Posts tagged introduction

My name is Miranda and I don’t have all the answers. What I do have is the magic super power of personal experience, which I wield to the best of my ability. I believe that all of us have access to this incredible tool and, when armed with personal experience, our potential as activists can flourish wildly. But I suppose I should tell you a bit more about myself before saying anymore about magic powers…

Along with my partner in life and in L.O.V.E., Victor, I am a vegan activist currently working in Oakland, CA. Formerly a paid leafleter for Vegan Outreach, I am now enjoying the freedom found in independent, local, grassroots activism. Over the past 12 years, I have engaged in many forms of activism, primarily focused on speciesm including circus and fur protests, leafleting, tabling, marching, classroom presentations, and most recently, mobile video projection. Out of those 12 years of fighting for what I believed in, I have a.) only been vegan for 6 ½ of those 12 years, b.) only started to be an effective activist within the last 9 months, and c.) only started to understand what it is I do believe in within the last year.

In the years leading up to this newfound clarity, I worked to eliminate suffering, without really thinking about what the end result of that work would look like. My world was turned upside-down when, last December, I read The Dreaded Comparison by Marjorie Spiegel, which showed me that oppression is oppression is oppression. I began to see the world through the lens of power imbalances, noting that in every interaction, someone holds the greater power and the outcome of that interaction hinges upon that power imbalance. I realized that suffering was only a symptom; oppression was the root. I realized that I hadn’t been honest with myself in my veganism and, therefore, hadn’t been speaking honestly with the public in my outreach.

The lesson I have learned, and am still learning, is to constantly seek the truth, even if that means abandoning ideas thought to be true in the past, even if it means that 11 years of activism were spent working towards someone else’s goal. This brings me back to that magic super power I mentioned earlier, personal experience. The process of making mistakes, learning from them, and subsequently making new choices is extremely valuable. Through this process, discovery of personal truth becomes possible, and thus, we may become effective advocates for sustainable change.

October 17, 2007. Earlier that evening, I had spoken with a group of budding pig farmers in eastern Washington state. I was working full time as the Western Outreach Coordinator for Vegan Outreach, had daily experience in fielding questions from skeptical omnivores about animal suffering and cruelty, and had answered every question “by the book,” so why was it that nothing I said had seemed to get through? And why, I wondered, did I feel like that in small ways every day in my conversations with omnivores about veganism?

That night, sitting in my car replaying and unpacking all these conversations in my head, I realized that what I thought I thought about veganism didn’t mesh with how I truly felt. I had the sudden realization that suffering and cruelty are symptoms of a deeper problem. That moment started me on the path to L.O.V.E.

When Miranda and I first started talking about veganism from within the framework of oppression, it was exciting and lonely: exciting because we could finally articulate the connection we always knew was there between speciesism and the other forms of oppression we were working against, lonely because we didn’t know anybody else who felt the same way.

As it turned out, there were plenty of people who did feel this way. We read The Dreaded Comparison. We discovered the great writers at The Vegan Ideal and the Vegans of Color blogs. And then we found out Jenna felt the same way. And Steven. Far from being alone, we had joined a growing movement!

And yet there was something missing. There was no place where a person could learn the whys and hows of veganism in a way consistent with anti-oppression. There was no place that provided resources and other support for activists in this movement. So here we are today, creating this community to support those spreading the anti-oppression view of veganism.

I hope this blog, our web site and mailing list will be jumping off points for a continuing conversation and learning about veganism as anti-oppression. I invite you to participate in the discussion, challenge our ideas and your own, and see where it takes us all.

My name is Steve. I’m a poet, student, and writing tutor living in Mount Pleasant, MI. I’ve been eating vegan for a year and a half, but I’ve been more involved in veganism for the past eight months. I’ve done some leafleting and tabling, and I’ve created a Myspace tool for online activism, to be relaunched soon [now up]. Online activism holds “a special place” for me because it was how I learned about veganism.

My interest in L.O.V.E.’s mission arose from an e-mail conversation with L.O.V.E. member V, who wrote about veganism as anti-oppression. Initially I struggled to understand how power and privilege connect to nonhuman animal use, probably because I have a very privileged (white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle-class) background. At the time I advocated Peter Singer’s understanding of veg*nism, which centers suffering and happiness.

I kept writing to V because of an intuition I had about promoting veganism as opposed to reduced meat consumption. Singer’s philosophy said promoting veganism was “asking too much,” but I felt the opposite way: I felt I wasn’t asking enough when people said they had a reduced meat diet and walked away. I felt dishonest not to say more; I felt I had to silence a “crying out” in me. The same thing happened when I found an insect in my apartment. Singer’s logic said it’s o.k. to kill an insect, but killing the insect felt wrong to me.  I didn’t want to be the person Singer’s logic told me I should be.

I started to appreciate anti-oppression veganism once I understood that preventable nonhuman suffering is only a result of speciesist oppression. Then instead of asking, “Would I rather end suffering or end oppression?” I thought, “If I want to end suffering, then I need to end oppression.” I read from more anti-oppression writers. I thought more about racism, sexism, and homophobia, as well—I always opposed these things, but I had never thought about them in relation to veganism.

I feel I am now a “testament” to the fact that even the most privileged people can understand and reject privilege. I feel I am a “testament” to the fact that a person doesn’t need to be part of an oppressed group to want liberation for all oppressed groups.

… or how I came to be writing this blog post, launching a new activist network, and barely containing my excitement.

Hey, everyone.  My name is Jenna, and I am an anti-oppression activist currently calling a variety of cities on the east coast of the United States “home.”  I’ve been vegan for about seven years now and am looking forward to a long, vibrant life full of cruelty-free meals and unrelenting activism.  It wasn’t until recently, however, that the feminist within burst forth from my chest like one of those aliens in that terrible movie and put together all of the pieces about how animal oppression and human oppression are so unmistakably intertwined.  I’ve been volunteering in low-income schools and community health centers for years and years, but I never realized that my work there was also fighting the same oppressive, patriarchical powers who also conspire to keep our furry and feathered friends in a cycle of suffering and oppression from birth until death.  I raged against the notion of prisons and massive Times Square billboards of nearly-naked, stick thin white women, never realizing how completely parallel that rage was with the other rage I saved for animal agriculture.  When the various facets of my discontent finally came to a head, I suddenly found myself incredibly alone and monumentally frustrated with the state of animal activism in the world today.

After spending several years volunteering and working for various animal advocacy groups around the country — including Compassionate Consumers, Vegan Outreach, and the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute — I came to realize that there can and should be more to veganism than calling for “cage-free” eggs, an end to factory farming, and an upswing in the number of women willing to wear pasties and a lettuce-shaped skirt in the name of “animal liberation.”  Vegans — and indeed all people who dare to call themselves social justice activists — should be demanding an end to the oppression of animals, women, people of color, disabled people, queer people, and anyone else who exists on this planet without the silver spoon of heterosexual, upper-class, white male-dom.  If it sounds like a tall order, believe me: it is.  But it’s essential if we ever want to throw off this mantle of power that currently keeps us all from living the lives that we deserve.

Thankfully, I stumbled upon some kindred spirits just as I was at the end of my rope, and we all decided to pool our resources into this amazing organization: Living Opposed to Violence and Exploitation.  Because, really, there’s more to life than fighting wars against one another, eating the flesh of sentient beings, Black Friday, living for the weekend, hating our bodies, and perpetually wishing for something better.