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