Dear vegans who think my activism is stupid

Dear vegans who think that my activism is stupid,  

Hi there, I'm Katelyn.  I've been vegan for about three years, and before that I was a vegetarian for around thirteen years.  But that doesn't matter.  All that matters is that we both no longer partake in animal exploitation, as much as humanly possible.  Lately there has been a lot of contention in the vegan community (at least in my local one) about certain forms of activism pushing people away or alienating potential vegans.  Their methods might make you a little bit uncomfortable.  Good news is, that’s the entire point.  Groups like Direct Action Everywhere, rely on that discomfort to propel social change.  On the DxE website, they quote Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.  It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” 

Maybe that’s where the differences between you and me began.  I’m sick of being ignored.  I’m sick of people saying that they love what I do but they just can’t be vegan.  I’m sick of people saying, “Oh that’s just so sad, but I just could never be vegan.”  I’m sick of people who would rather walk by a Cube of Truth, covering their eyes and running into things, crying, but they insist that they just CAN’T ever go vegan.  I’m sick of people feeling good about buying grass-fed beef and cage-free eggs.  I’m sick of tiptoeing around the hell that humans inflict on animals for no good reason. 

Don’t you want to make people see?  Don’t you want to make them open their eyes?  I love vegan options in restaurants, but that’s just what they are… options.  There is also an option that involved the murder of a sentient being who was bred for the sole purpose of human consumption.  I know what you’re going to say:  Every little bit helps.  That is true, a decrease in consumption of animal products is usually overwhelmingly positive for the health of a person, but is Meatless Monday really all we can ask of people when animal agriculture is decimating our environment, poisoning our bodies, and perpetuating the myth that human beings NEED to use and abuse animals to survive? 

While we can encourage a decrease in consumption and an increase in options, we can also encourage total abstinence from animal products.  I asked a few of the vegans that I know what made them make the switch.  Christina said, “I saw the hideous truth of how my ‘food’ ended up on my plate on Facebook.  I couldn’t cringe and try to ignore it any longer.  I had always felt bad when I thought about where my ‘food’ came from and who it once had been and I couldn’t ignore it any longer because I love all animals and I didn’t want to be the reason any of them suffer.”  If you notice, she put “food” in quotation marks, because to many (dare I say, most) vegans, animals are not food.  That means that it is not okay for people to cheat and eat an animal product, because they aren’t eating food, they’re eating something that was once a part of a thinking, breathing, and feeling being.  Lauding people for skipping the bacon on their cheeseburger and telling people to take baby steps operates under the assumption that animals only stop being food once you, the human, decide to stop eating them. 

Of course, I once was not vegan, so I know that it’s hard to discard everything that you have been conditioned by society to accept.  I know that for some it’s a process and for others it’s instantaneous.  The only problem with there being a process is that while someone decides to give Meatless Mondays a try, calves are being ripped away from their mothers, baby chicks are being thrown into a grinder alive, and pigs are being burned from the inside out in CO2 chambers.  That is why activists disrupt grocery stores, share graphic footage, and scream “Meat is Murder.”  People need to be reminded that there is a victim to their “personal choice.”  You say that forcing our views on people will do nothing.  We can’t force people to do anything except look at a video showing the processes that they pay for.  Even then, we can’t force them to open their eyes.  We can’t make anyone think a certain way and we know that.  All we can do is SHOW people what we think is important and hope that it sparks a conversation or plants a seed in their mind.  We are reminding people in a society that has become so removed from the source of their food, clothing, etc. that they are literally paying someone else to kill or abuse animals. 

I have seen people remark that “It makes us all look crazy.”  The first time I heard that, it hurt my feelings a little bit.  Why would a fellow vegan say that I’m crazy just for speaking out for the animals?  Don’t we all desire a vegan world?  Even if we disagree on the best way to achieve that, surely it does more harm than good to discredit and insult other vegans.  People think you’re crazy anyways for not eating cheese, how is this any different?  Another statement I’ve seen is:  “You make me feel like I’m not doing enough.”  To that I have to quote Eleanor Roosevelt, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”  If you feel like you aren’t doing enough, maybe deep down, you think you aren’t.  There are many ways to engage in activism that don’t involve direct action.  You can share social media posts promoting veganism (or you could even create an entire profile for that purpose, an example here), you can volunteer for a vegan community event, you can sign up to be a Challenge22 mentor, you can wear vegan shirts and hope that gets people talking, or you can even donate to a group that does something you like, but you just don’t want to physically take part in. 

I love sharing vegan recipes and talking to people about all the great things you can do with plants, but is veganism not first and foremost about the animals?  Many people went vegan for health and stayed vegan for the animals.  But in my opinion, when you approach veganism as a food-only or health-only issue, there is much more room for relapse because if someone caves and gets queso with their vegan tacos, in their mind, they are only hurting themselves and that’s just not true.  When you pay for animal products, you are paying for animal cruelty, and it is frustrating to see other vegans speak ill of activists simply for reminding people of that fact.  Someone has said to me that we are making people eat more meat out of spite.  I honestly have no idea if that is true or not, but I think that if someone would go to the lengths to do that, their defensiveness is indicative of an inner conflict that they are having.    

You know it’s not hard to be vegan, we do it every day.  I do it not because vegan food is delicious, or because it somehow makes me superior to other people, but because I do not want to be the cause of another being’s suffering and I don’t want to pay for that suffering.  I used to be a “cool vegan” and would go out of my way to not make anyone feel judged or feel bad about their decisions, but that did not line up with how I was feeling and it felt inauthentic to continue that way.  It might feel inauthentic for you to do what I’m doing, and that is fine!  Please do what you think is right, and I will do the same.  But the next time that you want to put down other activists, ask yourself some questions, “Is what they are showing true?” “Is what they are doing making me personally feel uncomfortable and is that why I feel the need to say something?” “Would it help the animals in any way to say something negative right now?”  If we all keep our focus where it belongs, on the animals, then we can accomplish anything. 

Sincerely,
                  Katelyn