Hello, friends
July is a critical time for corn farmers. It’s when seeds come together to germinate and form a perfect ear of golden, uniform kernels. It’s time Americans come together, too.
You may have heard recently about a little dustup we here at Tractor Supply Company had happen to us when we decided to discontinue with certain promotions that some of our valued friends said weren’t in keeping with our values. But some of our equally valued friends were upset by what we did, so I, Jack Morrison, the Senior Director of Product Integration and Market Platform Creation Ventures, have decided to talk in plain language about our decision.
At TSC, we are all proud Americans, well, except Gordon who’s Canadian but he’s from western Canada which is really just one big Wyoming, and Jens Stensrud, the CEO of our holding company, Borgen Klauffen Inc., who I met once on his jet. I think he said he was from Luxembourg, or something, anyway, real nice fella. Point is, we are proud of our country, and we don’t tolerate anyone who says disrespectful things about the U-S-of-A. No way! Now, we also understand that there are certain groups, friends all, who have a different perspective and have not always felt like they were properly represented. We welcome all farmers of all backgrounds and we don’t play favorites.
Black farmers (when writing this, I consulted with a highly valuable member of our staff, DeSaunte, who is Black and said we could use that word instead of African America, which I always thought was a clunky term but I did like that it had “American” in it. Anyway, DeSaunte, is a college kid and he’s an intern with us. Don’t worry, it’s a paid position. I mean, how crazy would that be if he weren’t paid? That’d be like…um, like I said, crazy)
Yes, Black farmers have always been loyal customers of TSC and we have always treated them with the utmost respect. We’re proud to call them neighbors and friends and we honor the struggles they’ve faced, and while we’re no longer allowed to use words like “inclusion” or “diversity” it’s safe to say that we still respect all opinions and people, but we just don’t say that we do.
Also, our decision to no longer sponsor Pride events. I mean, who doesn’t like rainbows? It’s my favorite sherbet, but I think we can all understand that we can respect the members of the gay community (Turns out, DeSaunte is also gay and he said it was OK to use that term, though he did ask us to stop calling him “DD” which I had thought was a play on his name but I recently learned was short for “double dipper.” His mother is a lawyer and after a brief phone call with her we decided to make DeSaunte an associate director in our Sprouting Seeds initiative which helps young farmers get started. He also gets weekends off and all our communication with him must go through HR first. Great kid.)
So, here’s the deal. We at TSC will continue to be welcoming to everyone, including those who may not have felt welcomed in the past or those who think we’re too welcoming now. At the end of the day, we’re all farmers, and it’s OK to be different as long as we don’t point out those differences or say that some differences are more different that other differences.
Hope that clears things up.
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