I’ve been an exchange student in high school, and my family hosted two of them. Im from Germany, and the exchange was with US students. My personal experience was interesting, I stayed with a mormon family in Utah, and it was a very different life than I was used to from my rather liberal upbringing. Not necessarily in a way that bothered me as most of the people at school also were Mormon and had more or less strict Mormon parents. But yeah, it was just very different. Going to church every Sunday, praying together with family and reading their religious texts, small acts of community service under the umbrella of the church. Their lives were very much defined by their religion and the social circle they built at church. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I kept any of their habits or beliefs long-term, although some stuck with me for a couple of months after I returned home. I do believe that the experience made me more open-minded and inclined to understand others rather than judge them.

The first student we hosted actually stayed with us in the year before I went to the US. He was kind and sociable, and we could tell he was having a good time during his year. I think he also realized some things about himself that he hadn’t known before, so that’s great. That’s the biggest advantage, you go through so much personal growth during that year, which can really help you get ahead of your peers if you can utilize it.

The other student we hosted had a rougher time, and I think it came down to not really finding connection at school. But he did end up staying the year with us and visited again a couple of years later, so I’d say it was overall still a positive experience for him and our family.

The orange cat stereotype is just too true.

That’s the tricky thing with biases, right? They’re formed by our experiences. My experience interacting with vegans has clearly been different from yours, so that may explain why you would think I’m denying reality. Anyway, I hope you can keep an open mind when talking to vegans who use the word carnist. Not all of them are bigots :)

Or maybe your opinion on what the term means is influenced by your biases about what vegans are like and act like towards carnists? If you interact with vegans on a friendly basis rather than assuming that they’re trying to insult you or that they’re calling your choices morally repugnant, you may find that it’soften used descriptively rather than to pass judgement. I have personally seen the term used neutrally more often than I’ve seen it used insultingly. It was also not coined as a slur: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnism by the way, Melany Joy was describing exactly what you mentioned: The pervasiveness of carnism, which makes it an unconscious automatism for many people.

Veganism is an -ism as well. You’re getting worked up about a term that, at its core, just means that a person believes it is normal, natural and necessary to eat animals and animal products. Omnivore on the other hand means that you are able to digest and eat all kinds of food. If someone calls you a carnist, then the word itself is about as insulting as using “vegan” to describe vegans. Whatever derogatory meaning “evangelical” vegans put behind it is inferred from context or tone, not the word itself.

Not to be pedantic, but cats are mesopredators.