Hey there,
Some of you may have seen an email we sent last Friday that contained an offensive and hurtful word in the subject line. For anyone that was shocked, upset, offended, or hurt by this word and our usage of it, I am so sorry. We are so sorry.
I won’t repeat the word here because it has (and had) no place in a marketing email - or anywhere else at Farmgirl, for that matter. It is not reflective of my values or my team’s values, and I am disappointed that we've made a mistake that may lead you or anyone else to think otherwise. We hope we can rebuild your trust in us.
While I don’t believe that offering intent has any place next to an apology, I do want to underline that this was unintentional. The team member who made this choice was genuinely unaware of the very harmful and racist origins of this word. That said, while we know no malice was intended, the impact of our use of this word is something we need to, and are, taking accountability for.
As the CEO of Farmgirl Flowers, it’s my responsibility to have the appropriate controls in place to ensure things like this do not happen, and I failed to do that. We’re making some changes on our marketing team to ensure there are both the checks needed to prevent something like this from happening again, and also the training to prevent the decision to unknowingly use language like this from happening in the first place.
To those of you who took a moment to reach out with a correction or note about the email we sent, we are appreciative of your time and grace in offering it, and have taken all of your words to heart as we work through this internally. My goal is to create a workplace where team members can make mistakes as long as they are willing to take accountability, to learn from those mistakes, and to commit to not err in the same way again. That is our commitment to you as well.
With so much gratitude,
Christina
