UPDATE:

This has certainly been the most heartbreaking and educational 24 hours in the history of our small company. We know that many of you are feeling hurt and confused about what happened in our dessert shop Thursday night and we share this update in hopes of both clarifying and more importantly re-centering the ensuing conversation on Lillian’s lived experience at one of our establishments.

At a base level, Lillian, a proud Black woman who has roots in the Alberta neighborhood and has seen it systematically gentrified over the years by property owners and businesses like ours, chose to patron our bakery for the first time trusting that our company is who it portends to be and was denied service while the room is filled with white people getting served their vegan treats without incident. The two videos Lillian then posted on Facebook about her experience will better explain how she felt in that moment than we ever could and we encourage anyone who isn’t familiar with the situation to fully watch them before offering up blanket expressions of support for our business.

Since people are seeking the precise details of what occurred here is what we were able to view in Thursday night’s security camera footage:

-At 9:02 pm we were unusually busy for closing time which is stated as 9pm everywhere that our hours appear. Most of the seats were filled and there were four people in line waiting to be served.

-At 9:03 pm our employee turns the “Open" sign light off.

-At 9:04 pm two more white women walk in and line up to be served. At this point the customers present are informed that we are officially closed.

-At 9:06 pm Lillian enters and stands in line to be served assuming given how many people are still inside and the doors unlocked that we are still open. Lillian is told we are closed and the last two women in line are the last to be served. After that she exits the building and begins taking her first video.

Lillian’s videos came to my attention when I awoke to feed our dogs at 6am and I immediately began pulling our management team together around the issue. As the comments and social media shares began to build I admittedly let my own emotions get the better of me and might have rushed into responding. Some of you have given us some pretty pointed and constructive feedback that is showing us how we can always be better when addressing issues of race and gender equality. We are listening and do not take racism or discrimination of any kind casually.

Looking over our initial response and sitting with the feedback I see that we got a number of things wrong right off the bat.

1. We should not have addressed Lillian directly in our public statement. That put her on the spot to respond publicly or accept my invitation to discuss the matter in person. It is not her responsibility to coach us through this process and we have no expectations of Lillian to bear any more of this emotional burden than she already has.

2. While I did reach out to Lillian personally in a Facebook direct message it should have been the very first course of action instead of my second one. Because her videos were public I began responding to them first when I should have asked Lillian how she would prefer to be mentioned and where to best direct my response.

3. Rather than touting all the ways in which are truly committed to fighting for social justice I should have centered on Lillian’s experience. There is nothing fun about being called a racist especially when it is truly antithetical to everything you stand for but often what happens when well meaning white folk get called out on something race related we are very quick to jump to defense. However, the very real pain that was caused gets overshadowed when we feel the need to list all of our good deeds as evidence of why we couldn’t possibly be racist. As much as this is about us and our business practices this is more about how a Black woman was made to feel when trying to patron our bakery. We have to own up to that and I hope that this update unequivocally does just that. What happened to Lillian was wrong and we are sorry for the role that we played in that for her.

The sad fact of the matter is that what Lillian experienced in our shop Thursday night is just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the discrimination that Black women encounter on a daily basis across this city, state and country. Walking into an establishment that visibly prides itself on its intersectional progressive politics only to be denied service while all the white people inside are being served has to feel horrible just in itself. But when compounded with the generational trauma that comes with being Black in America we can all understand why Lillian felt and responded the way she did. Making her story public was a powerful move on her part and while it is giving us a lot of growing pains we are thankful that she was able to document her experience and garner support far and wide because prejudicial treatment is a reality for Black and brown people that none of us can ignore. It may hurt us right now to be having this conversation but that pales in comparison to the hurt that people of color endure now and have for centuries.

As the comments, emails and phone calls began to flood in we immediately noticed that the majority of people (by no means all) offering us their support were well meaning white people with very little mention of what Lillian went through. While we appreciate the support far too often the voice of white people rise to the top of the conversation and we do not want these expressions of support to overshadow the very valid feelings of those affected by this incident. There were a lot of people saying that they didn’t know what exactly happened but they still supported us 100% which I hope we all can see is part of the problem. No business or organization deserves unequivocal support without having all of the facts, not even Back to Eden, and one of the greatest powers we have is where we choose to spend our money. Boycotts can be effective tools for demanding social justice because without financial pressure some people and institutions will always refuse to change.

Right now there is a lot being said about our company and the leadership behind it that hurts to say the least. Having put 12 years into growing this progressive local company (9 years of those on Alberta St.) it is really difficult to see your hard work and reputation be drug through the mud. Your first inclination to is to defend and try to explain it away but unfortunately the more words you put out there the more likely you are to be misunderstood. If this were just about my personal reputation it would be one thing but this is about far more than me or the brand we have built. Many of you may not know this based on the size of our dessert shop but we employ 40 people including my husband and myself and their livelihoods are on the line as well. More than a quarter of our staff are women of color and they make up the majority of our leadership team. We are queer owned and employ many people who belong to the LGBTQ+ community. We have people of all body types, genders, race and orientations represented on our staff and if any customer has ever been made to feel “othered” at Back to Eden we are deeply sorry for that because it is in no way representative of who we are as company nor is it behavior we would ever stand for.

Many people are suggesting that the treatment our customers receive starts from the top down and, yes, it is true that the personal values and ethics of me and my husband are woven throughout our company. We see Back to Eden and the work we do serving the Portland community as an extension of ourselves and our staff is like family. Contrary to what is being said about us we care deeply about the quality of our staff’s experience and do everything in our power to help them maintain a healthy work-life balance and offer the most livable wages our still small company can afford. A lot is being said about our hiring/staffing practices and I can personally assure that we absolutely vet our applicants based on how they will add to our company’s ethos of equity and inclusivity. It would be very difficult for someone harboring racist ideas or sentiments to get past us in the screening process or the rest of the staff who very much share our values. That being said, we can’t always predict the quality of customer service or judgment calls each new staff member is going to bring and from time to time mistakes are made which we try our best to learn from.

In this situation it doesn’t really matter that the two staff members working are not themselves racist because the call they made to deny Lillian service caused her to feel like she had been discriminated against. Sometimes impact outweighs intent and when that happens people do need to be held accountable. Since both Lillian and the clamoring public were demanding that these staff members be fired that it is what we did putting these two young women out of work. It was an incredibly difficult thing for us to do especially when they felt that they were just upholding our closing time of 9pm but the way in which they went about it lacked sensitivity and understanding of the racial implications at work. Some of you have thanked us for the decisive action and others are questioning why there are consequences for these two wage earners and none for the ownership of the company itself. If we could personally be on site every hour that we are open working the counters ourselves as some of you have suggested we would. That’s where the two of us started out and we would never have expectations of our staff that we don’t expect of ourselves. Unfortunately with as large as our small company has become we can no longer be everywhere at once making sure that everything is measuring up to our standards.

Yet, we still accept full responsibility for what occurred Thursday night because this business IS an extension of ourselves and from the customer’s side of things the actions of our staff represents us. One thing that we have learned already is that good intentions residing at the top with the assumption that they will trickle down throughout our organization is not good enough. In less than one year’s time our small staff more than doubled as we grew into our new cafe space and the way we were able to conduct our business then is vastly different than how it must be approached now.

Moving forward we need to make sure that every one on staff, especially those tasked with greeting the public, knows the painful history of racism in Portland and the recent gentrification of Alberta Street. It needs to be in everyone’s awareness and not just our own what white-owned businesses like ours can represent to the Black community who has seen this neighborhood taken from them lot by lot over the years. Now that we are no longer a small group easily gathered onto the same page, we need to take proactive rather than reactive steps to educate our staff about what it is required of us to truly be inclusive and provide safe space for people of color. We also need to talk with each other about what it means to be pro-Black and that treating every customer equally when we do not live nor will ever live in a colorblind society doesn’t work. These are all steps that we will be taking to become better leaders for our team and to better fulfill our obligations to the diverse communities that we serve.

For the record, we have never put pressure on our staff to close up at the expense of our customers’ experience. Shifts are not even a full 8 hours and even if they were we have let them know that we'd rather pay them overtime than make anyone feel unwelcome. At some point, however, staff does need to be able to discontinue serving customers and close up for the night. Many have suggested that we should just lock our doors at 9pm to avoid the confusion but if customers are still dining the doors must remain unlocked until everyone has exited per the fire marshal. So since that is not an option we have always had to be someone nuanced rather than sticking hard to a finite closing time. When we are open until 10pm in the summer it doesn’t present as much of a problem although there is no way to predict how busy we are going to be. We do our very best to make sure we are well staffed to accommodate those late night rushes and if we have to stay open a little later we absolutely will. I’d like to say that as soon as 9pm or 10pm hits our “Open” sign will be turned off but that can be tricky to make happen when when there is a late night line to the door. Nonetheless, moving forward anyone who has come out of their way to patron us and makes it inside the shop while doors are still unlocked will be warmly welcomed, respectfully informed that we are closing and that we would be happy to serve them but they will need to take their items to go. We will also get an actual “Closed” sign that can be hung on the door at eye level since it might be easy for someone not to have noticed that they are entering after we are technically closed.

If there are other actions we can take to avoid any situations like this from ever occurring again we most certainly will. As I said before, I have reached out to Lillian to see how we can better support her and hope that we are able to connect if she so chooses to engage with us further. I hope that my invitation to dialogue about what happened does not feel like it came with expectations. I just want her and everyone else affected to know that we are available and humbly listening. I know it was mentioned that she actually works in the field of racial equity and inclusivity training and if this something she was interested doing with us as commenters suggested we would have every interest and expectation of compensating her for that important work. In my previous statement I mentioned our intention to work with Cameron Whitten as we have already been in talks with him about how to collaborate our business with his social justice work. And my apologies to Cameron, as I misrepresented the Brown Hope initiative that he his developing as being a reparations-inspired happy hour specifically for the Black community when it is actually for Black, Brown and Indigenous People more broadly. This is something we have been excited to support before this incident occurred and will be following Cameron’s lead on how best to support it moving forward.

I know that no amount of fancy words are going to make this situation we are all in together any better. Again I have probably said too much and people will find fault in something that I have written here. If I have further offended anyone with this statement I apologize in advance and assure you that we are all listening and committed to trying to do our best over here. Feel free to let me know where I got it wrong and if there is anything we can do to make it better. As difficult as this process of learning, unlearning and decolonizing is, this is the work of our times and we will not shy away from the challenge for one second. This shared history of racism and white supremacy is centuries old and deeply ingrained in nearly every aspect of our society and lives. But no matter how long it takes Back to Eden Bakery is in this fight for equity and justice for the long haul and will do everything within its power to foster the "Beloved Community” Dr. King so beautifully envisioned.

Warmest regards,

John Blomgren

Co-Owner & General Manager

Back to Eden Bakery

PREVIOUS STATEMENT:

Hello Lillian and to the community we serve.

We just became aware of the very disturbing incident that occurred last night in one of our establishments and want to do everything in our power to properly address the situation making sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Back to Eden Bakery is 100% committed to being a welcoming and supportive environment for all customers who share our values of inclusivity and dismantling the white supremacist hetero-patriarchy. This is not just talk for us or a tactic to make us appear in any certain way.

Lillian, we are so incredibly sorry for the treatment you received from someone on our staff. What you experienced in our shop is absolutely egregious and we are already taking all of the necessary steps to deal with this appropriately. First and foremost, we have let the two staff members go immediately as there will never be room in our organization for anyone who is inclined to give such poor customer service. Admittedly we have had issues with staff trying to enforce our closing hours too firmly without being sensitive to the fact that that person came out of their way to support our business. Whatever their reason for denying you service is not acceptable and flies directly in the face of the experience we aim to provide our customers.

But we also recognize that simply firing the employees in question is not nearly enough to fully address the incident. Even though a very large portion of our staff are women of color and/or members of the LGBTQPOC community it is clear that we obviously have some more work to do to make sure that every single person we employ upholds our values and commitments. We have been supporters of the Equity and Beyond Workshops led by local social justice advocate Cameron Whitten and will be seeking opportunities to provide inclusivity training for our organization moving forward. Already in the works, we are donating 10% of our Mother’s Day sales to the Black Mama Bail Out Project and will begin hosting Brown Hope, a reparations happy hour to directly support the Black community that supports us.

Knowing that we are doing business in a gentrified neighborhood in a racist city within a racist state of a racist country we see it as our moral and personal responsibility to use our platform and privilege to support marginalized communities, educate the public about the very serious issues facing people of color and demand meaningful change. We are not only allied with you but we would like to consider ourselves fully committed along with you to the social justice revolution this country sorely needs.

Having expressed all of that we still do not feel that these words suffice and would love the opportunity to meet with you, Lillian, and any other community members that would like to discuss this further. We want to make sure that at the end of this everyone fully feels heard and valued and that we dealt with this in the most appropriate manner.

From the bottom of our hearts we are beyond grieved by this situation and hope that the POC community continues to feel inspired to support us as it always has.

In utmost sincerity,

John Blomgren

Co-Owner/CFO & General Manager

Back to Eden Bakery