Archive for June, 2009
The meanings of ‘our’
Jun 18th
Recently, while reading a pamphlet we’ve been developing about circuses, an activist stopped at the line, “Some animals, like elephants, may be forced to work for over 45 years for our entertainment,” and suggested replacing the word ‘our’ with ‘your.’ This comment intrigued me because the word ‘our’ was deliberately chosen to suggest a particular approach to advocacy and so I started thinking more about what that word represents.
‘Our’ reminds me not to think of myself as separate from those I am reaching out to and to instead understand that we are doing the best we know how. With this understanding, veganism is a process rather than an endpoint. Veganism as process means I am continually learning about veganism and that my path towards the vegan ideal is meandering and ongoing. So ‘our’ helps head off the judgment that I am ‘good’ and they are ‘bad’ by reminding me that we are all learning how to live our lives at the same time. ‘Our’ helps me recognize that we all have much to offer each other, and to move away from an adversarial relationship speaking at others and towards a collaborative one speaking with one another.
Because we live in an imperfect, messy world, we necessarily fall short, even if we have the best of intentions. ‘Our’ means admitting and accepting my own imperfection in living veganism and giving up any sense of superiority I feel over others. In the case of the circus, it is an acknowledgment that, as a human, I also participate in the oppression of non-human animals. Even as it recognizes our shared role as oppressors, ‘our’ also acknowledges the ability of each one of us to recognize that role and work to end it.
And so I think the word ‘our’ is powerful and important by bringing a basic sense of connectedness with others to advocacy. Whether it’s called respect, compassion, or just plain kindness, it’s how I wish to relate with others and the foundation for the vegan world I wish to live in.
Setting short-term, concrete goals
Jun 12th
When our ultimate goal as vegans is as big as “achieve a vegan world,” we can sometimes be confused about where to begin. We know where we want to go, but we have so many different tasks that we can work on—so many people to persuade, so many places to spread the word, so many practices to help change. Even after we decide which pathways seem more “effective,” we still might be confused about what to do with today, here and now. This is why I want to emphasize short-term, concrete goals: They focus our effort on actions we can take today. By setting smaller, measurable goals for this week, this month, or this year, we can more effectively move toward the bigger goal of a vegan world.
Short-term goals can also encourage us along the way. By repeatedly reaching our short-term goals, we can stay empowered, energetic, and hopeful. In contrast, if we only think about the final goal, achieving a vegan world, we may feel we’ve made little or no progress, and we may get discouraged. So I think making smaller, measurable goals is a practical way for us to keep moving in the direction we want to go.
Now I’d like to outline my own goal for this summer. I want to share this goal both to benefit the readers of this post (for demonstration and for inspiration) and to hold myself publicly accountable to this goal. I’ve broken it into three sub-goals to make it more manageable.
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Goal: Create an anti-oppression vegan video clip to be used for online activism and, possibly, mobile video projection.
Finish by: August 31, 2009
Purpose:
(1) To increase the effectiveness of vegan activism by providing a resource that combines the impact of video with a clear anti-speciesist message and follow-up actions.
(2) To demonstrate to the vegan community the power and relevance of an anti-oppression view when doing public outreach.
Sub-goal 1: Finish a rough script for the video.
Finish by: June 30, 2009
Sub-goal 2: Select all videos and images for each section.
Finish by: July 31, 2009
Sub-goal 3: Assemble and edit footage, record narration, add closed captioning.
Finish by: August 31, 2009
Budget: $0
To stay accountable, I will post updates—at each “finish” date—as comments on this thread. I’ll also note my progress in my L.O.V.E. Myspace updates, which I send monthly to our mailing list.
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As you can probably imagine, I’m very excited about this project! By making it a clearly (and publicly) stated goal, I hope to ensure that it’s a success.
I encourage others to comment on this post describing their own short-term projects. What are you or your local group working on? This kind of discussion might help spread ideas, provide inspiration, and make us all more publicly accountable in working toward our goals.
history 101
Jun 11th
i am sorry for the blog-writing hiatus as of late; sometimes life takes us away from our computer screens, and as much as i hate to neglect the LOVE we’ve built here, i had to wait for the storm to settle a bit before i could cobble my thoughts together into something resembling a post.
thankfully, it hasn’t all been chaos and upheaval over here. some of my absence has been because of some great social justice events and conferences that have been happening in my neck of the woods. each time i attend one of these events, however, i am momentarily stunned by the fact that they are serving meat and dairy products. it would seem that the organizers of an event to benefit a feminist organization or to raise money to support LGBT youth mentoring programs would have an obvious interest in not piling the bodies of other oppressed beings onto the plates of the attendees, but time and time again i find that this is not the case.
it’s obviously important to convey our thoughts on these issues to the people and organizations putting together these events, but i often hit a brick wall in my attempts. in my experience, event organizers are so harried with the thousands of details that go into planning an event or conference that this “seemingly minor” concern from one or two people doesn’t warrant a solution. it can be really challenging — especially if you’re not a visible member of the community you’re approaching — to express the relationship between human and animal oppression and the importance of not participating in any of it in an e-mail that’s short enough to be guaranteed to be read.
i think that’s why i have had so much trouble with letter-writing campaigns or leafleting at churches/conferences/pride parades in the past. i find it incredibly uncomfortable to approach a group of which i am not a visible member or an active participant and purport to tell them how to run their events or lives. steven has talked about the use of the word “should” and how that can (intentionally or unintentionally) flaunt unchecked privilege — and i am struggling to find a balance between speaking up for the animals who are murdered by the billions and respecting the individual experiences and rights of the people to whom i’m speaking.
so do i have any suggestions or solutions? the one that stands out to me is to ensure that we’re standing in solidarity with everyone working on behalf of oppressed groups. there’s no point in hosting the oppression olympics — anyone facing any oppression on any scale deserves to have her voice heard and deserves to have that persecution ended. (at an LGBT event last night, a speaker talking about the importance of LGBT education said that she wished her daughter could learn about gay leaders and the gay rights movement the same way that students learn about black leaders and the civil rights movement “during black history month, in february, or whichever month that is.” really? you’re expressing the importance of gay history while being completely flippant about the struggles of black people to have their history recognized in the same way?)
this doesn’t mean that we have to attend every protest or participate in every legislative call-in session that comes down the pike, but yes, we can be aware and considerate of all of the struggles that are happening simultaneously with the one(s) we call “our own.” get informed! get educated about the history of oppression and how people’s lives are being affected by oppression today. go to the library, take a course at your community college, attend lectures and community events hosted by social justice groups that maybe you’ve never interacted with before. there are myriad commonalities between the different groups working to end oppression. i would love to see us pool our resources and use our energy to work together. all struggles are one struggle, my friends. what is your role in the fight?