Not giving the entire picture

Email: Website: Fax: Mail:

2 Second St., PO Box 128 Yarmouth, NS

B5A 4B1

A beer can from from Tusket Falls Brewing Company in Yarmouth County was recently characterized as racist on social media and in the news.

This happened after a teacher from Halifax, Ben Sichel, posted a racism hashtag along with the image of the beer can (called Hanging Oak IPA) on his social media account, which has a graphic of an oak tree with a noose hanging from a branch.

Anyone who lives in Tusket, and most in Yarmouth County, know the local history of the Tusket hanging oak, which has absolutely nothing to do with racism, but was a place where butchers would hang their meat. This context is explained in detail on the back of the beer can.

Mr. Sichel failed to give any context to the image (which he knew at the time) when he decided to share the image on social media. Why didn’t he also post a picture of the back of the beer can, which explains the history of the image?

Without any context, to his hundreds of social media followers (none

tina.comeau@tricountyvanguard.ca tricountyvanguard.ca 902-742-6527

of whom are from Tusket), the can would indeed appear to be inappropriate. Predictably, the brewery was inundated with a barrage of unwarranted comments calling the owners racists, among other terrible and untrue things.

By purposely deciding not to provide context, Mr. Sichel is guilty of deliberate character assassination of good people and he should be ashamed of himself.

He owes the owners of the brewery an apology. Clark Sollows, Central Chebogue