Hey all,

Let's start with the good stuff.

The Powerhouse team has been nothing but collaborative and respectful. They're not the only ones, but we're finalizing some things with additional stores before we post official updates.

Powerhouse has ordered many of the titles on a list of suggested books we provided, and they're planning a display for the High Holidays which should be up later this month (they promised us a picture, which we will gladly share when the time comes!)

We now feel fully comfortable removing them from the petition and moving them to the "safe spaces" section of our database. The open and honest conversation, including about the meetings that were held with their staff, made us believe that they had done the work.

Feel free to report after you visit.

In general, we'd love to hear from you about more stores, the ones you love and feel good about visiting, and the ones that have let you down. We will be happy to try and engage with them.

Thank you to the Powerhouse team that took a crappy situation and chose to turn things around.

Sadly, we cannot say the same for Buffalo Street Books. We've tried to engage them, politely, and respectfully. Their General Manager was defensive, and frankly, to our feeling, unkind in their replies. We made sure a few of us read the chain (which the General Manager asked that we do not share publicly) just to make sure we all feel the same and not being overly sensitive.

Alas, it's clear the store is comfortable with the way things are. Knowing that we tried absolutely everything we could to launch a respectful dialogue, we feel comfortable about adding them as a store we wouldn't recommend visiting. Our spreadsheet will be updated accordingly. 

Some additional stores are engaging with us respectfully and we hope it'll shift things, some have gone above and beyond to change the situation in their stores, and some chose not to engage at all, which to us is also telling. But we're giving everyone a solid amount of time before we post updates.

Lastly, here's an interesting article about potential bias on Amazon. We are not familiar with the authors and their work, so this isn't a promotion or endorsement. We just came across the article and found it interesting. Whether or not there's real bias or some error in judgment, remains to be seen.

Thank you all, and have a quiet and safe weekend.