We had a wonderful gathering at Mukunda Studio last week to celebrate Plantsgiving on Thursday night. Before diving into the delicious all vegan dishes that our family of 14 friends brought, we reflected on the complex history and traditions of Thanksgiving, encompassing both its joyful and harmful aspects. This reflection felt important, allowing for a more realistic view of our current place.
I find it crucial to move past the idealized narrative of America’s founding and its relationship with Native Americans. It helps uncloud the history so we can see patterns that generate disinformation which causes seen or unseen harm. And as a vegan, I also believe in dispelling the tradition of needing to eat turkey on this day which requires 46 million turkeys to be slaughtered for this one day. I believe that to properly repair and improve on any harm, we must acknowledge where errors have been made. And I’m not expecting any us to become error-less, or even meat-less! I’m hoping we’ll see the value of acknowledging the wrongs when we can in order to work on collective healing and transformation.. Every year I’m on this planet, with every stomp our “advanced” world makes, I know there is also a profound abundance of love and kindness that is wildly preserved and co-created.
To better understand this pattern of global conflict and resistance, particularly what’s happening right now in and around Israel/Palestine, it feels imperative that we understand how this harm creates a ripple of justification. My goal is to identify how dominant forces have constructed narratives that serve their own glass houses, but actively work to suppress our inherent, deeply rooted knowledge of how to support collective well-being.
In light of this, and while looking at recent clips of current news, I was reflecting on the challenges of speaking up against perceived wrongs and dealing with propaganda. As we see from our history, political figures have often been major spearheads who have made incredible and successful attempts at steering the narrative of our human journey. Corporations, tech companies, industrialization and social movements have also been responsible for changes for better and for worse. But to namely reflect on the lies that are poured on the general public who often drink up this narrative or choke on it, only a minority of people are willing to speak up and risk the ridiculing, shaming, narrative twisting, and even blaming from these dominant groups. It’s unfortunately a convenient and reliable tactic used by many individuals who hold power over others.
Recently, I found myself in a situation where I was so shocked by an interaction that I withheld speaking up. While I later followed up with the person I felt was harmed and learned they were ok, it was a moment that underscored for me that preparedness in the face of conflict is a skill, even an art to be cultivated. My heart had a strong knowledge of wrongness, but my tongue got tied.
This also brought up the question of how to approach political figures who speak with confidence, but whose claims appear to be propaganda. What is required for us to avoid being misled by their position or perceived authority? We often lean on emotional sentiment, fear of being wrong, disinterest in diving deeper, or a rigid view of our own limited knowledge, which can prevent us from engaging critically.
I believe this requires a continuous educational process. What does it take for us to speak up and to ensure we are not fooled by confident misinformation? (Explored more in last week’s blog, “You Belong Here” discussing the word, “amathia.” Read HERE)
Now to get into details: During our discussion portion of the film event at Mukunda Studio last Sunday, an Israeli-American friend called a Palestinian-American friend of mine, a racist. I was startled by the accusation and realized my need for a deeper understanding on privilege, intersectionality, and how we address conflict. (Great Huffington Post article on privilege and intersectionality). This came after tension had been building right at the start of the event while folks were arriving and getting to meet each other.
My takeaway and reflection: The dynamic of a white, cisgender male calling a female Person of Color (POC) a racist raises immediate concerns about privilege. Even if a comment sounds racist, I believe it is crucial to pause and consider one’s own position before reacting, especially when holding any level of privilege. It’s part of the learning/unlearning/relearning to consider the implications of a privileged individual highlighting a linguistic injustice to someone whose community has experienced a legacy of historical injustice.
The lead up to the accusation was when my Palestinian-American friend was sharing her experience of how Israelis perceive Palestinians in Gaza. This felt relevant to the themes in the film we had just watched, “Coexistence, My Ass” which pointed at and then named the need for Israel to acknowledge the root causes of their problems, which is that of operating as an apartheid state.
I perceived my Israeli-American friend’s reaction as an emotional reflex against a negative portrayal of all Israelis, rather than a willingness to sit with the discomfort of that comment. To me, this parallels a situation where a White person might accuse a Black person of racism after the Black person shares their experience of harm caused by White discrimination.
It is important to remember that the oppressed individual inherently is cornered in a diminished position of power relative to the space the dominant group occupies. To fail to recognize that for someone who lives in a world that lacks inherent safety which can lead them to generalizations, is to misunderstand the shared human experience of threat, danger, and trauma.
This was an important growth moment that I wish I didn’t need to learn, and I’m so grateful to have a community of fellow activists and organizers to discuss this with and work to change. It was clear that, at least for American Jews, we need to lead with greater awareness and empathy in building solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Certainly, Jews have been oppressed and othered, murdered and harmed in history. But it doesn’t give us a pass to do the same to another group, especially when it’s all built on the political ideology of what I had to come to learn was a settler colonial project known as Zionism. (Great IG clip HERE from @rabbiestherazar).
When I reflect on these histories of who has been oppressed and who has been racialized and othered, then it’s very easy for me to see how the privilege of status/caste/class has eluded their vantage point. I gain more understanding on the work of anti-racism (actively working to dismantle racism) as it positions the activist in a role of conscious changemaker. Without engaging in this work, we lack consideration of the imbalanced conversation that’s been going on for decades. (Great Online Library article on this topic). And this is why I’m an anti-Zionist versus a non-Zionist. I’m not only philosophically against the political ideology of Zionism, I’m actively working to educate and raise awareness of why this mission is flawed, no matter how noble one can try and paint it.
What I’ve learned is that we can all get triggered, it’s the nature of having a nervous system! But what some of us lack is the awareness of what our privilege has meant. We lack consideration of the lived experience of someone else who has never felt safe, or has not felt as safe. Who never felt welcomed, or has not felt as welcomed. Who never felt seen/heard, or has not felt as seen/heard. It’s important to know there are people who have never felt safe, welcomed, seen or heard to the extent that you and I have. So if you only use your experience, you’d be missing the human value of acknowledging another person’s lived experience. For me to be able to judge or negate this, is because I have felt safe, welcomed, seen and heard enough. Even as a gay, mixed heritage man from Cincinnati, OH, who felt invisible as a gay teen while fully accepted and welcomed as a mixed heritage Jew, I recognize where I have an immense amount of privilege. And that’s not to say I didn’t work hard to get where I am, but my struggles have helped me develop an empathetic heart that knows not everyone has been granted with the support and guidance I’ve received.
Ok, I feel compelled to make one last parallel to the racism and intersectionality discussion with something that I know makes about 99% of the world even just a bit uneasy if not completely squirmish. And one might assert that privilege even allows this sort of conversation as food insecurity creates major chasms in discussing health and wellness. What if a non-vegan person said that a vegan has made an unfair comment by saying that all non-vegans are terrible people? Are they terrible people in general or is there a root issue that does connect anyone who allows for the torture and massive harm that happens in slaughter houses and what are also called “factory farms”? I know there are some who do seek out ethically sourced foods, but it is certainly a minority.
And lastly, regarding how we react/respond when we hear a political public figure: Do we take their words as facts, or might we consider they are promoting a viewpoint that serves some other purpose where facts would shatter their privileged status? In this exact case on account of a recent news clip, I’m speaking of Hillary Clinton. She lost me when she promoted the propaganda of Israel’s defense on October 7th. And she’s lost me further as she recently spoke about the misguided Jewish youth who are gathering their news and info from TikTok. Interestingly enough, Tiktok has been the platform used largely by the Israeli IDF soldiers to share their mockery of the killings, bombings, and demolitions in Gaza (New York Times, BBC News). It’s been a massive spotlight on the psychology of the Israeli Defense Forces (Some rightly rename as the Israeli Offense Forces IOF) even if a small percentage are doing this. If you also know that the narrative of “us versus them” is being promoted in Israeli grade schools by Rabbis, then it comes as less of a surprise to understand how minds can get to this place of dehumanization by the time they are drafted into the army. And some share that the same is being taught in Palestinian grade schools, but aside from that being a “I know but so are you” style of arguing, it had me ask: Who is developing the narrative of harm and who is helping build strength and the power of resistance for an ongoing, oppressed people?
When we gather in community, are we joining forces to build love and kindness for all, or are we creating an isolated experience of perceived safety that effectively comes at the expense of someone else’s safety? That does not have to be the equation on this planet. But if you’ve been taught that’s the only equation, if competition continues to be the driving force of humanity, then we will suspend ourselves here for the duration that effect has. I believe the momentum of that will either diminish or simply we as a species will diminish because of it. For sure, it will change one way or another because this can only be so sustainable. Wild it’s taken this long for more people to speak up about our polycrisis with the environment, xenophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, etc. In the same way I feel called to speak up as a vegan to remind all of us of the torture and massive slaughtering of animals for our overconsumption, it may only become a louder conversation when the impact of our factory farms and environmental degradation hits a crucial point where change must happen. It usually requires pain and loss until we have an honest gathering of minds and hearts.
May we make time to consider where we can make change in ourselves that will inspire that to be reflected in our communities. May we move at the pace that helps create a sustainable shift and where we carry each other along as a parent would carry and hold a crying baby – not always with a mind that needs to fix, but a heart that loves. We’re only here for a very short time – may we do what we can.
Let’s stay connected,
Marc
