Let Me Tell You What’s Really Offensive

Photo: Daria Zeoli

I have been called many things in my life. Sometimes I’m called loud. A potty-mouth. Terse. I’m a product of my environment. I live in New Jersey – loud, potty-mouthed and terse is a drive home from work each night. Patience is a virtue I am trying to master, but I progress very slowly.

And honestly, I’m all for being gentle with ourselves, and realizing that we are all humans, hurtling through space on this rock, putting one foot in front of the other on a journey. But there’s a big difference between being gentle or patient and just letting people shit all over you or the animals, or letting them water down the message of veganism because they don’t want to offend people.

Guess what? Billions of animals die every year while veganism gets distilled into a feelgood diet or a part-time eating habit. That’s pretty damned offensive.

Big corporations are praised for making food affordable to people while they exploit the lives and nature of cows and chickens and pigs who “live” deplorably until they are killed, often brutally. That’s pretty damned offensive.

Ethical vegans who spend their time and their money getting an education to learn and therefore teach proper nutrition to others are told how to present such information by organizations and are accused of being disingenuous when they try to make a living, while others can declare themselves “no longer vegan” and expect to be treated gently. That’s pretty damned offensive.

So, if I seem a bit pissed off or happen to use “offensive” language as I report on the vegan world as I see it, please try to forgive me. I am only trying to change the world – and not the definition of veganism, as so many others apparently wish to.

I promise, I’ll work on my patience. How about you? What will you work on?