Herbal conference update
Hello, dear friends! I just wanted to take a moment to address a recent fuck up!
As you may have heard; although I was set to be a vendor at this year’s WNY Herbal Conference, I have since pulled out (as of late last week) for reasons that I wanted to clarify a bit in this space. It was brought to my attention last week that the event was planning to include a vendor that had a racialized slur for Romani people in their business name. Several people had attempted to educate them on their Instagram page but ultimately they quietly deleted the post (+ all of the free labor contributed by marginalized people in their community). I had commented on the post right before its deletion (asking if there were any updates on this conversation that we had been assured was being handled privately), which resulted in the IG page for the conference messaging me. We discussed the matter for a while but the conversation was so problematic that it didn’t take long for me to realize that this conference centers a community I don’t want to have access to me, my work, or the communities I aim to serve. After dropping out of the event, I did reiterate that a public conversation should be had to address something so serious that has negative impact beyond being bad press for their event (but I hadn’t seen anything over the past few days). Earlier today I was shown that they tacked on a very stereotypical non-apology to the end of a completely unrelated post about t-shirts; which both centered the “learning” and “growth” of the white people perpetuating harm and which failed to acknowledge any of the individuals that contributed labor to the original deleted post (or who subsequently attempted to educate the harmful vendor and conference committee in private). They also miraculously managed to use the slur within the few first sentences.
I’d like to apologize to anyone who may have been exposed to this event or these people because of me + my failure to fully vet these individuals. The messages I received were quite concerning (in regards to whose needs + perspectives are being centered at the conference), + I hate the idea of any POC or marginalized person paying to be exposed to it.
The herbalism/wellness community is overwrought with white supremacy + we all owe it to our most silenced, appropriated + most financially disenfranchised community members to center their safety + comfort in these spaces. It’s been wildly disappointing not only seeing the way the conference’s IG responded to these concerns, but also those who claim to want to engage in community-centered work (who saw this all + thought nothing of it until a more marginalized person spoke up). I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed. (Kristin removed my vendor's posts on the conference’s IG quietly as well, without publicly acknowledging why; despite me emphasizing at several different points that transparency is part of the work)
I also think this is an opportunity to take accountability for making assumptions about people I’ve been in community with. I attended the WNY Herbal Conference last year as a ticket holder; I really enjoyed myself but I noticed the same issues of diversity (or lack thereof) that I see in all of these spaces. I had wanted to support several friends that were vendors or attendees, and I had a few friends in common with Kristin specifically. I mistakenly assumed that this person + their event would be safe + would center the same anti-racial work that our shared community tries too. I was wrong, + this has made me realize that I should create a more intentional way of vetting potential events to appear at; so I’ll be devoting some time to that in the near future. Again, I apologize if anyone was harmed, or lost money/time in an attempt to support me.
I would like to take this opportunity to uplift Lore, who contributed quite a lot of labor on the original (deleted) post, + who I was told contributed a lot of labor privately as well. Lore is a local witch who does vital work centering fat, Queer, and neurodivergent people whilst creating lovely, soft homesteading spaces to do big dismantling work. Their social media pages are so insightful + I really appreciate them as a community member and as someone who spoke up when others didn’t.
