06/28/2024
An Open Letter to Tractor Supply Co.:
Oh… Hi, there!
You might recognize me (although probably not). I’m the one who lives just about 2 miles away from one of your stores. My family is in your store quite often actually, at least once a week. Over the years, we’ve probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with you. We’re even members of your “Preferred Neighbors” Club.
Well, we were…
You see, I am a Black woman. I have Black children. I have Q***r and Trans children. And thanks to the recent statement you put out, you’ve made it incredibly clear, that WE are not the people you consider neighbors.
TSC, did you know that Black and Q***r people also farm? And homestead? And do lots of other stuff that brings us to your stores? Maybe that’s why you had DEI goals in the first place, DEI goals that you now intend to get rid of…
Does taking care of your customers like they’re family include ignoring our needs? Our struggles? Our life experiences? Does it mean ignoring the particular struggles we face as Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Q***r people LIVING in and CONTRIBUTING to rural America?
Or are you like some of our less welcoming neighbors that have decided that we don’t belong? We certainly can’t be the customers whose values you are intent on representing. I guess the other customer in the store with me that one time…you know the one, with the Ku Klux Klan symbol on his shirt…THAT must be one of the customers whose values you represent.
I imagine you probably thought that it was better to side with white supremacy over diversity because you, like many others, see rural communities as made up of white supremacists making America great again. Great, like when my Ancestors worked as sharecroppers. Great, like when lynching was legal. Great, like before the Emancipation Proclamation left white “farmers” destitute, by removing their main source of wealth, the bodies of my people.
TSC, did you know that some of the first of my people to be brought to this land in chains, were brought because of their agricultural knowledge and expertise? Did you know that Carolina Gold rice wouldn’t be what it is, if it weren’t for the rice farmers in my lineage that white supremacy stole from their lands on the coast of West Africa, where rice production was efficient and plentiful? Did you know that the vast amount of wealth spent in your stores today, was built on the backs of the very customers you’ve chosen NOT to value anymore?
Did you know that more and more of us, the descendants of the Black and Indigenous agricultural experts of this land, are reclaiming our birthrights? That we, who make up the global majority, are returning to the land, and WE are building something new?
Well, that’s ok. I guess it’s not for you to know and understand right now. But you will, one day, as you and your “valued” white supremacist customers start to grow up and mature.
Only then, it’ll be too late.
Too late to save your company. Too late to save dying, self-destructing, self-loathing communities. You’ll figure it out just in time to go down with the ship of white supremacy.
Don’t worry. When you and the legacy you value are no more, we’ll remember you. We’ll invoke your name as a cautionary tale, so that we do not repeat your mistakes.
And most of all, we’ll enjoy our Liberation. Together. As family. As neighbors.
Too bad you’ll be long gone.
Signed,
Your FORMER Customer and Neighbor
A Black, Q***r Farmer
For more than 85 years, Tractor Supply has been focused on one thing…serving Life Out Here. Every day our 50,000 Team Members take care of our customers like family. We deeply value our relationship with our customers and the communities we call home. We are passionate about being good neighbors i...