Erin Condren Racist

Erin Condren was a new mother of twins when she decided to ditch her career in apparel manufacturing. She had spent years in the industry, working 12-hour days in a sewing factory, before launching a line with her brother: a venture that went south with the rest of the economy in the aftermath of 9/11.

Erin Condren Went From Stay-at-Home Mom to Multimillion-Dollar Business Owner

The fact that she's built an empire on paper products at a time when most people prefer Outlook and iCal isn't lost on Condren. She debuted her signature product, the LifePlanner, in 2007, the same year the first iPhone launched. Unsure of how it would do, her business partner insisted they print the books on demand; keeping inventory would "bury" them, he said.

They sold a thousand LifePlanners that first year. This year, Condren says, they'll sell 500,000

Erin Condren Graduation Article

I guess Erin Condren was on her daughter's graduation committee and they were trying to figure out how to legally and safely do an in-person graduation. A bunch of their plans were denied by the government. Then her daughter had attended a Black lives matter protest and at the protest everyone was wearing masks.

So her daughter thought maybe they could host a graduation ceremony like the Black lives matter protest. Where the students "marched" down the same street in town, wearing masks and staying socially distanced.

The way the article presents it, it sounds super offensive. I'm not surprised people are upset based on the article. The article basically says that the planning committee, said "Oh look, black lives matter protests are allowed. So let's file for a Black lives matter protest permit and the city will approve it and then we can host our mostly-white upper-class high school graduation ceremony and skirt social distancing laws."

But with that said, I feel like the article isn't 100% clear on this part. Like were they applying for "protest" permit, or "march" permit. Did they tell the government/people that it was a Black lives matter graduation protest? Like reading the article I feel like they mushed those distinctions kind of together. So I'm not 110% sure what to think of it.

But the way EC puts it in her IG post is that after attending the Black lives matter march, they thought, "Look how well this march went, and how everyone was able to stay relatively safe, in masks, ect. We're looking for a safe way to put on a graduation ceremony. Maybe we could try doing something in a similar format."

Erin Condren Controversy

This past week there has been a lot of discussion on Facebook in the planner groups I'm part of in regards to Erin Condren drama where she used her position of privilege to arrange a graduation for her children's school (no real issue there), suggested that if kids were caught breaking covid-19 lockdown rules celebrating on the beach they could LIE and have hula hoops and claim they were 'exercising', and her daughter went on to plan celebrations but exploit the Black Lives Matter movement by using a protest march as a ruse for them all to celebrate together and not abide by social distancing.

CEO Tonia Misvaer said on the matter 'Today, I understand that many customers are hurt, angry and disappointed. Our founder – a person we love – recently made a careless and dangerous decision when helping to plan a personal event marking the high school graduation of her four children. That event was a mistake in several ways. It was poorly conceived and horribly executed in light of the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic.'

I've seen people cancelling orders, removing EC references on their Etsy listings and YouTube titles instead opting for 'verticle planner kits' or 'Plan with me in my every day planner', and ceasing to use the EC planners they already own.

TL;DR: Erin Condren is linked to exploiting the Black lives matter movement and encouraging violations of covid-19 guidelines/social distancing. How does this effect your relationship with the brand?

Erin Condren For Black Lives Matter

Erin Condren stands behind the self-evident truth that Black lives matter. 

We stand in solidarity with our Black team members, partners and community against racism, violence, injustice, hate, division and systematic inequality. We’re committed to justice, to change, to action in support of righting wrongs against Black Americans that have gone on for far too long. 

The following was originally published June 10, 2020. As promised, we will regularly share updates on our progress in the “Updates” section of this post.

What Doing About It

We are committed to fostering the very difficult conversations that must happen to address justice and equality, in our company and in our communities. We are committed to saying enough is enough. We are committed to educating ourselves and applying what we learn to effect change. Here is what we are doing:

Internally we have created a diversity, inclusion and equality team. We’re currently vetting mental health professionals to facilitate online workshops and office hours for healing and mental health support for our BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) coworkers, as well as our coworkers living in impacted areas.

As for our LA office team, which has no production or warehouse at all, it includes design, photo, video, marketing, web / eCommerce and our product development teams, one facilities team member and one administrative team member; and we are…

• 49% Hispanic or Latino
• 29% white
• 9% Black
• 11% Asian
• 4% 2 or more races

From a benchmarking perspective, to compare us with other companies, most companies of our size in a similar industry are roughly 60% white, 8% black, 10% Hispanic or Latino, 13% Asian  (this is data provided by our payroll processing service).