Imagine this.
You are responsible for the safety of your four legally blind friends standing shoulder-to-shoulder with expensive laptops in their hands. They’re surrounded by a dozen rowdy teenagers who are touching them and looking to yank their laptops away. At the same time, you’re having a conversation with a guy who is about to commit to going Vegan. Skateboarders are whizzing by, the teenagers are closing in, but you just need to ask the guy two more questions. Then, you’ll know he’ll be Vegan.
What do you do?
If I received no training, I think I would have prioritized getting the person to go Vegan…
However, since I am now a trained organizer for Anonymous for the Voiceless, I instead chose to defend the Cube.
I shoved this adult-sized teenager back after he touched the laptop. As he tumbled back, I gave him a death stare and continued to make space between the Cube and the other bystanders. He began to threaten to “slap the shit out of me.” But you see, I had already scared the shit out of him, and that was my biggest mistake.
While he was backing up, yelling obscenities, and corroborating with what was now his own personal skater mob, I was making the connection that my small act of violence was leading to the Cube’s safety being compromised further. The skateboarders got uncomfortably close, and I noticed the disgruntled teen sent over one of his cronies. With a fist in his pocket and a devious look on his face, I had a feeling this one is going to slap more than just the shit out of me…
“DISPERSE!” I yelled.
Each Cuber left their position, and so did that potential new Vegan.
I failed. I was overwhelmed and angry, and I let my anger compromise the safety of not just the Cube, but some of my closest friends. While no one was hurt, I felt ashamed.
How did it get to this point?
Food Trucks.
It was 5:45PM on Friday, 2025-01-03. This was the First Friday of the month, and that means there’s a festival at Railroad Square Art Park with around a thousand people attending. Or so I thought. At these First Fridays, there are at least 4 food trucks all serving dead animals at the center of it, and we planned on setting up right in the middle of them.
“Alright, y’all. I spoke with the owner of that food truck over there, and she says that she thinks this black building behind me owns this land, but I spoke to them and they said that they aren’t sure who owns this land, so I went to the police and asked them who owns the land and they said they didn’t know either. No one knows who owns this land! So I told the police we’d be doing a peaceful demonstration involving screens on the land, but that the footage we’d be playing is graphic. She told me she didn’t care, so I think we’re good.”
And so for the first time, my friends became Cubers, and got into position. I can’t thank them enough for putting themselves out there like that. Except, there definitely were not thousands of people in attendance.
“Where is everyone!?” I thought to myself. When planning this, I was so focused on the success of the Cube itself that I didn’t stop to consider that winter break in a college town means everything is dead… There goes my hopes for thousands of attendees.
Nevertheless, things picked up a bit more as the sun went down. I had outreached a few people at this point, and the food truck owners started to take notice. Each of them were staring at us in between customers, and one started to make that dreaded phone call…
15 minutes later, and 40 minutes into our demonstration, an older man and woman clad in high-vis vests approached the Cube. The cubers stood their ground, and I left the outreach conversation I was having to insert myself between them and these apparent security guards.
“I’m with them. What’s the issue?”
“We received a call and I gotta let y’all know that y’all can’t be here. […] This land is owned by Railroad Square.”
Shit. The police can’t help me with this one.
“Okay, we’ll leave, but only if you let me ask you some questions.”
“Fine.”
“How does this footage make you feel?”
There was no way we were leaving without me outreaching these high-vis vested fools first.
It didn’t work.
We relocated to the nearest public sidewalk, which leads to a skatepark—a popular hangout for local teenagers at this time of year. Fortunately, we were a bit of walk away from it, and adults passed by as well - it’s a nice walk after all.
From there, many people stopped to look at the truth the Cubers were holding up. In total I outreached 21 people, and 6 of them committed to going Vegan. A 500% increase in the number of people I got to commit to going Vegan last year—all in just one day!
It worked.
The Cubes of Truth and their accompanying outreach protocol worked.
I felt vindicated. Throughout 2024, I tried using motivational interviewing to break down barriers and encourage non-Vegans to align their behaviors with their values. It never felt right. I had no protocol, I was overly positive, and I appealed to whatever I thought was most important to people. Not just animals, but health and environment too. I demonstrated respect to people who didn’t deserve it, and I wasted my time debating lots of people that clearly weren’t reachable.
At my first Cube of Truth, I not only learned that I should never initiate unnecessary conflict, but that these people don’t need to be debated. They don’t need to be respected. They don’t need to be appealed to. They don’t need to be motivated.
They need to be held accountable.
They need to be held accountable for their hypocrisy and funding of animal slavery.
This need—this opportunity—to hold these non-Vegans accountable is both important and powerful. Think about it. This interaction might be the only time in their entire lives where they have someone hold up a mirror to their character.
That’s the power we have as Animal Rights Activists.
While I regret some of my actions during my first Cube of Truth, I’ll never forget this important lesson.
I can’t wait to do it again.
Until every animal is free,
Dani ✊
I wouldn’t blame people though, usually attacking their character pushes people away and they’re less likely to listen.
You’ll are doing a great job though, keep it up