January 24, 2011
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Shark Truth
HuckDuck sent me a link over both facebook and twitter about Gordon Ramsay's investigation of shark endangerment due to the luxury Chinese dish of shark fin soup. I didn't post anything in reply so he found me over msn: "Did you see my link? That was soo disturbing."
I basically only said "mhmm" in reply because hey, I've talked about animal abuse for years now and people - including HuckDuck - have either ignored me or told me I was crazy. Anyway, there are much worse things that happen in the animal product industry. It's too easy to criminalize shark slaughter because it's something that's done by "Other People In China". It doesn't require any sacrifice on our part to talk about it.
Most of the time I'm in despair at how everything I say seems to disappear into a dark void of social complacency. But then I realized - when HuckDuck saw that Youtube clip, the first person he turned to was me. When confronted with the planetary injustice of species extermination, it was me that HuckDuck went to for validation.
Once in awhile I get similar comments from other people: "I like how you're so passionate about everything," or "I like how you care about media issues." It's nice to know that there are people who appreciate my efforts even if they're not yet willing to stand up for anything themselves. I symbolize something to them, and for those who choose to convert, I become a resource and ally. It's these people I think of when it feels like no one's listening.
