Speaking your truth

One of LOVE’s core values is honest communication and part of honest communication is honesty in advocacy. I believe honest advocacy means more than being factually correct; it means telling your truth. Fellow LOVE member J. beautifully illustrates this distinction in an email they sent yesterday about a presentation they are preparing on veganism. They write:

“Originally, I thought I’d say that by adopting a vegan diet, you can help animals, help the environment, and help your own body. However, I now feel that I want to tell the truth, about why I promote veganism. The fact is, even if farm animals were treated very well, and animal agribusiness wasn’t harmful to the environment, and animal products were good for human health, I still think it’s wrong to use animals, without their consent. And since animals can’t give their consent, then it’s just plain wrong to use animals.”

Animal welfare organizations offer many reasons to go vegetarian, but I’ve never heard a single one actually advocate telling our own personal truths. Some ostensibly support truth telling, if only for its efficacy (“honest advocacy is powerful advocacy”), but when some of us who helped start LOVE spoke our truth during and about our vegan advocacy efforts, the animal welfare oligarchy stepped in to try to shut us down.

Until relatively recently, I never asked myself, “Why am I vegan?” nor was I ever encouraged to do so. Because of that, I approached animal advocacy the way I was taught: I memorized a handful of reasons why somebody might choose a plant-based diet and, when I met a potential vegan, I would throw at them the argument I thought they would respond best to. If that didn’t stick, I’d move down the list and throw each successive argument at them until I ran through the list.

The whole time, I felt that overpowering crying-out inside me as promoting somebody else’s agenda repeatedly led to conclusions I found unacceptable: condoning “humane” dairy, eggs and meat; eating less meat as an end goal; condoning hunting and fishing. Many activists I’ve spoken with have shared with me how they felt that same terrible, confusing feeling.

Years later, when I came out of the daze and actually stopped to think about why I was vegan, I realized it wasn’t for all those reasons other people had told me. And it was at that moment of stopping that I started to understand my truth about veganism.

It’s my belief that the way we engage in activism reflects our values. By striving to communicate honestly, directly, and clearly both facts and my intentions, I have experienced a shift in the quality of my activism from a frantic selling of veganism by any means necessary to others to one of engaging in dialogue with others. In so doing, I believe I have begun to restore my integrity and bring the respect I feel inside for others to my activism. So I encourage you, if you’ve never done so before, to ask yourself why you are vegan and I encourage you to speak your truth with others. Because honest advocacy is respectful advocacy.