I like to do it as well but um thanks for thanks doing it and uh and good luck you know growing the movement and doing what you're doing cool thank you appreciate [Music]

Channel: Chris Bowling

Views: 1,842

Keywords: Vegan, James, Wildman, Interview, 101, Reasons, To, Go, 101 Reasons to go vegan, Animal, Rights, Foundation, Florida

Id: oGuZdpONagw

Length: 23min 54sec (1434 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 09 2018