An animal rights activist’s guide to staying sane: Words of wisdom from PETA’s Alex B.

June 20, 2010 @ 6:20 pm

Any number of terrible things happen to all kinds of animals every day. 10 billion a year are eaten for food a year, for one thing. But the recent Mercy for Animals undercover footage of cows and calves being brutally abused at the Conklin dairy farm was hard for me to watch, and hard to recover from. Sadly, animal abuse is not an isolated case in the dairy industry, or the factory farm industry, for that matter; it’s the norm. The best way to prevent this sort of atrocity is to give up dairy altogether and go vegan.

Visit PETA’s “Sexiest Vegetarian Celebs 2010″ site

My journey in becoming more involved in animal rights causes and deciding to vegan started long ago, but it was really helped along by the PETA office in Oakland, California. It was there that I met a smart, articulate and generous staffer, Alex B., who welcomed me to this new level of awareness and provided a lot of great information to this activist and vegan newbie. I am aware that certain people, including many animal rights (AR) activists, don’t like PETA. This post is not to entertain that debate, but rather to share with you some of Alex’s wisdom.

The MFA video wasn’t the first of its kind I’ve seen, but it left me crushed and feeling defeated. Since going vegan last year I get emails and snail mail from probably 50 different AR and environmental groups. All of it just makes me more certain that going vegan is the answer to all the pain and destruction caused by eating animals. After the MFA video, it all got to be too much for me to take. Unlike Alex, I am just an internet activist staying abreast of current news and trends, signing e-petitions, and going to the occasional protest. It’s PETA, and MFA, other animal rights groups–especially the brave people who risked their health and possibly life to get this footage–who are in the trenches every day, boots on the ground, witnessing the abuse, and cleaning up the messes. They are in the office and out on the field dealing with it firsthand every day.

I asked Alex how she managed to do it, and she came through with an amazing set of guidelines and advice I’d like to reprint here in its entirety.

For all of you who truly care about animals but sometimes run into a wall like I did the day of the MFA video, I offer Alex’s advice. To those who’d criticize PETA and MFA and these other groups for being sensationalist, or somehow “detrimental” to animal rights–or for just for making you uncomfortable about your food choices (anyone who drinks milk or eats cheese or meat is essentially supporting and therefore complicit in this kind of abuse)–I would just ask you to read what she has to say. Hold your criticisms of the organizations and think about the animals people like her are committed to helping on a full-time, often after-hours, basis. And if you’re not already, please think about going vegan today.

In Alex’s words to my question “How do you hold it together?”

I don’t have a great answer for you, and sometimes I DO lose it. But I’ll share what I’ve learned from PETA. Ingrid really helped me.

1. I always think of the undercover investigators. They had to watch the suffering as it happened, and for weeks and weeks. If they weren’t so strong we wouldn’t have the videos, and without the videos we couldn’t make the world go veg. If they can be there in person for three months, I can watch six minutes of a video. I also think of Ingrid and Daphna and our A/V [audio/video — R] editors etc—all the people at HQ who have to every second of footage from the camera, often over and over again, so they can make a compelling six-minute video.
2. I think of the animals. I believe strongly that if they could talk to me, they would beg me to watch. If it were me being beaten, and everyone in my family was going to be beaten after me… I would want the world to watch so the beatings would stop and perhaps some of my family members would live.
3. I remind myself that the emotional pain I feel is nothing compared to the actual physical pain the animals are feeling. I remind myself that I’m a spoiled rotten white person in the U.S.A.—I have freedom, food, shelter, a job, and little threat to my physical person as long as I’m somewhat careful and make somewhat intelligent decisions. I can’t focus on how much it hurts to watch the videos. I suffer so little when I compare my life to the rest of the world.
4. Watching the videos make me a better activist. I watch “Free Me” once every six weeks, it’s a recurring reminder on my Outlook calendar. I picked that up from PETA.  And I watch every new video that PETA creates (and we don’t release them all) and anyone else in the movement. These videos remind me why I work for PETA and why I’m an AR activist and why I’m spending my Friday night tonight leafleting a concert. These videos make me feel hopeless, sick, and depressed. But they also keep me focused and deeply passionate about my job and activism and life. That is a gift. In a weird and twisted way, animal rights both destroys my life and gives me a great life. A life of meaning and purpose. I don’t envy people who are “bored” or who have no passion.
5. Read Bruce’s EA talk: http://www.goveg.com/effectiveadvocacy.asp especially the last page where he talks about how we are winning. We ARE winning. We WILL create a veg world. Most likely not in our lifetime… but not long after, and that is thanks to these damn evil videos and to our current activism. Every time a new video comes out it makes my heart break but I also know we just took one big step closer to achieving rights for animals. Thanks to these videos, and the Internet, we will win.  If I were to stop watching and stop working for animals, because the videos upset me, I would be dragging the movement back. I have to watch and then share what I’ve seen with meat-eaters. It does work. Every time we get a few more vegetarians and the vid gets shared a little bit more, to a few more media outlets, etc. Every time. It keeps growing.
6. Read the VO essays:  http://www.veganoutreach.org/advocacy/index.html Start with “A Meaningful Life” and read them all. I mean it! Even if it takes you months. They will give you strength.
7. I get active. Every time I do a protest or leaflet or host a vegan food tasting or do Pride, I know I’m creating new vegans and that I’m directly involved in work that will stop the abuse. It won’t stop soon enough. It won’t be enough vegans at any event.  But leafleting helps get the images out of my head. At least I’m doing something to fight against the torture. Sitting around discussing animal abuse and activism drags you down. Getting out and actually doing something is empowering and the only way animal abuse will ever end.
8. Act strong when you’re not. If you put on a good front and offer to watch the videos with your meat-eating friends, you will have an easier time convincing them to watch.  And if you pretend to be tough, you will get tough. Ingrid is the pro at this. And the UI’s [undercover investigators — R] I know. Their heart is breaking and they want to cry but they act tough and it gets easier to act the more you do it, and thus, easier to watch. The animals are counting on us to watch and share what we’ve witnessed…to be tough for them. It is possible. Horrible, but possible.
9. And last but not least… LOSE IT. I can’t lose it in front of my staff, or my donors, or local activists. But I absolutely let myself lose it sometimes. I might break down and cry for an entire night. I might “check out” for a weekend and not see anyone or answer e-mails. I might snap at a meat-eater just once for a stupid-ass comment. I might go out with a very select group of AR friends and drink and vent and plan activism and eat like there’s no suffering in the world and dance in the Castro, and vent about how much I hate humans and meat-eaters and the world in general. Get it out of my system so I can go back to work on Monday and be professional. And I make sure I’m not wearing my PETA shirt when I do this.

Curious about going vegan? Visit PETA’s goveg.com website now.