Finding Your Voice
Print This Post
Stephanie at the Animal Rights section of Change.org wrote:
“until more animal rights advocates (and organizations) start standing up and pointing out, loudly and consistently, what actual animal rights positions are, the media and the public are going to continue misrepresenting our positions, misrepresenting animals, and treating as our (and the animals’) representatives groups and people who are not representative of what we believe, where we stand, what we’re fighting for, and what animals deserve.”
I believe she’s right. But only partly right. We need to speak up. But I don’t have faith that mainstream media will listen. I don’t think they’ll accurately represent animal rights regardless of how animal advocates behave. That’s why we need to make our own media. When mainstream media won’t listen, we go elsewhere: we go to the web, we go to the streets, we go to our family dinner table. And of course, we go to the animals.
However, I agree 100% with Stephanie that vegans and animal advocates of all stripes need to stand up and tell our stories. We need to use our voices, find our words, express our thoughts. Doing so will not only help animals, it will make it more difficult for anti-animal people to claim we’ve said or done something we haven’t.
But how?
Here is a step-by-step approach to finding your voice:
- Listen to other animal advocates. Read animal rights themed or vegan blogs. Listen to AR or vegan podcasts. Watch presentations.
- Think about what they say and how they say it. Sleep on it and let it settle.
- If you agree with what they say and you think it’s convincing to others, try to emulate them. Just copy them. (Remember to give credit where credit is due if you borrow specific phrases or concepts.)
- If you disagree with what they say or you think it’s not compelling, try to improve it. What would make it better? Should you add a personal story? Add a cute or gruesome picture? Change the tone or the context?
- Practice, practice, practice. Speak in front of the mirror, write in a private diary, role-play with friends… practice without the added stress of anti-animal people around. Then, practice in real life. Get out there and leaflet. Or give a speech. Or make a video. And then do it again. And again.
- Never give up. You are bound to make some mistakes. That’s OK. Just keep speaking up for animals. It will get easier. You will get better. I promise.
Great post, Elaine. These are all good suggestions. I would like to encourage readers to also use their personal experiences as much as possible. Tell people why YOU went vegan. Talk about YOUR experience visiting animals at an animal sanctuary. Explain how a documentary affected YOU. I think it’s important that we really speak from our hearts. There is a tenet in the advertising business regarding the power of emotionally connecting with a message: People remember only one-third of what they read and one-half of what they hear, but they will retain 100 percent of what they FEEL.
I really loved this post. It actually makes me want to get out there even more. I really liked #6 because when I first started protesting and leafleting I made alot of mistakes so I thought “Oh, I shouldnt be doing this. People with more expierence should be.” But those people started from somewhere too. Yea so really amazing post!
<3
Really nice, practical post. I would recommend that new activists read both Mark Hawthorne’s book, of course, and also “The Animal Activist’s” Handbook by Matt Ball and Bruce Friedrich. It’s a short quick read, and very inspiring, and useful–packed with good material like your list above!