[3][4] According to the UK Center for Animal Law, "citing the frequent metaphorical use of nonhuman animals to discuss racism and racial violence, Ko encourages her readers not to view violence against nonhumans as merely comparative to that which people of colour experience by the dominant racial class" but instead as "casualties of the project of 'animality', which is historically and contemporarily part of our own condition."

[1][6] Huffington Post noted in 2016 that "searching the phrase "vegan people" on Google yields countless images mostly of young, smiling white people" and that the then-first image of a person of color was a photo of a hungry child captioned "When you eat meat, she doesn't eat," which framed the issue as one of wealthy white privilege.

Rather than taking an intersectional approach, where the two separate movements supposedly 'meet', Ko posits a multidimensional angle which recognises the inextricability of the ideologies from the start.

[8] Aphro-ism was described by Black Youth Project as "conceptualiz[ing] veganism in a way that de-centers whiteness and critiques the intersection of colonialism, race-thinking, and animality.

"[9] According to Black Youth Project, "The Ko sisters argue animality is a Eurocentric concept that has contributed to the oppression of any group that deviates from the white supremacist ideal of being—white Homo sapiens.