There was a story a few days ago in the Washington Post about some farmer friends of ours and the public response to their use of signs on their property. It was an unusually well written and accurate story, partly because so much of it was quoted directly from things that Aaron wrote, and the responses she got on Facebook.
I had seen one of these posts on Facebook a little while ago and I thought, right on Aaron. She is in my generation of a farm family -- like me, she grew up there and now she is charge of the daily operations. Her parents, the founders, are still there and helpful, and her brother is also one of the farmers. This farm business has been a presence in this area for 47 years (her father and uncle first came into our lives when they came to buy sweet corn at the Corn Place...her dad was 18 and now he is in his mid 60's).
Anyway, this family has always had a much stronger hippie identity than our family ever had. And they have been much splashier, more ambitious, they paint with a bigger brush. But they have been intentional and hard-working business people at the same time. They don't think money is evil and they also have a strong moral compass. Many of their choices as farmers are totally different from our choices and yet we can respect them in every way.
They live on the southwestern tip of this county -- their farm is in both Fairfax and Loudoun, I believe -- and they have made the most of a piece of ground that turned out to have really terrible soil. They thought they would be vegetable growers and they discovered they needed to use their land in creative ways, so they built a huge greenhouse business and sold gorgeous bedding plants and in the last 25 years they have spent incredible time and energy on creating an annual pumpkin festival. Hundreds and hundreds of school buses and family outings come to park on their bad soil, twelve weeks a year. It is a local institution.
From time to time Cox Farms has been in the news because they made some political statement on their farm, and people reacted. Many years ago they hung some rainbow flags at their fall festival and soon discovered that it had political meaning. When they learned what it meant, they decided that was a message they could support and they left the flags flying. Recently Aaron and her partner put a small -- I mean a small, pretty quiet -- sign in the window of their own house that said Black Lives Matter. Their house happens to be in the middle of their farm, but it is their house where they live with their kids. This turned into a huge stink because the local police decided it was a statement directed at them, and they organized a boycott. Good grief. Needless to say, the Coxes left the sign up.
And now they recently posted "Rise and Resist" on their sign by the side of the road. This got a big response and it made them think harder about being more specific so people would understand what they were talking about. They changed it to "Resist White Supremacy." And the Facebook conversation began. It is amazing what people will say. Of course some people were supportive, and there were also surprisingly nasty responses from people who said they would never shop there again. They had come to the farm with their children for a traditional experience and now they would stay away, and they had some missing-the-point comments to make on the way out.
The family is holding firm. Aaron, an articulate graduate of Smith College thank you very much, can hold her own on Facebook and whatever else. She knows what she thinks and she knows that as white people of privilege, the business has the opportunity to stand in support of others.
This is where I come in with my own opinion -- OF COURSE a family business has the right and responsibility to speak its mind. Customers are so crazy to think that principled business owners who have decided to use their sign to speak out are going to back down because a customer says they won't shop there anymore. It's not like the farmers didn't think of that already. And the customers aren't going to convince the farmers that white supremacists are a group that needs lifting up. It boggles the mind, what people are willing to write in public.
A brand new business that is barely holding on would probably stay quiet. That makes sense too. It is premature to broadcast your opinions when you don't have any social capital yet. But this family has spent a very long time establishing itself in the community as a wholesome destination with all the hokey pretend moments that people love to have at a farm. They could easily be conservative, politically. Perhaps people made the wrong assumption about the politics of that family, since they had such lovely traditional experiences there. I find it completely appropriate for the farmers to share their views and to engage in conversation, and I also think it is completely fine for people who can't support that to withhold their support.
Because, in fact, every purchase any of us makes is a political act, whether we like it or not. We can't do enough research to find out what all the business owners believe and we can't have too many simultaneous priorities, but sometimes the business decides to speak up and then we can make better choices. From the minute that I learned that Chick Fil-A was actively anti-gay, I decided with great regret to stop buying their delicious milkshakes. It's not such a big sacrifice and I am definitely not giving them another penny. I know that Walmart has become so ubiquitous that many people don't think they have a choice, but I hope and plan to die without ever having spent a penny at Walmart. So far so good.
So, right on, Cox Farms. I see now that we have been tepid in our use of our own farmer voice. For years we have posted political signs in front of our stand (and got some heat for it) during election season. We are not big participants in social media and we are not prepared to be in a virtual conversation. But we have to think about this.
They never talk about this topic at farm conferences. I suspect there is a fairly universal sentiment in the business world that we are all supposed to keep quiet. In this day and age, no one can really have a conscience and keep quiet anymore. I don't want to get into a sound bite battle but I would like to be clear about our values that are related to, but not limited to, our work.
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