Famous Vegans - Saul Williams

Saul Williams, 2008.

Saul Williams

Born Saul Stacey Williams on February 29, 1972. He is an American musician, writer, poet and actor. He is known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop. He got a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Atlanta's Morehouse College and a master of fine arts degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He started making a name for himself as a poet at the infamous Nu-yorican Poets Café. Nu-yorican had developed a reputation for cutthroat "poetry slams". In a "slam", poets are given a few minutes to mesmerize the audience. In 1996, he scored the title of Nu-yorican Poet Café's Grand Slam Champion. He caught the eye of independent film director Marc Levin, who cast him as the lead role in the 1998 independent movie Slam. You can check out his music, his books and his website.

Quotes by Saul Williams:

"I am sometimes hesitant about making a big deal about my vegan diet, as I have considered it a personal choice worth little discussion. Yet more and more, I have found myself attempting to encourage people who ask me where I find my inspiration, or what issues do I find important, or how can we curb warfare and violence to consider what we ingest."

"Everyday, our species participates in the mass genocide of other species without care or concern or even questioning whether the violence that we ingest and condone plays any role in our apathetic support of the war machine we have become."

"How is it that we as human beings can represent both the highest and most developed and lowest and least concerned forms of intelligence of any living species? Are we simply glued to age-old barbaric traditions that cloud our senses and render us inhumane in our dependence on comfort foods and practices? Is our dependence on foreign oil the only thing we need to curb? What about not so foreign species?"

"Perhaps the biggest issue at hand is not what our cars run on, but essentially what do we run on? The fact is that factory farms are the number one users of crude oil, not cars. That’s basically what it takes to kill approximately one million chickens per hour (just in the US). More than half of our water supply goes to feed animals being fattened for slaughter. The methane gases that contribute to global warming are produced majorly by cow farts in factory farms, not to mention the amount of fossil fuels needed to create just one pound of beef."

"If we shifted our compassion towards animals, the domino effect would heal the planet. We’d no longer be cutting down rain forests to create more space for cows to graze, we’d stop depleting the ocean of the necessary (keyword: necessary) food chains that our eco system depends on, diseases including many cancers, heart disease, obesity, and others which find their root in the food/toxins we ingest would slowly disappear as would our taste for violence."

"Be mindful of what you ingest. Some of us take steps like, "I don’t eat beef or pork anymore," "I’m watching my diet." But realize that your diet is not only what you eat, it’s what you watch, it’s what you listen to, all of that is digested. You may be vegan, but then the music that you listen to is full of beef and the tv shows that you watch are full of pork. So you got to be mindful of what you digest on every level."

Quotes are from his 2008 newsletter and his interview on Davey D's Hip Hop Corner.