Leroy N. Soetoro
2018-07-09 06:42:59 UTC
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2018/0629/In-Red-Hen-aftermath-a-
community-wades-through-nation-s-vitriol
All politics is local, but one small town shows just how true that is.
After a local restaurant asked the White House press secretary to leave,
Lexington, Va., has seen vitriolic national debate explode on its
doorstep.
Until about a week ago, a visit to the Blue Phoenix Cafe and Markets
Facebook and Yelp pages left a fine impression. Patrons raved about the
tasty food, the vegetarian options, and the welcoming staff. The place had
a nearly five-star grade.
Then, sometime last Saturday, bad reviews punctuated by one-star ratings
and angry memes began to pour in.
Bigots, one commenter writes.
Smells like an outhouse, according to another.
They are ridiculous hate-filled people. Do not go to this establishment,
warns a third.
What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs victory says about Democrats future
The reason for the hostility sits a few blocks away on West Washington
Street. The Red Hen and its owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, made national
headlines after Ms. Wilkinson asked White House Press Secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders to leave her restaurant Friday night. Ms. Wilkinsons
staff a number of whom are gay had urged her to do so, saying they
were uncomfortable serving the official spokesperson for an administration
that has, in their view, enacted unconscionable policies toward the LGBTQ
community, immigrants, and other minority groups.
The resulting blowback has rocked the city of Lexington, Va., population
about 7,000.
The Red Hen has not opened for business since the event. Earlier in the
week, protesters arrived from out of town, some bearing Confederate battle
flags and anti-gay posters reading Let God Burn Them. One man was
arrested for dumping chicken dung in front of the restaurant.
Amenie Hopkins co-owner and head chef at Blue Phoenix expected she
would take a hit, having publicly voiced support for Wilkinson almost as
soon as the news broke.
Other businesses in town have also been left reeling. Shop owners, if they
could, unplugged their phones after receiving a barrage of harassing
calls. Others shunned social media, where nasty comments came unabated.
Local leaders have had to check in on folks to see how theyre holding up.
It was guilt by association to a degree that no one including Ms.
Hopkins saw coming. This town is not a stranger to conflict, she says.
But this is a new level. And certainly the level of attention it's
garnered is new, as well.
The onslaught, she and others say, has fractured the community. Residents
have fallen onto one side or another of a familiar dividing line, turning
the city into a parable of our time: an example of what happens when the
din and discord of national politics comes home to roost.
Lexington is symbolic, says Chris Devine, a professor who studies
political psychology at the University of Dayton in Ohio. It isnt about
one issue. Its about the nature of political divisions in the country
right now. Suddenly what is going on at the national level feels very
local.
A town divided
Hopkins, wearing a bright red dress and a colorful bandanna over her dark
hair, smiled a lot when she spoke. But it was a tired smile. It was late
afternoon on Wednesday, and by then Hopkins and her staff had been
fielding angry and sometimes vulgar phone calls and online posts for five
days.
Some callers would yell, she says. Others would demand to know whether she
would serve a Republican or someone in a MAGA hat shorthand for
President Trumps campaign slogan, Make America Great Again at her
establishment. Im like, Of course we would, she says.
Still, Hopkins wont budge on her decision to stick with Wilkinson, who
has reportedly received death threats and did not respond to requests for
an interview. Hopkins says she posted a supportive comment on the Red
Hens Facebook page almost as soon as shed heard about what happened. The
bad reviews began materializing literally two minutes later, she says.
On Monday, Hopkins published a post on the Blue Phoenixs page reiterating
her support for the right of every small business to protect their staff,
customers, and the values that define those relationships.
Its not an unpopular stance. Lexington is home to Washington and Lee
University, a private liberal arts school. Like most college towns, it
leans Democrat: The city went to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections,
while surrounding Rockbridge County voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump.
This is definitely kind of a blue dot in a red state, says Jake Sirota,
a rising senior at Washington and Lee and editor-in-chief of The Vigil, a
progressive student-run paper not associated with the university. He and
another student, Dannick Kenon, say they were happy to hear about the
exchange at the Red Hen.
It was definitely a feeling of pride at the town ... that it actually
stood up to an administration Im not a fan of, Mr. Kenon says.
Others were more cautious. One shop owner praised Wilkinson shes just
a wonderful person whos helped this town so much, he says but asked
that his name not be used because he wants to avoid further harassment.
As the surge of bad reviews continued, however, some business owners
quickly took to Facebook to do damage control. Sweet Treats Bakery, also
on West Washington Street, published a post on Monday dissociating itself
from the Red Hen and its owners actions: Sweet Treats Bakery DID NOT
refuse to serve or turn any one away for any reason and will not be doing
so in the future. The Southern Inn and the Lexington Carriage Company,
both Main Street institutions, posted similar disclaimers on their social
media sites.
Mare Scott who runs a skincare service, Skin Is In, just down the street
from the Red Hen doesnt blame them. Personally I think the owner of
the Red Hen made a big mistake, she says. Ms. Scott, who grew up in
Washington, D.C., set up shop in Lexington about 17 years ago. She loves
her business, is ambivalent about politics, and doesnt think the two
should mix.
She has the right to refuse anybody but to kind of think of it in the
long term, you know, of how it might affect the rest of us, Scott says.
To Hopkins at the Blue Phoenix, her fellow proprietors reactions are
disheartening but understandable. In times of turmoil, she says, people
tend to close ranks and protect their own. It was like, All right, hold
on to what we have, and were going to be OK if we just hunker down.
Her own response just happened to go a different direction.
My personal opinion is that if you dont stand up to persecution, if you
dont stand next to your neighbor when they are being persecuted, you end
up losing more than just business, Hopkins says, her voice soft but firm.
You end up losing a part of yourself. And thats irretrievable.
Battle lines
Jennifer Brown is a slim, sharp woman with a dark bob and bright blue
eyes. She speaks fast, with a big smile, but her sentences come out at
rapid-fire pace when shes on the subject shes most passionate about: the
conservative perspective.
I dont condone death threats at all. Thats just ridiculous, Ms. Brown
says of the treatment Wilkinsons received since the Red Hen incident.
Its shutting down the channels of communication and I would not say to
anybody to do that.
But, she says, she understands why so many people got so fired up after
hearing that Ms. Sanders had been asked to leave the restaurant.
Conservatives have been treated like outcasts since Trumps election,
told to shut up, sit down, do nothing, she says. Were frustrated.
Were the ones constantly being harassed. Shes especially upset with
California Rep. Maxine Waters (D), who this week publicly called on her
supporters to heckle members of Trumps Cabinet wherever they find them.
(Other Democratic officials have since disagreed with Representative
Waters.)
Thats incredibly reckless, says Brown, a staunch Trump supporter who
chairs the Republican Committee of Virginias 6th District, which includes
Rockbridge County.
So while she doesnt approve of some of the tactics being used against the
Red Hen, and certainly against other Lexington businesses, Brown says
shes hardly surprised. And folks do have a right to express their
displeasure, as long as they keep it decent and legal like with the Red
Hen boycott that the state GOP has called for.
Does she see an end to all this?
Either its going to come to a head, or were going to have to start
saying, OK, lets sit down and talk again, Brown says between careful
bites of her seared salmon sandwich. All sides are going to have to be
willing to have the conversation.
But I think at this point, because everything is so heated, that people
are going to draw the battle lines even deeper, she says.
City folks, country neighbors
Lexingtons liberal-conservative divide neither begins nor ends with the
incident at the Red Hen. Like in many former Confederate states, Civil War
history comes alive in Virginia, and places like Lexington blue islands
in red seas regularly become flashpoints for conflict. In 2011,
protesters rallied at a park downtown against an ordinance that prohibited
the official flying of the Confederate battle flag alongside the US,
state, and city flags.
In January last year, tensions again boiled over when a local advocacy
group organized a march to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on his
birthday. The Community Anti-Racism Education, or CARE, initiative, held
the march on a Saturday the same day that the town traditionally holds a
celebration for Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.
There are these touchstone days throughout the year where something
always happens and youre kind of expecting it, says Mr. Sirota, the
university student.
Despite that, city folks have managed, for the most part, to keep peace
with their county neighbors. We row the same direction for economic
prosperity, says city councilman David Sigler. The jobs need to be
filled, people need to shop, we work together, our kids all go to school
together.
But theres a sense about town that the community isnt going to emerge
unscathed from this incident, that whats been unearthed cant be
reburied.
I think it will certainly leave a scar, says Michelle Watkins, chair of
the Rockbridge County Democratic Committee. Once the wound heals a bit, I
think people will be willing to put most of that behind them and say, OK,
let's move forward now. But thats a lesson learned, and the goal will be
to not repeat it.
Theres also some bitterness. No one likes to be made an example of,
residents say. And while the next big headline cant come soon enough
everyones sure that its only a matter of time before America moves on to
a new scandal some are unhappy with the D.C. political and media
machines.
Theres this kind of constant stream of things coming out of Washington
that lasts maybe a day or so that are creating the storms, but that have
much more lasting effects in the places where the events actually happen,
Sirota says. There's just a lack of regard for consequences in general.
When they say boycott Lexington businesses, theyre not realizing who
theyre hurting, says Scott, who runs the skincare service.
Hopkins, for whom Lexington has always been home, views the days ahead
with a blend of fear and hope. She worries that a rumored gathering of
Bikers for Trump in Lexington on Saturday could turn violent, and is
bracing for the long battle to reclaim the Blue Phoenixs online presence.
At the same time, shes heartened by the locals who are posting five-star
reviews on the cafes pages in hopes of combating the slew of spiteful
comments. And she recalls three instances two on the phone and one
online where an exchange that started out hostile ended up incredibly
beautiful, Hopkins says. Those are the ones that Im kind of holding on
to, cause thats what keeps me from completely losing all faith and hope
in humanity.
I hope that this serves as an opportunity for all of us to reflect on
what our first reactions were, what our solutions were, how we dealt with
all of this, she adds. I have so much faith in this community and the
people in it. Were going to be fine.
--
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.
ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.
Obama jobs, the result of ObamaCare. 12-15 working hours a week at minimum
wage, no benefits and the primary revenue stream for ObamaCare. It can't
be funded with money people don't have, yet liberals lie about how great
it is.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.
community-wades-through-nation-s-vitriol
All politics is local, but one small town shows just how true that is.
After a local restaurant asked the White House press secretary to leave,
Lexington, Va., has seen vitriolic national debate explode on its
doorstep.
Until about a week ago, a visit to the Blue Phoenix Cafe and Markets
Facebook and Yelp pages left a fine impression. Patrons raved about the
tasty food, the vegetarian options, and the welcoming staff. The place had
a nearly five-star grade.
Then, sometime last Saturday, bad reviews punctuated by one-star ratings
and angry memes began to pour in.
Bigots, one commenter writes.
Smells like an outhouse, according to another.
They are ridiculous hate-filled people. Do not go to this establishment,
warns a third.
What Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs victory says about Democrats future
The reason for the hostility sits a few blocks away on West Washington
Street. The Red Hen and its owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, made national
headlines after Ms. Wilkinson asked White House Press Secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders to leave her restaurant Friday night. Ms. Wilkinsons
staff a number of whom are gay had urged her to do so, saying they
were uncomfortable serving the official spokesperson for an administration
that has, in their view, enacted unconscionable policies toward the LGBTQ
community, immigrants, and other minority groups.
The resulting blowback has rocked the city of Lexington, Va., population
about 7,000.
The Red Hen has not opened for business since the event. Earlier in the
week, protesters arrived from out of town, some bearing Confederate battle
flags and anti-gay posters reading Let God Burn Them. One man was
arrested for dumping chicken dung in front of the restaurant.
Amenie Hopkins co-owner and head chef at Blue Phoenix expected she
would take a hit, having publicly voiced support for Wilkinson almost as
soon as the news broke.
Other businesses in town have also been left reeling. Shop owners, if they
could, unplugged their phones after receiving a barrage of harassing
calls. Others shunned social media, where nasty comments came unabated.
Local leaders have had to check in on folks to see how theyre holding up.
It was guilt by association to a degree that no one including Ms.
Hopkins saw coming. This town is not a stranger to conflict, she says.
But this is a new level. And certainly the level of attention it's
garnered is new, as well.
The onslaught, she and others say, has fractured the community. Residents
have fallen onto one side or another of a familiar dividing line, turning
the city into a parable of our time: an example of what happens when the
din and discord of national politics comes home to roost.
Lexington is symbolic, says Chris Devine, a professor who studies
political psychology at the University of Dayton in Ohio. It isnt about
one issue. Its about the nature of political divisions in the country
right now. Suddenly what is going on at the national level feels very
local.
A town divided
Hopkins, wearing a bright red dress and a colorful bandanna over her dark
hair, smiled a lot when she spoke. But it was a tired smile. It was late
afternoon on Wednesday, and by then Hopkins and her staff had been
fielding angry and sometimes vulgar phone calls and online posts for five
days.
Some callers would yell, she says. Others would demand to know whether she
would serve a Republican or someone in a MAGA hat shorthand for
President Trumps campaign slogan, Make America Great Again at her
establishment. Im like, Of course we would, she says.
Still, Hopkins wont budge on her decision to stick with Wilkinson, who
has reportedly received death threats and did not respond to requests for
an interview. Hopkins says she posted a supportive comment on the Red
Hens Facebook page almost as soon as shed heard about what happened. The
bad reviews began materializing literally two minutes later, she says.
On Monday, Hopkins published a post on the Blue Phoenixs page reiterating
her support for the right of every small business to protect their staff,
customers, and the values that define those relationships.
Its not an unpopular stance. Lexington is home to Washington and Lee
University, a private liberal arts school. Like most college towns, it
leans Democrat: The city went to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections,
while surrounding Rockbridge County voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump.
This is definitely kind of a blue dot in a red state, says Jake Sirota,
a rising senior at Washington and Lee and editor-in-chief of The Vigil, a
progressive student-run paper not associated with the university. He and
another student, Dannick Kenon, say they were happy to hear about the
exchange at the Red Hen.
It was definitely a feeling of pride at the town ... that it actually
stood up to an administration Im not a fan of, Mr. Kenon says.
Others were more cautious. One shop owner praised Wilkinson shes just
a wonderful person whos helped this town so much, he says but asked
that his name not be used because he wants to avoid further harassment.
As the surge of bad reviews continued, however, some business owners
quickly took to Facebook to do damage control. Sweet Treats Bakery, also
on West Washington Street, published a post on Monday dissociating itself
from the Red Hen and its owners actions: Sweet Treats Bakery DID NOT
refuse to serve or turn any one away for any reason and will not be doing
so in the future. The Southern Inn and the Lexington Carriage Company,
both Main Street institutions, posted similar disclaimers on their social
media sites.
Mare Scott who runs a skincare service, Skin Is In, just down the street
from the Red Hen doesnt blame them. Personally I think the owner of
the Red Hen made a big mistake, she says. Ms. Scott, who grew up in
Washington, D.C., set up shop in Lexington about 17 years ago. She loves
her business, is ambivalent about politics, and doesnt think the two
should mix.
She has the right to refuse anybody but to kind of think of it in the
long term, you know, of how it might affect the rest of us, Scott says.
To Hopkins at the Blue Phoenix, her fellow proprietors reactions are
disheartening but understandable. In times of turmoil, she says, people
tend to close ranks and protect their own. It was like, All right, hold
on to what we have, and were going to be OK if we just hunker down.
Her own response just happened to go a different direction.
My personal opinion is that if you dont stand up to persecution, if you
dont stand next to your neighbor when they are being persecuted, you end
up losing more than just business, Hopkins says, her voice soft but firm.
You end up losing a part of yourself. And thats irretrievable.
Battle lines
Jennifer Brown is a slim, sharp woman with a dark bob and bright blue
eyes. She speaks fast, with a big smile, but her sentences come out at
rapid-fire pace when shes on the subject shes most passionate about: the
conservative perspective.
I dont condone death threats at all. Thats just ridiculous, Ms. Brown
says of the treatment Wilkinsons received since the Red Hen incident.
Its shutting down the channels of communication and I would not say to
anybody to do that.
But, she says, she understands why so many people got so fired up after
hearing that Ms. Sanders had been asked to leave the restaurant.
Conservatives have been treated like outcasts since Trumps election,
told to shut up, sit down, do nothing, she says. Were frustrated.
Were the ones constantly being harassed. Shes especially upset with
California Rep. Maxine Waters (D), who this week publicly called on her
supporters to heckle members of Trumps Cabinet wherever they find them.
(Other Democratic officials have since disagreed with Representative
Waters.)
Thats incredibly reckless, says Brown, a staunch Trump supporter who
chairs the Republican Committee of Virginias 6th District, which includes
Rockbridge County.
So while she doesnt approve of some of the tactics being used against the
Red Hen, and certainly against other Lexington businesses, Brown says
shes hardly surprised. And folks do have a right to express their
displeasure, as long as they keep it decent and legal like with the Red
Hen boycott that the state GOP has called for.
Does she see an end to all this?
Either its going to come to a head, or were going to have to start
saying, OK, lets sit down and talk again, Brown says between careful
bites of her seared salmon sandwich. All sides are going to have to be
willing to have the conversation.
But I think at this point, because everything is so heated, that people
are going to draw the battle lines even deeper, she says.
City folks, country neighbors
Lexingtons liberal-conservative divide neither begins nor ends with the
incident at the Red Hen. Like in many former Confederate states, Civil War
history comes alive in Virginia, and places like Lexington blue islands
in red seas regularly become flashpoints for conflict. In 2011,
protesters rallied at a park downtown against an ordinance that prohibited
the official flying of the Confederate battle flag alongside the US,
state, and city flags.
In January last year, tensions again boiled over when a local advocacy
group organized a march to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on his
birthday. The Community Anti-Racism Education, or CARE, initiative, held
the march on a Saturday the same day that the town traditionally holds a
celebration for Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee.
There are these touchstone days throughout the year where something
always happens and youre kind of expecting it, says Mr. Sirota, the
university student.
Despite that, city folks have managed, for the most part, to keep peace
with their county neighbors. We row the same direction for economic
prosperity, says city councilman David Sigler. The jobs need to be
filled, people need to shop, we work together, our kids all go to school
together.
But theres a sense about town that the community isnt going to emerge
unscathed from this incident, that whats been unearthed cant be
reburied.
I think it will certainly leave a scar, says Michelle Watkins, chair of
the Rockbridge County Democratic Committee. Once the wound heals a bit, I
think people will be willing to put most of that behind them and say, OK,
let's move forward now. But thats a lesson learned, and the goal will be
to not repeat it.
Theres also some bitterness. No one likes to be made an example of,
residents say. And while the next big headline cant come soon enough
everyones sure that its only a matter of time before America moves on to
a new scandal some are unhappy with the D.C. political and media
machines.
Theres this kind of constant stream of things coming out of Washington
that lasts maybe a day or so that are creating the storms, but that have
much more lasting effects in the places where the events actually happen,
Sirota says. There's just a lack of regard for consequences in general.
When they say boycott Lexington businesses, theyre not realizing who
theyre hurting, says Scott, who runs the skincare service.
Hopkins, for whom Lexington has always been home, views the days ahead
with a blend of fear and hope. She worries that a rumored gathering of
Bikers for Trump in Lexington on Saturday could turn violent, and is
bracing for the long battle to reclaim the Blue Phoenixs online presence.
At the same time, shes heartened by the locals who are posting five-star
reviews on the cafes pages in hopes of combating the slew of spiteful
comments. And she recalls three instances two on the phone and one
online where an exchange that started out hostile ended up incredibly
beautiful, Hopkins says. Those are the ones that Im kind of holding on
to, cause thats what keeps me from completely losing all faith and hope
in humanity.
I hope that this serves as an opportunity for all of us to reflect on
what our first reactions were, what our solutions were, how we dealt with
all of this, she adds. I have so much faith in this community and the
people in it. Were going to be fine.
--
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.
ObamaCare is a total 100% failure and no lie that can be put forth by its
supporters can dispute that.
Obama jobs, the result of ObamaCare. 12-15 working hours a week at minimum
wage, no benefits and the primary revenue stream for ObamaCare. It can't
be funded with money people don't have, yet liberals lie about how great
it is.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.