Hi Everyone,
I’ve just realized that while we addressed the issue of Systemic Racism and our position on it in an Instagram post last week, I missed doing it here in a blog post to you.
I’m so sorry, I should have made sure our thoughts were clearly laid out on all of our platforms. Please forgive the lateness of this post, and here you have it, our thoughts.
I have been trying for days to gather my thoughts to share here, I needed a little time. Will and I want to be very clear, we at Gum Tree condemn racism in every form. We are devastated by the brutal senseless murder of George Floyd and the many other innocent black men and women before him at the hands of the police. We stand with the protestors, and we are the protestors.
We are praying for love and peace to prevail. But we know that prayers are not enough. We have always taught our children that every single human being is equal and is valuable, and deserves our love and respect, but we recognize that that is not enough.
We feel we cannot be silent in our words and actions, but we don’t have the answers. Right now we are listening and learning and looking for ways that we can help to make the change needed to heal these divides, both in our personal lives and in our business.
In thinking about how we can make a change at Gum Tree I know that I will endeavor to buy more products from black makers, we will stock more beautiful books about diversity and inclusivity to help to educate our kids, and more dolls of color so that everyone is represented. We will share in our stories any resources that we find helpful in our education about how to make meaningful lasting change. We recognize our privilege, and we will strive to be better and do better. We have work to do and we are ready.
Everyone is welcome here, but we also want to be sure that everyone FEELS welcome here. We hear you, we see you, and we stand with you.
This message was painted last week on the plywood outside our boarded up shops. Our shops are fine, the boards were just a precaution, and we are happy to report that they are now down.
We will be cutting them down to the size of the artwork, and then hanging them in our shops. After a bit of time we hope to coordinate an Instagram live auction of all of them with all proceeds benefiting Black Lives Matter.
We love you and we appreciate this amazing community. We hope you will join us.
Think Globally, Shop and Eat Locally!
Lori and Will Ford
