Man posts chilling reminder of why he flies Pride flag at his Toronto bakery
Located in Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood, the Johnson Family Bakery has been open for just over 16 months and has proudly displayed the Pride flag since its opening.
The artisan bakery never faced any pushback, until recently, when the owner received an email that criticized the business for supporting the 2SLGBTQI+ community.
The bakery's owner, Chuck Johnson, told blogTO that he received the hateful email last week, and decided to share a heartfelt reminder to the community in a video posted to the business' Instagram page.
"Yesterday, we got our first hate mail. I opened up my email, and there's this lengthy email telling us that we needed to take our Pride flag down which we've flown every day since we've opened. It was essentially a long and very poorly written diatribe of anti-trans hate and anti-gay hate, and general bigotry," Johnson said in the video.
"It's sad, but it's a very strong reminder of why I fly this Pride flag in the first place."
Despite the negative message, Johnson used the moment to rally others to speak out against hate.
"We live in a wonderful country, we live in an accepting country, it's very easy to think of hate and bigotry as somebody else's problem or something that's happening somewhere else in the world. It's not, it's happening here in our communities. Hate and bigotry is everywhere," he explained.
"It is very important right now, especially, to make it very uncomfortable and difficult for someone to go and dump that garbage into your neighbourhood. These people think that they're winning right now, they're not winning. It is important that they're strongly opposed."
Johnson went on to encourage the bakery's customers and neighbours to "get out there, go oppose some bigotry, go shop at the shops that you support, and be a little bit noisier than the bigots, the racists, the homophobes, and the transphobes."
The video was immediately met with dozens of supportive comments for the business, with many vowing to visit the bakery in support. One of the bakery's customers even offered to knit the staff rainbow Pride toques.
"With everything that's going on, I just felt that it was important to make a statement and make a post about it because there might be other people that are going through similar things," he told blogTO.
"You never what sort of situation someone is when they're coming, but if they see something that makes them feel safe and welcome, that can be very important."
Johnson Family Bakery is located at 993 Queen St. E.
Fareen Karim
