Author: Christie Koehler

software engineer, geek, yoga practitioner, bike commuter, zen buddhist, queer, vegan, legion of tech board member, osbridge planner, engineer@ShopIgniter

Being Good as a Practice

In his recent TEDx talk, Jay Smooth explains that in the context of talking about racism, we need to start thinking about being good as a practice:

We need to move away from the premise that being a good person is a fixed, immutable characteristic, and shift towards seeing being good as a practice. A practice that we carry out by engaging with our imperfections.

I think the above applies just as equally to our discussions about sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, speciesism, etc.

You can watch the whole talk below (it’s short and worth the time):

Also, if you haven’t seen Jay Smooth’s video about How to Tell People They Sound Racist, go check it out. It’s a good explanation of why you should focus on behavior and not what a person is.

My Mom is Gonna Rock the Vagina Monologues

You heard that right, my Mom is going to rock the Vagina Monologues next week in Sacramento.

I don’t write a lot about my mom here. My father, being the more notorious parent, seems to take up more space. However, I should work on that because my mom is a smart and resourceful women and I feel incredibly grateful that she’s a part of my life.

One thing that tickles me about the Vagina Monologues event in Sacramento is that it’s a fund-raiser for a handful or organizations, including WEAVE. WEAVE stands for Women Escaping a Violent Environment and it’s the organization that helped my mom leave my abusive father over a decade ago. What a cool way for her to give a little something back to a group that helped her and to bookend two parts of her life (beginning life away from my dad, and beginning retirement).

Thank you WEAVE for helping my mom and us all those years ago, and thank you mom for being you!

Mom and Chris

And, if you’re going to be in Sacramento next Satruday, 4/14, go buy tickets for the Vagina Monologues!

Quick Note About BarCamp and Burnout

BarCamp 6 Kick-off
Excited BarCamp attendees during kick-off session. Photo by www.cesarpinera.com.

I’ve been feeling really burnt out and for several weeks, if not months. In fact, it’s been a tough couple of years: job changes, marriage, family crises, health challenges. In other words, Sherri and I are going through a bunch of life crap just like everybody else is.

Lately I’d started questioning why I was spending so much time on my unpaid community work. I spend upwards of 20 hours a week organizing events and running our new non-profit, the Stumptown Syndicate. And I’d been feeling as if no one was noticing our work, no progress was being made and I was just getting more and more worn down.

And then we had a BarCamp. And I was reminded why I do all of it.

Because I get to work with talented, dedicated organizers and volunteers.

Because I get to help facilitate conversations about lock-picking, maps, 3d printing, working in tech, teaching code, writing interactive fiction, building distributed systems, graph theory, letterboxing, fiber arts, applying martial arts philosophy to every day life, and more!

Because attendees care enough to come up to us and say things like:

“Portland BarCamp 2012 is one of the best Barcamp experiences I ever had. Kudos to the Stumptown Syndicate for their amazing production team.”

Because I get to see faces like the ones in the above photo: engaged, alert and happy.

So, thank you again everyone who helped with this year’s BarCamp. Because of your contributions I feel a bit more energized and I know that people are paying attention and do appreciate the work that we do.

I feel privileged to be part of our awesome community.

Civil Partnerships are Anything but Equal

Recently a co-worker posted the following on his personal blog (which was syndicated on Planet Mozilla):

Civil partnerships and marriages in the UK give exactly the same legal rights and operate under the same constrictions.

Opponents of marriage equality inevitably issue statements like this to make their views seem reasonable and non-discriminatory. And far too many people believe it to be truth without examining it critically.

Let’s use the UK as an example and review some of the ways in which civil partnerships are not, in fact, equal to marriage:

1. You cannot have a religious ceremony. From the Wikipedia entry on civil Partnership in the UK:

It is prohibited for civil partnerships to include religious readings, music or symbols and for the ceremonies to take place in religious venues.

That’s right, even if your religious community allows same-sex marriage and wants to be a part of your ceremony, it cannot. You are only allowed a secular ceremony.

2. The constraints on the gender of the parties involved make both civil partnerships and marriage trans-phobic. If you change your gender in the UK and are married, you must get a divorce and then enter into a civil partnership with your now ex-spouse. And visa versa.

3. Civil partners of male peers or knights do not receive a courtesy title to which the spouse of a peer or knight would be entitled.

4. UK civil partnership law does not allow for legal same-sex marriages performed in other countries to be recognized as marriages in the UK. If you are legally married in, say, Canada, and then emigrate to the UK, your relationship status is downgraded to a civil partnership.

5. You do not get to say that you are married or that you have a spouse (for legal purposes or otherwise). This means that even if the intent of UK civil partnership law was to provide the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage, there will be loopholes wherein certain rights are only granted in the case of “marriage” and/or to “spouses.” I read somewhere, though I don’t recall where, that one example of this is in the case of private pensions.

Limiting “marriage” to opposite-sex couples sends the message that same-sex relationships are inferior, not deserving of marriage, but only of an expressly different and entirely separate institution.

Please think about these things the next time you read or hear someone say that civil partnerships are just as good as marriages for us queer folk.

The (Overdue) Need for Community Conduct Standards at Mozilla

Next week marks my sixth-month anniversary as a Mozilla employee. I have been planning to write a post to mark the occasion and to share with everyone what an awesome (albeit challenging) experience it is working at such an innovative, mission-driven organization.

However, recent events on Plant Mozilla (see Hate Speech Is Not Free Speech and Concerns with Planet Content for context) compel me to speak to another issue first: The urgent need for the Mozilla community to work together to develop, implement and be held accountable to standards for participation.

The syndication on Planet Mozilla of discriminatory content and ensuing discussion is just one symptom of a larger, systemic problem. The greater issue is that we have failed to set forth guidelines about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior within our community. We have operated far too long under the false assumption that individuals can do this entirely on their own.

Frequently, this failure to put forth standards manifests as slightly less than civil interactions. I’ve also seen it displayed in the offhand dismissal of other’s ideas or needs. Most recently, on Planet Mozilla, I’ve seen it threaten and alienate those contributors who are queer.

As Mozilla grows in scope and size and we facilitate more and more in-person events, the harm incurred due to the absence of community standards will increase. No one should have to endure an assault or harassment at an event we host before we take action on this matter. Already, there are a number of us who question whether or not we are safe at Mozilla and if our contributions are valued.

Setting and enforcing norms is a usual and necessary function of community. Our community managers and long-time contributors have abdicated their responsibility to us by not ensuring such norms are set, and in some cases by actively blocking progress on this matter. It’s time for that to change.

Will it be easy? No, of course not. Some will be unhappy at any implied restrictions on speech or behavior. The point is not to make everyone happy. The point is to provide clear guidelines so that everyone can operate within a common context and to provide a support structure to those who need it.

To be absolutely clear: the heart of this recent issue is not what type of content should be syndicated on Planet Mozilla, and it is not about differences of opinion. Focusing our discussion solely on Planet Mozilla is a distraction.

The issue is that Mozilla resources (the server and bandwidth that provides Planet) were utilized to attack a vulnerable group. This group includes Mozilla employees and contributors and it made it harder for them to do their jobs. That they were attacked using Mozilla resources is what is unacceptable and needs to be addressed directly through the implementation of community standards. Indeed, part of the process of developing these standards will be to make it clear that attacking vulnerable groups is unacceptable.

Community standards are not about limiting anybody’s free speech, but about limiting people’s ability to make their coworkers feel unsafe and unwelcome without consequence or accountability.

Fortunately, we have a lot of resources to draw upon in developing our community standards. Several groups not unlike our own have already done so: Ubuntu Code of Conduct, Citizen Code of Conduct, Drupal Code of Conduct, Wikimedia Foundation Friendly Space Policy.

Let’s get to work.

Update:

1) I’m not going to publish any more comments related only to Tim’s comments and whether or not they would violate a Code of Conduct. I’m also not going to facilitate any more conversation about whether or not Gerv’s recent post on Planet Mozilla was discriminatory.  There’s been plenty of back and forth on those topics in other forums and I’d like to have a more productive conversation here. If you want to talk about how we can work together to develop a code of conduct for Mozilla, then that’s fine.

2) To whomever submitted the anonymous comment (from a Mozilla IP): calling someone here an asshole is never going to be acceptable, so don’t even try.

No Way to Say Goodbye

Christie and Dad, circa 1983
My father and I, circa 1983. That's Mr. Bear in the background.

This Spring marks a decade since I last saw my father. We didn’t speak and he didn’t actually acknowledge my presence, but I know he saw me in the courtroom because his public defender requested that the judge have me removed as a potential witness. The judge denied this request, and I stayed to watch the rest of my father’s arraignment. If you’re curious why my father was in court, watch this video, or read this article.

I don’t actually recall when my father and I last spoke. To the best of my recollection, it was sometime in 2000. We had on-again off-again communication while I was in college, but at some point I decided that a continued relationship with him was just not a healthy thing for me and distanced myself quite a bit.

Last night one of my brothers called and told me he’d just found out that our father had a heart attack the week prior, had been in the hospital for a few days and was now released. My brother didn’t have any specific information about our father’s condition other than that he had collapse while running errands and had woken up in the hospital.

It’s very difficult for me to imagine my father collapsing and being in the hospital. Logically and factually, it’s not surprising that had had a heart attack. We’re talking about a man who has seen a doctor a handful of times in his life (that I know about), smoked for decades, ate a very unhealthful diet and did amphetamines. In many ways, I’m surprised he hasn’t had more significant health issues. However, my mental and emotional memory of him is dominated by a single image: lean, mean, angry and muscular, albeit with a slight lilt from a bad back. It’s just weird to think of him as being old and frail and in ill health. But that seems to be where we are headed.

Aging is a normal process, of course, but it’s unsettling when it’s happening to a parent and even more strange when it happens to a parent with whom you’re estranged. I find myself wondering if I’m going to get to say my final goodbyes, or if I will simply hear about his passing sometime after it happens. Should I attempt to make a kind of peace with him, or with myself about him, sooner rather than later? The answers to these questions seem unknowable.

 

Vegan Moral Superiority and Other Misunderstandings

Since moving to Portland 4 years ago, I have only traveled back to California once to spend Thanksgiving with my family. There are many factors that go in to my decision to stay in Portland for the holiday: the hassle and expense of travel, the possibility that weather negatively impact travel, having to be away from my community here, the typical stress that comes with the holidays and family, and my desire to participate in an all-vegan Thanksgiving.

Every year, Sherri and I thoughtfully consider what we will do for Thanksgiving: stay in Portland, or go see my family in Sacramento. I don’t see my family a lot, so each year this is a tough decision. Mostly due to some other family circumstances, we briefly decided to spend this year’s holiday with my family. We discussed the negative feelings that would arise from participating in a non-vegan Thanksgiving. We decided that we’d bring enough vegan items from Portland (rolls and pies from Sweetpea), and would cook some of our favorite dishes so that we had plenty to eat. This seemed like a reasonable coping strategy.

However, as we got closer to Thanksgiving week, I realized I was not looking forward to our trip at all and that it had everything to do with our having to celebrate with a dead turkey and dead pig at the family table, amongst other non-vegan items. I realized it was just not possible for me to celebrate, or even to feel fully connected and present under those circumstances. I talked with Sherri about this and she agreed. I called my mother shortly afterwards and told her we’d be staying in Portland to celebrate a vegan Thanksgiving with friends. At the time, she seemed to understand.

Up until now, I had always assumed that my family understood and respected why I was vegan, even if they are not themselves vegan. When I visit, my mother makes sure to buy things I can eat and makes vegan meals. If we go out as a family, we go to a restaurant where there will be plenty I can eat. Between this and never having been interrogated about my veganism, I assumed that my family understood where I was coming from.

But conversations I’ve had with family members since telling them I couldn’t enjoy or, in good conscience, participate in a non-vegan Thanksgiving have left me feeling like they don’t understand at all, and really don’t respect or value my veganism as I would like.

As I’ve mention before on this blog, being vegan is an essential part of my moral, ethical and spiritual life. It is a necessary part of my commitment to the five precepts of not harming, lying, stealing, misusing sexuality or intoxicants. Being vegan is part of what makes me a whole, integral person. It is not a lifestyle choice any more than choosing not to murder or be violent towards humans is a lifestyle choice. It is not something I choose to turn off when it is inconvenient.

Being vegan, in and of itself, has been very easy for me. I am fortunate enough to live in a Western, industrialized and highly affluent society where whole grains, legumes, nuts, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables are abundant. I can easily find shoes and other clothing items that do not use animal-derived materials. There are times when I am directed by my doctors to take a medicine that is probably not purely vegan (as this is impossible given how pharmaceutical r&d works). I make exceptions here, when alternatives aren’t available and when my health is at risk. Luckily, these circumstances do not arise that often.

In talking with my family this week, a few things came up that really bothered me. I want to address those issues here, because they have come up in my conversations with other people as well, and I think they are representative of common misunderstandings between vegans and omnivores.

Misunderstanding #1: Vegans are judgmental of omnivores’ decisions. They feel morally superior to omnivores.

I have no doubt that some vegans feel this way about omnivores (and non-smokers about smokers, and non-drinkers about drinkers, etc.). But, by and large, the vegans I know, including myself, do not. The process of how to behave in our world is a highly complex, intimate and individual thing. I don’t ever pretend to understand all the issues that a single person has to contend with in navigating their own life. The decision to be vegan, like any other fundamental belief, has to be made from within. I don’t expect anyone to become vegan because I am, or because of something I say.

That being said, I do not believe veganism is a matter of opinion and I do believe it to be a moral issue. Do I believe it’s wrong to treat animals as property, raising and killing them for food? Yes, I do. Do I believe the world would be better off if more people were vegan? Absolutely. There really isn’t a question about that. It would be better for human health, for our environment, and certainly for the animals themselves.

Having beliefs and being consistent in my actions around them does not automatically constitute me judging those who do not share those beliefs. I also feel the world would be better off if no one misused tobacco, or alcohol, or heroin, or cocaine. But it doesn’t mean that I find users of any of those substances to be bad people.

The goodness of a person is the sum total of their life experiences and decisions and it isn’t something I can ever know or judge and I don’t even try.

Misunderstanding #2: We’re not forcing you to eat non-vegan food, so why should it bother you to be part of a meal where other people are eating non-vegan food?

There are a couple of parts to this.

The first is logistical. It’s annoying to be at a party where you can’t eat everything. Not sure what this is like? Next time you’re at a party or potluck, pick one or two dishes at random and limit yourself to eating only those. Most of the time, that’s what it’s like for vegans, if we’re lucky. And if we’re really lucky, both dishes are something we actually would like to eat. It gets annoying very quickly to have extremely limited food options and to always have to vet every dish before you eat it. When it comes to Thanksgiving, I want to be able to fully partake in the feast and enjoy a bit of *every* dish.

The second has to do with feeling like an outsider. When I sit down to a meal that includes non-vegan items I immediately feel like the odd man out. I am the weird one with the weird diet rules and I can’t fully participate. This can be compounded by how often the other guests will talk about how delicious the non-vegan food is, or otherwise draw attention to it. I cannot possibly share in this experience and I can’t possibly ignore it either. If you are someone who has had other experiences where you feel like an outsider (e.g., you’re part of another minority group, you feel like the black sheep in your family, etc.) these feelings of otherness and exclusion can be further compounded.

The third has to do with the physical and emotional discomfort that arises during shared non-vegan meals. The odor of cooked flesh and of dairy milk and cheese is unpleasant to me. The sight of cooked flesh is upsetting. Whereas an omnivore might see cooked flesh and think “yum, delicious,” I can only think about a life that’s been unwillingly sacrificed. For reasons I am still trying to figure out, the magnitude of this discomfort is proportional to the significance of the shared meal.

Misunderstanding #3: You’re letting your veganism get in the way of connecting with family and friends.

This one really baffles me.

First off, why is it never phrased as “you’re letting your omnivorism get in the way of connecting with family and friends”? Because of their minority status, vegans are assigned all of the responsibility for any disconnect that is created between themselves and their non-vegan relatives and friends. I don’t think this is fair and I would like to see more omnivores examine what they can do to make the vegans in their life more comfortable. If you have a vegan relative in your life and you’ve never considered having an all-vegan Thanksgiving for them, I think you should.

Secondly, I have plenty of both vegan and non-vegan friends with whom I related very well. The omnivore friends that I get along with well understand and respect my veganism. They do this by never asking us to compromise on having non-vegan items in our home (even when we host). They understand when we don’t accept invitations to events where non-vegan items will be celebrated. Most of all, they are confident enough in their decision to remain omnivores that they don’t feel threaten or judged by my being unequivocally vegan.

Misunderstanding #4: Other vegans I know are not so stringent, why are you?

This is an impossible question to answer since I can’t know the minds and hearts of other vegans as if they were my own. But I can take some guesses as to what’s going on.

For the purposes of this exploration, I will assume that the vegans of which you speak are truly committed vegans (e.g. not just when it’s convenient), that they are vegan in more than just diet and that they are vegan because of their desire to recognize that animals are deserving of rights. This is the kind of vegan I am, so it’s really the only situation to which I can speak.

The first thing that comes to mind is that these vegans are not yet confident in their understanding and their ability to talk about the moral foundations of veganism. It is a complex topic, and a minority view at that. It is not easy to talk about to a mainstream audience, one which is often to be hostile towards the idea of veganism from the start.

The second thing that comes to mind is that the person may not want to make themselves a target for ridicule, ostracism or interrogation. Vegans are often asked all manner of questions about their diet, what they do and don’t eat and how they get proper nutrition. These questions can be invasive, and even when they are not, it gets tedious to field the same questions over and over again, often from those who are largely ignorant about nutrition. The questions frequently feel judgmental rather than exploratory. Moreover, we live in a culture where vegans are regularly made fun of in the media and pop culture and this is often in our minds when we make the decision whether or not to identify ourselves as vegan and committed ones at that.

The third, and more serious issue that comes to mind is that people act in ways that are contrary to their personal beliefs all of the time. History is rife with examples of this. I don’t quite understand why this is, but it happens enough that it’s clearly a part of human nature. I recently read something in Slate about the Penn State sex abuse scandal that shed some light on this particular issue, so I’ll share it here:

“[non-action/non-reporting is] a reflection of a universal human tendency to look out for oneself, and to preserve hierarchical institutions about which one cares and upon which one is dependent. It’s also a reflection of the nearly boundless capacity to ignore inconvenient facts and to make excuses for those within our own circle.”

It takes a whole lot of energy and moral courage to be vegan in the first place and even more so to disrupt the institutions upon which we rely. I can understand why many vegans are not yet ready to go this far and may appear to be okay with living in a non-vegan world.

Conclusions and Further Reading

I feel a bit better getting that off my shoulders. I hope that my family (and others) will read what I’ve written and understand a bit better where I’m coming from.

One last thing I want to say is that while more and more omnivores are thinking critically about where their food comes from, I don’t think many have bothered to read up on animal rights in order to understand what motivates the vegans in their life. I certainly hadn’t done this before I was vegan. Consider reading up on the issues if you really want to understand what makes your vegan tick. Here are some good starting points:

P.S. I’d also love to hear from other vegans who have gone through similar situations with your family and friends. How do you cope with shared non-vegan meals. Do it bother you? Why? If it doesn’t bother you, why not? How did you communicate to your loved ones about your veganism and it’s importance in your life?