The part that bothers me the most about the mean-spirited comments/emails I’ve received is the fact that they come from people who consider themselves to be “compassionate vegans.” While I maintained a vegan lifestyle for sustainability reasons and not for animal cruelty etc. reasons, the hurtful comments come from people who make it clear that they are living their life as vegans because they care about animals—because they are compassionate towards animals. But I wonder why this compassion is only directed at non-human nature. It certainly was not directed at me. Not by the people who tell me to fuck off or that I’m an evil person or that I’m a disappointment to vegans everywhere. There’s no compassion in those sentiments. I’m a person. I deserve respect. And just because I’m only known behind the screen of a computer, on a blog featuring food, doesn’t mean that I—or any other blogger, for that matter—shouldn’t be given the kind of courtesy given to someone in “real life.” Compassion. It’s something we all, including myself, need to practice more. Compassion to people as well as animals. Compassion to ourselves. This Vegan MoFo let’s work on that.
*nods*
