Whenever it comes to white supremacy this is the moment when you look to your neighbor and say, “You need to be on the right side of history.”
But apparently opposing white supremacy, racism, nazism, sexism, and all the other hateful isms isn’t so welcome in North Virginia. And, according to Patch.com, the owners of Cox Farms in Centreville, Virginia learned that painful lesson the hard way.
Cox Farm, known in the community for its fall festival, recently posted a photo of its new sign to Facebook and received rather surprising backlash from residents.
Comments about the sign’s message calling out white supremacy ranged from praise and support to outright hate and contempt.
“Resist white supremacy is not an inclusive message. When you single out a group of people you exclude them. This is a sad message.”
“If you see a sign that says ‘resist white supremacy’ and you first instinct is ‘well, I’m never shopping THERE again!’, guess what? You’re part of the reason signs like that need to exist. You ARE the problem.”
“Your sign suggests their’s an issue with white supremacy currently dominating our culture, or threatening to; however, I haven’t found any legitimate sources for such concern. What you seem to be doing is inadvertently boxing your company into a set of values represented by a political organization that uses slander and fear tactics to build its support base and force its agenda onto society.”
There are over 6,000 comments, 15,00 shares, and 44,000 reactions to the sign calling out white supremacy.
But Cox Farms isn’t backing down from their message, writing:
“Last week, some of our customers and neighbors asked us to clarify the sentiment behind our sign that said “Rise & Resist,” reads part of the note. “So, we changed it to read ‘Rise Up Against Injustice’ and ‘Resist White Supremacy.’ We sincerely believe that fighting injustice and white supremacy is a responsibility that can- and should- unite us all. We struggle to see how anyone other than self-identified white supremacists would take this as a personal attack.”
“Some folks have expressed that they would prefer not to know where we stand. We appreciate that being an informed consumer can sometimes be exhausting, disappointing, and frustrating. It can involve making hard choices about values and priorities. We respect that some have decided to no longer patronize our business as a result. We also know that there are some who may see our signs, roll their eyes, and still choose to come back for the kettle corn. We get it.”
“We’re not strangers to controversy or hard conversations. When we take a stand, we do so knowing that it could hurt our bottom line, and we are comfortable taking that risk. As a family, we know that when you’re on the right side of history, love wins. Right now, it means that some people in our community no longer feel comfortable supporting our business, and we respect that. While our intention was not to make anyone feel unwelcome, we certainly respect every consumer’s right to decide which businesses to support in our community.”
So how about them apples? See the full post here.