In April of 2016, a woman visited my family’s farm in
NY where we teach people about the 40 years we have spent homesteading on our
16 acre farm- raising much of our own meat and vegetables. During a tour my
mother led, they met Minnie, our Cow and in response to a question from the
group about the cow’s age and how long she would live on our farm, my mother
explained that Minnie was being raised for beef. The following day, this same
woman called the farm wanting to buy the cow. She spoke with my dad, and
explained that she was not, herself, a vegetarian, and did not have a problem
with meat consumption per se, but felt that because our farm allowed people to
visit our animals, we shouldn’t then be able use them for food. She explained
that she wanted to buy the cow so it could be moved to a sanctuary where it
could live out it’s life, and suggested that we might instead go to whole foods
to buy our meat, like everyone else.
And when she was told, NO.
That the cow was not for sale, this woman became angry.
She was not interested in
understanding that living on a small farm was a lifestyle choice for my family.
That raising an animal for meat and knowing that the animal was treated with
kindness and fed healthy food was intentional and not at all the same as buying
meat at whole foods. She did not understand the
precedent that would be set if we were to comply to her request, and, perhaps most
importantly, she did not feel we were
entitled to say no to her.
The phone call that day did
not end well. The woman eventually hung up, but first she ominously declared
that she would find a way to save this cow.
As I spoke to my parents on
that Monday from here in NH, and listened to them retell the events of the
weekend, I got out my laptop to start looking on line. My stomach sank. In a
period of less than 48 hours a facebook group titled: Save Minnie the Cow had
been created, the local news channel had been contacted and my parents had agreed
to an interview. The avalanche of viral media was in motion.
Over the course of two weeks,
an unbelievable and unpredictable viral attack unfolded. I don’t need to share
all the details with you, as I’m sure you’ve watched this new reality unfold in
many contexts, and the script is usually very similar:
An issue
is identified as being above dispute, and a call
to arms is declared. The sides: ‘Us
vs. Them’ are established.
People
far and wide become engaged as the news media latches on to the story
On
each side of the issue participants lose sight of the humanity in the people
with whom they are now in opposition- eliminating any need to see the other’s
point of view, to try to understand the other’s experience, or even to agree to
disagree.
Sounds familiar, right?
In a matter of days someone
had created a change.org petition to Save Minnie the Cow. Quickly to follow,
another person (this one on “our” team (I never found out who it was) had
created a counter petition titled ‘Save Benner’s Farm’.
No matter
that we did not need saving
No matter
that this was a non-issue. We had every right to make the choice that we were
making.
On the farm, baby lambs were being born, school
classes were visiting, seedlings were sprouting in the greenhouse. The rhythm
of the life my family chose continued, almost without pause, but, the fear of
what was happening online was very real. The incessant phone calls to my
parent’s house, and threats. The seemingly non-negotiable anger of the people
coming at us, was terrifying.
From the moment I started monitoring this frenzy, I
experienced an intense mix of adrenaline and fear for my family and the farm. It
was all happening so fast, and few participants on either side seemed to take
pause before throwing more fuel on the fire.
There is great wisdom in
ignoring a lot that happens on social media.
However, it became quickly
apparent that April, that if we did not use our own voice, people who felt
protective of us would speak for us, in a way that often made things worse. So I settled in and tried to keep claim of
our message. If for no other reason, than to assure those who were rising to
our defense that we had things under control, and that they could get back to
their own lives.
I wrote a short statement
clarifying what had happened which I posted on the protest page that had been
set up. In my post, I identified who I was and I tried to avoid sounding
defensive. I also agreed to remain online for about half an hour should anyone
have further questions, and I listened to the comments that came streaming back
to me, sorting through the hateful, angry retorts, and lifting up any response
that sounded half-way rational by replying with sincerity and an interest to
come to a mutual understanding. My message was simple: ‘we respect alternate
perspectives, but we have a right to our choice.’ I wanted the people who were
still to come to this protest page to hear that message, and so I planted it
there. I placed similar statements on both of the change.org sites, and pasted it
in response to the nasty reviews that were popping up on Yelp, and on our
business page.
My clarity during all of this
came from an understanding that has been growing in me, about how the culture
we live in operates. I could see in this bizarre conflict the dangerous outcome
that emerges from us living lives in isolation of other kinds of experiences, which compels us to expect agreement.
In this story, there is a
visible disconnect that stems from people’s lives having become so far removed
from the source of their food, that they are unable to relate to the realities
of farming. The fact that most of the 4 million people living on Long Island
have no direct experience with animal husbandry has quite literally made my
family’s lifestyle a museum of sorts- a window into something that most do not
know first hand.
Our willingness to vilify
that which we don’t understand seems to have become dangerously common--in part because we are not challenged to
navigate diverse opinions, cultures, and experiences in our day-to-day
interactions. Many of us live in bubbles surrounded by people so much like ourselves
that we can hardly imagine it could be any different. Online, that is perhaps
even more true, as we get to friend and unfriend voices based on our comfort
with them. We read a headline and come to a conclusion about what we think in a
matter of seconds, and then we pass
judgement with a thumbs up or down. We take intensely complicated issues,
and we let them be simplified to that value of ‘good’ or ‘bad’, according to
the team we have chosen, rarely giving any more thought to the details that
have been washed away in the process.
Communities today are isolated from one
another across socioeconomic lines and across political lines. We find the
means to buy into the best school districts, or we are shut out. Decades of
discriminatory housing policies have resulted in whole communities that are
almost entirely white folks, and other neighborhoods that are almost solely
communities of color.
The story of Minnie the cow
gives us a way in to examine the danger that emerges from living in isolation
from one another. During the two week attack, we received messages from people
as far away as Australia- Farmers all over the world, sending us encouraging
notes, asking us to stay strong, because they have experienced similar attacks
on their businesses, on their lifestyles. At
the protest that was held on the street in front of our house on our opening
day, the original cow activists found themselves sparring with PETA activists
who had joined in, but disagreed on the reasons for why the cow should be
saved. Across the street, a counter protest was populated mostly by a group who
called themselves “bikers for Trump”, these guys had determined that this
protest was clearly the work of liberals and they were there to stand up for
the farmers. (I chose not to mention that my whole family was a bunch of
liberals ourselves- it seemed like it was best to leave that alone)
When the dust started to
settle at my family’s farm last April, we emerged relatively unscathed. Our long time connections within the
community, teaching children, sharing lessons about the beauty and grace of
living off the land, proved to be a potent shield against a sudden emotional
attack. If anything, the drama provided a massive advertising campaign, for the
cost of some restless nights and some long hours in front of a computer screen.
It offered something else as
well, a reminder-
to look more closely,
to withhold judgment,
and most importantly, to honor
the value of different experiences and perspectives.
It is necessary if we want to
begin to tackle some of the mess we’ve made on our beautiful planet. Coming
across a different opinion should not signal us to draw our weapons, rather,
let’s see it as an opportunity to reach out from our own bubble and into that
of another.
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