Month: June 2017

Dear Vegan White Woman,

As you may have seen, I’ve been writing to other vegans, and it’s been really difficult. Each day, I actually need to gather my strength from profound sources to write these letters. I feel so vulnerable when I write them and release them.

I’m writing these letters, because I don’t want to feel the resentment or aversion of abandonment of my inner stories about you and our other white sisters. It’s not only white sisters that have done these things that I’ve been writing about, but sadly it is mostly.  Interestingly, I don’t find myself getting as frustrated with non-vegan white sisters. I guess somewhere inside of me there is an inner myth that white vegan sisters “should know better” and “have the power” to make things right or easier for women/people of color like me. That somehow you should be above the fold when it comes to compassion, because you’re vegan. Plus, since you have white privilege, I feel you have an obligation to use it wisely.

So my grievance with you, my white sister, is that to me, you abused these powers. I invited you to one of my ceremonies and instead of contributing the way that everyone else did, you offered to help me. Since you are a person of visibility and privilege, I accepted your offer to help me and honestly you haven’t really tried to help me. I heard from others that you had made similar offers to them and you haven’t helped them either. Because of this, I believed in the end that you didn’t truly intend to help me.

Since then, I have learned that being vegan does not equate increased compassion for all, especially human animals, and maybe not even for non-human animals. Being vegan is an opportunity to increase our compassion, but we don’t all take it. I now realize it’s my responsibility to help myself and to do my best to support the vegans of color and all human and non-human marginalized communities in my life. This experience with you has enabled me to be extra mindful of my own visibility, privileges and strengths.

I have forgiven you for not fulfilling your promise to me. You might say, “I didn’t promise.” For me, my word is my promise. I have forgiven myself for shamefully falling for a version of a”white (vegan) savior” myth. There isn’t a white woman that can help me more than I can help myself. I know now, there are only white sisters who are willing to uplift me and help me, while I uplift and help myself. I am grateful for these white sisters. I acknowledge myself for wrongfully viewing myself as too small and too powerless to be my own savior.  We aren’t saviors. However, I am my own best friend. And you’re just another precious human sister. I am grateful for the times you’ve shared your vulnerability and time with me. I am grateful for the things you do put your heart in to, for us all.

I commit to continually learning about my privileges. I commit to not taking my visibility for granted. I commit to healing the divide between us, in the small ways that I can. I may not reach out to you, but know sister that I am connecting with you in my heart.

May we all heal from the illusion of separation.

Blissful wishes,
Bee

Dear Vegan White Woman,

Several years ago, I attended a networking event that you were at. Over a year before this event, we had met at a separate event, and we casually spoke about co-hosting a retreat together. I wrote you about discussing the possibility of doing a retreat together and you didn’t call or write me back. Not hearing from you wasn’t what concerned me.

It was at the networking event, where we quickly said hello before the event began, that I was disheartened.

During one of the breaks, you introduced me to someone and said, “Oh, this is Bee. She and I are going to do a retreat together!”  I was absolutely taken aback by this statement. I thought, “What? I haven’t seen you in over a year! Who said anything about doing a retreat together?!”

When this happened, I was offended that you would make such a presumption without discussing it with me first. Maybe you thought it was a compliment? Because of this I believed that you didn’t have any respect for me or my work, other than to co-opt it in someway for your own gains.

What I have learned from this is to be really careful about who I even casually suggest working with. I now realize it’s up to me to set really clear boundaries as to who I trust. This experience enabled me to carefully discern whether someone is respectful of me, my work and how we will work together. I’ve learned to raise my standards and seek complete alignment with my co-facilitators; even if it’s for just the one event we might share.

I have forgiven you for the way you introduced me.  I have forgiven myself for not speaking up at the time.  I’m aware that I have been inconsiderate in my event planning at times. I’ve usually been messy with my boundaries when I was in financial fear or hoped that I would gain some traction in my business growth if someone liked me. I acknowledge myself for being careless during these times. Now I am more concerned with being in alignment with my values, rather than worried about money or acceptance by others.

I am grateful for you, because immediately after that exchange I made it a point to sharpen my alertness people at that event. It’s so much more important to me now, more than ever, to know who is in alignment with my values.

I commit to honoring those who I choose not to work with, to honor who choose not to work with me, to honor those I have to privilege to work with and to honor myself when allowing others to work with me. I’m not perfect, but I am honest. Who knows, maybe we’ll host a retreat together one day! Funnier things have happened!

Thank you for listening.

May we heal the illusion of separation.

Blissful wishes,
Bee

Dear White Vegan Person,

I started to write this letter to you, and sadly started to remember other occasions where this has happened differently with others. So I may save those for other letters. To remain authentic and clear, I will just speak about this particular occurrence with you.

Some time ago, an outreach event (insert vegan event here) that was designed to be informative and fun for the local community was created by white people and presented by mostly white people. A cis woman of color thought it would be a good opportunity to finally bring some of the local vegan leaders of color in to the fold. When it was presented to you, you didn’t seem impressed or particularly enthusiastic. This felt hurtful and condescending for her, like an “eye-roll”. However, your team members thought it was a great idea, so vegan leaders of color were added to the program that time.

I don’t know if you didn’t know of any vegan organizers or leaders of color in the local community, but at the time it wasn’t apparent in the your program that local vegan leaders of color were important to your event. I believe you’ve since included some vegans of color from various areas outside of the local area. Although it’s visually a helpful effort, it felt tokenizing from another perspective.

Because of this story, it appeared that you don’t value local voices of color. I don’t believe this is inherently true, because I know your work and I don’t think you believe that. I believe you have a good heart and that you want to do what’s right, meaningful to the local community and your wish is to make a positive impact.

What I have learned from this, is that I need to continue to value local vegan voices of color. This experience has enabled me to focus on what it means for me to be inclusive. It enabled me to invite or recommend local vegan leaders of colors to events that warmly and overtly welcome us.

I have forgiven you for not uplifting my voice and some of the the local voices of vegans of color that live in the area that you curated your event in. I am beginning to forgive myself for boxing you in the “another white vegan event” category. I acknowledge myself for doing the work to let go of how you run your events.

I am grateful for the opportunity you’ve given vegans of color to continue to be part of the planning and presenting at your current and future events.  I am committed to creating events that are inclusive of the local vegan thought leaders of color. Even if it’s just to share a meal with one or several of us.

I hope this makes sense. It’s a difficult subject, but I’m trying to just be present to my own experience of this story. It’s a messy job, but I need to do it for my heart.

Thank you for your time.

May we heal the illusion of separation.

Blissful wishes,
Bee

Dear Vegan White Woman,

Some time ago, a cis-woman of color I know wrote you a letter about other women suffering from harm. They were suffering from receiving harm in regards to their race, sexual preferences, their concerns about xenophobia and their general experience of being lied to and disrespected. She wrote this letter to one of our communities, because she was concerned about the young teens and new vegans in the community that were beginning to get involved in more animal rights work. She wanted to protect them from experiencing the same harm that happened to her and the other people.

Your response to her was, “I’m sorry to hear about your issues with (insert animal rights group). I would prefer not to be included in any emails about these kinds of controversies. Thank you and good luck.”

This woman of color felt very hurt, insignificant and dismissed by your tone. I recall her saying, “Why wouldn’t she want to know about something that could effect her teenager? Her child wants to be an animal rights activist one day!”

I was appalled to hear this. I was in shock to hear this about your response. I know you are active in this vegan community.  If I’m completely honest, it’s because of incidents like this that I began to become suspicious of vegan white women’s trustworthiness. It’s hard to hold the thought that some vegan white women don’t want to hear about the struggles that don’t apply to them.

However, there was a silver lining. This experience enabled us to reach out to other vegan people of color. We began to create our own space for vegans of color. We knew and know other vegan POC (people of color) weren’t going to say, “I don’t want to know about these kinds of controversies” to eachother. This is our daily life.

I am beginning to forgive you for your dismissal.  I’m beginning to forgive myself for sticking you in an “all white vegan women are ignorant until proven woke” box. I’m still afraid to reach out to you after hearing about this. Hearing your response to this incident, I still feel like you don’t want “our dirty struggles” to make a mess in your tidy world. (These are not your words, it’s just how i feel.)

However, I’m holding the realization that sometimes it’s too painful for some people to look at others suffering. I know your life isn’t easy. You’ve shared some of your most private secrets with me. It’s hard to hold the suffering of others, without some training, especially when we think we have enough suffering of our own. Given my years of training in Buddhist meditation, I have the tools to hold the suffering of others. I know I won’t run out of love. I hope one day you can experience this kind of love. Maybe you already have begun, but I just don’t know enough about you anymore.

These letters are my way of acknowledging what happened. It’s not meant to shame you. It’s just part of my healing, our healing. I am grateful for your helping us to seek and reach out to other vegans of color.

I still feel a tinge of abandonment while writing this, but I commit to continuing to unpacking my side of this disconnection. This is just letter one.

May we be healed from the illusion of separation.

Blissful wishes,
Bee

I’m starting this blog, Blissful Vegans, as a way to share a series of personal “open letters” in response to several significant events that have happened to or around me.

1) Good Grievance. Instead of a virtuous “gratitude list”, a friend of mine suggested I write a list of grievances, I am aware of, as a queer cis-womxn of color and member of the vegan community. This list is to include things I’ve either experienced directly or witnessed in some way. I thought this was such a caring and thoughtful suggestion on his part. I love making lists, but I never thought to make a list of these concerns. It actually made me teary-eyed that he suggested I give myself permission to give voice to these heartaches. So I’m looking at it as a gesture of self-care. Giving these difficulties a place outside of my heart is a clear and tangible way to unburden my heart from holding these worrisome grievances all by my lonesome. Also, instead of just writing a list, I thought I’d write each story in the form of an anonymous “open letter”.  Maybe they’ll remind you of some of your stories.

2) Our Struggle for Peace. It’s not going to be about complaining for the sake of complaining. I have a long time habit of finding ways to challenge myself to find tangible solutions to get back to my inner and outer peace. Besides, anger and frustration just make me restless, uncomfortable and unhappy. (I really really like being comfortable in my body and mind.) I don’t believe that ignorance is bliss. I think this phrase is really a euphemism for “indifference is numbness”. We can all stand to be less ignorant, myself included. Plus, I realize I’m not alone in these struggles.  So I want to share these thoughts in hopes that it might bring peace of mind to others who might feel the same way and or have come across similar incidents.

3) 30 Day Startup. They say it takes 25 days to break a habit. Right now, I have a habit of blaming specially selected people (or groups of people) for certain things that upset me. (Anyone else do this?) In order to end the painful and frustrating blame-game in my heart, I’ve made a 30 day commitment to begin actively engage in grounding, connecting, feeling and exploring solutions for change or acceptance around these difficult topics. Plus, being public will help me stay accountable. So thanks for being my accountability buddy. Warning: Sometimes topics will repeat, because after all, I’m trying to break a habit.

4) The Taste of Freedom. I’m an ethical vegan that loves a great meal, but nothing tastes better than the freedom to feel peace and blissful joy in our hearts. In order to really taste my wishes for an ideal future, my intent is to offer to myself and others (in my little corner of the world), the potentiality for slices of freedom from ignorance, oppression and suffering. How? By exploring my heartaches with authenticity and sharing my attempts to travel back home to love in my heart. I hope it helps you in a small or gigantic way. I’m still learning, so I hope you’ll have wisdom to share with me too.

In the end, my wish is for all of us, including vegans, to be able to find our way back to being our own version of blissful vegans. Even if it’s just for a moment. There’s value in such a moment, because it gives us a reference point to return to.

Also, a few people have been asking me to record meditations for them for a while, so that might become a part of this daily ritual. Let me know if you want access to the meditations too.

Thank you for your time.

Blissful wishes,
Bee