My Poor Opinion of Liberal Business Owners in Portland Neighborhood

The Belmont Business Association, Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, and the unnamed, anonymous neighbors who supposedly "...wonder about Dixie" are the people we all need to be afraid of and, at the very least, aware that those kinds of throwbacks, bigots, racists, and fascists are alive, well, and simply clothing themselves in the modern vestments normally associated with "liberal", "open minded", "progressive" citizens of the world. They were described in the article as the ones who "...want to know why those women won't sell, why they won't at least wash their windows or make the front of their store more attractive. They call them insensitive and worse. They view the MLK signs, heavy-duty things that were clipped over the Confederate flags, as a creative and justified form of protest."

We should all be thankful that they are really showing their true colors in this article especially through the uninformed, shortsighted, and narrow minded comments made by their spokespeople and some anonymous members of the "...neighborhood known more and more for bustle and bright lights: the neon signs of the Avalon Theatre, the oddly colored hair of customers at Laughing Planet Cafe and Stumptown Coffee, the cheerful tones of newly restored bungalows and Victorians on surrounding streets.

Young readers and those who are new to Portland should be warned not to fall into supporting the obvious ploy being made to force Dixie Mattress Company out of business by the cutthroat, greedy, and bigoted group who has moved in and appointed themselves as the ruling elite in that neighborhood. Any longtime resident of Portland and, most especially, the vast majority of business owners who have been around since before there was a "...neighborhood known more and more for bustle and bright lights: the neon signs of the Avalon Theatre, the oddly colored hair of customers at Laughing Planet Cafe and Stumptown Coffee, the cheerful tones of newly restored bungalows and Victorians on surrounding streets," will tell you that Dixie Mattress Company has been a solid, upright, pillar of the business community, and furthermore, the company and its owners are known to be anything but racists or bigots.

My family, an openly Jewish family, started doing business with Dixie Mattress Company back in 1971. Long before it was fashionable, or politically correct to do so, my father offered low income families clean and affordable furnished houses, apartments, and transient accommodations in what were then the roughest neighborhoods of Northeast, Northwest, and Southeast Portland. One of the reasons that he was able to offer housing resources to some of the most needy families in Portland was because of the alliance that he had with the owner of Dixie Mattress Company.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of doing business with Dixie Mattress Company will tell you that they are well known for their straightforward, ethical dealings, and selling good, solid, unembellished products. Dixie isn't the kind of company that feels like they have beat you over the head at every turn with the idea that they have been a locally owned family business operating with sustainable practices and providing products made from recycled and renewable resources, although these are the very fundamental principles which have allowed them to continue as one of the oldest independent small businesses in their area. They have never had the need to proclaim their "celebration of diversity" in multi-racial advertisements, and they haven't been known to scream about their open mindedness with amateur murals on the side of the building they own. More than that, they have no reason to boast continuously about how much they contribute locally or how they have done so over the last forty years on a person-to-person basis, or a business-to-business basis, as well as to the economy. Where so many new image only, flash in the pan, and fly-by-night operations run by hucksters and modern day snake oil salesmen talk a good game, Dixie Mattress Company walks the walk the way it has decade after decade without saying a word - simply continuing to do good business.

And what about those rebel flags? When it comes to Dixie Mattress, the symbolism of those flags has as mush to do with racism as swastikas in a Hindu temple. Nothing. In case it hasn't occurred to any of the self entitled elite passing judgment upon this Portland landmark of a business, there are great numbers of Americans who would lovingly go on at length, perhaps for hours, to describe the wonderful cultural legacy of Dixie, or the American south, in fond and loving terms without ever supporting racism, slavery, or the other deplorable human rights tragedies that region has fought so hard to overcome.

If that concept can't be understood, perhaps it is time we do away with the all forms and images of American flags and symbols of this republic in light of the unquestionable genocide that was carried out against the natives of this land, and as a result of which less than 4 million exist today.

Over the years Dixie Mattress Company and my father supplied affordable, and often times free mattresses to members of the Confederated Tribes, the Urban League, countless churches, homeless shelters, shelters for battered women, halfway houses, rehab facilities, transient worker programs, and a rainbow colored list of recipients that numbers in the thousands. I would venture to say that it would take at least ten years of business for the businesses that neighbor Dixie to even approach their customer count, and a miracle for them to be able to claim a customer count with as much diversity.

As much as so many "pretenders to the thrown" would like to take credit for the now popular concept of local, or family owned sustainable businesses that celebrate diversity that are all the rage, the fact is that numerous prototypical models that served to fuel the fire for this way of thinking can be found to have originated right here in the Portland, Oregon of days gone by. Can there be so many who are silly enough to think that this way of doing business just popped out of their little hemp woven mojo bags following their migration from Berkeley? Maybe its time for those arrogant, fledgling entrepreneurs to stop tooting their own horns and pointing the finger at everyone else with their miraculous realizations and heed their own advise by educating, and familiarizing themselves with their environments. Maybe they should stop judging books and businesses by their covers or facades, and start giving real, honest, locally owned and operated, sustainable businesses that make products using recycled and/or renewable resources the respect, and patronage they deserve.

Maybe its time for the real close minded, judgmental, self entitled, holier than thou, bigoted, hate mongers to take a good look in the mirror and realize that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and that condoning the hate filled vandalism committed against Dixie Mattress Company last week is as vile and abhorrent as any similar act of intolerance with the common roots of ignorance.