WINOOSKI, Vt. —A sign on a lamp post at the bottom of the Winooski Circle displayed the words “Yield Sneakers Bacon” until Friday morning. The bistro owners took it down.
A city program put it in place to keep its flower beds beautiful. If businesses do some gardening they can post an advertisement where they do it, but the word “bacon” on the Sneakers Bistro sign started a discussion about diversity on the Winooski Front Porch Forum.
It started with a post from one woman who wrote that the sign was insensitive to those who do not consume pork. She said as a Muslim she is personally offended by it.
The owners of Sneakers spoke to WPTZ. They say they’ve reached out to the individual who made the post and proactively took the sign down. They also say they regret any harm caused by the sign, and that their goal was never to cause stress or bad feelings.
“It’s nice that they were respectful enough to take it down,” said Caleb Wiley an area resident, “but I also think they shouldn’t have, or had to at any right.”
Other Winooski residents joined the conversation, and online too. One post reads the word “bacon” is not offensive. It’s something that describes food.
Winooski’s city manager spoke on behalf of the city. She said:
“The cool part of living in a diverse community is that it’s not always comfortable. It’s a fascinating place with lots of opportunities for conversation. The City has to pay attention to a lot of factors while acting within what we can regulate,” said Katherine “Deac” Decarreau.
Others recognize it’s a complicated issue, too.
“I respect her religion and her right to believe what she wants but I’m pretty sure the first amendment extends to bacon and the selling of it.”
Sneakers’ owners say their goal is to provide a joyful place for the entire community.
The Winooski Islamic Community Center was not available for comment.
There is so much that’s sad about this squalid little story. There’s the importance that the Muslim woman puts on not being “personally” offended (a hypersensitivity that may be as American as it is genuinely Islamic). There is the cringing desperation to please on the part of Sneakers (“they regret any harm caused by the sign, and that their goal was never to cause stress or bad feelings”) and the refusal to treat this complaint with the contempt that it deserved.
And then there is the simpering PC babble from the city manager (“The cool part of living in a diverse community is that it’s not always comfortable. It’s a fascinating place with lots of opportunities for conversation”) complete with the absence of any recognition that this was not a “conversation” that anyone outside a madhouse should have been having, an absence of recognition shared with those at WPTZ who believe that this is a “complicated” issue.
“Complicated”? Uh, no.
You got it right. “The cool part of living in a diverse community is that it’s not always comfortable.”
That’s got to be one of the worst statements made in defense of political correctness. It seems to be quite comfortable for the Muslim woman who complained. Anything that annoys her, she can banish, regardless of anyone else’s rights, feelings, or “comfort.”
As I understand it, a private business that caters to the community made a business decision to remove a sign that a potential customer found offensive. Nobody quoted seems to think that the bistro had to remove it and at least one person thinks it should not have removed it. As far as appears, if the bistro had wanted to stand behind its sign, it would have been free to do so and probably would have been supported by much of the community.
CJ, Agreed,but even as an outlier the complainant is interesting, and the ways that the restaurant, the TV station and the city manager reacted to the complaint were, in my view, telling, and worthy of comment.
The owners of the restaurant were, of course, free to do what they wanted. The decision over the sign was theirs to make, but that does not mean that that decision cannot be criticized.