Walking from my car to the front entrance of the Whole Foods, I heard the protestors before I saw them. It was summer 2014, and a small woman wearing bunny ears paced at the front of the crowd, a megaphone gripped in her hand. Scalded by the rays of the strong Southern California sun, her arms and shoulders were turning as pink as the wiggly nose of the white, fluffy rabbit depicted on the protestors’ waving placards—it sat on a dinner plate under the slogan, “Whole Foods is now selling our pets.” That poor woman needs sunscreen, I thought, as I shouldered my shopping bag and prepared to thread the gauntlet.
Perhaps unwittingly I gave the woman some sort of look, or maybe she had some sixth sense about why I was at the market in the first place—I don’t know. But as I passed by, she turned her...
University of California Press