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This one's for you, animal family

By Ari | Jun 22, 09 09:27 AM

I've realized recently that I don't speak up enough for animals. I fear bothering people. I know that for me, going vegan was a long and sometimes jarring process. I remember feeling afraid and guilty and very challenged and uncomfortable at times. I remember that the idea of changing my life in what felt like a very drastic and unpleasant way (I really loved eating animals and things they make) was very threatening. So, being someone who likes to be liked, who doesn't like to make people uncomfortable, I've moved away from more confrontational advocacy. I do a lot online, where distance eases discomfort, but in the brick-and-mortar world, I sometimes hold a lot back. I'll be in situations where someone will say something or do something that is so, so oppressive to animals, my cousins, my family, my kin, my friends - and I'll say nothing. Out of fear, I won't leap to their defense, I won't say what needs to be said. If someone says something sexist or homophobic or racist I usually speak up, but with animals - I'm sorry, animals. I sometimes am just not the best ally.

So, I think I should write more about it here. I sometimes don't want to barrage our few blog readers with too much animal rights stuff, but it's a daily part of my life, so I think I need to start being more forthright about it. Maybe through writing about it on our blog I'll find more of a voice to speak about it offline.

Why is this so important? Here is one reason. Right now Snow is in my lap. She's a tiny sweetheart, my baby, my furry little darling. She's not a pet, she's family. She's an individual, a person. I respect her and her needs as I respect the personhood and needs of human beings. I can see that she's not a plant, that she's nothing like one, not an object but a person - she has gingivitis, and her gums hurt, and eating is difficult for her right now. Because she's not feeling very well, she's rather low-energy and is sleeping a lot. And because she's a very lovey, cuddly person, comforted by hugs and other physical contact, she likes to lay on me and hold onto my shoulder.

Some folks might balk at calling an animal a person, but they're certainly not places and they're certainly not things. They are definitely thinking and feeling. They definitely have desires and needs and wants. They hurt, and they cry, and they get hungry, and they love, and they play, and they have dignity and silliness and dreams and games. They get bored. They have fun. They are not things, but people. They may be very different from us, but there is nothing at all about them that is so different from humans that they deserve to be treated differently. Fuzziness or smallness or a lack of ability to speak English or Spanish or do math, does not justify their oppression.

So Snow is a reason why it's important I be able to talk about animal rights. She's one very important reason, and Sid and Zora, our other cat housemates, are also very important reasons. But there are even more reasons - billions and billions of reasons. All of the animals all around the world who can't cry out in words that we can understand, whose cries are ignored because we can't understand them, all of those animals are reasons why I need to be a better ally, why I need to wear my solidarity on my sleeve.

I can't forget them, and I never do. When I'm sitting at a table with human friends, and someone is talking about some delicious eggs, how can I be silent? How can I not speak up in defense of my sisters, the chickens? When I remember every moment that billions of you soft, sweet, helpless ladies are captive, making egg after egg until you're too old and too weak and you're killed and turned into soup, how can I say nothing? How can I pretend that everything is okay? How can I smile at my friend and swallow my discomfort? My discomfort is nothing, nothing compared to the suffering that animals all around the world are experiencing because human beings still believe that might makes right.

So, I'll try to be better. I'll try to speak up for my furry, feathery, scaly family. I'll remember they have no way to speak up for themselves, not even the awareness that freedom from oppression is possible. I apologize in advance if I make my human friends uncomfortable, but as a friend said to me online recently, transformation is painful.

And beautiful. The lovely, amazing, delicious thing about stepping away from exploitation and toward solidarity with other species is that it is a joyous thing, a homecoming.

If you feel uncomfortable when you remember where your food comes from - when you recall that it is a dead body, or that it came from someone who is confined, not free, a slave to human desire - if you feel that way, try not eating that food item, replacing it with something healthful and delicious that came from the earth and the warm sun and a seed, something that didn't cry out when it died. See how you feel. I don't mean physically, though it does feel good, physically, to eat healthful plant foods. I mean morally, ethically. See how it sits with your soul. See how your conscience feels about it. See if you feel better when you know that your food came from the sun and the earth, and not from a living, breathing, feeling person, against their will. That you can be nourished without their suffering is a beautiful thing, freeing. This is the feeling that we and our family are at last at peace, reconciled. That is a homecoming.

More: Activism | Animals | Family | Oppression | People we know

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