05/09/2026
Good Afternoon Everyone,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this. I debated for a while whether I even wanted to give this act any attention. Ultimately, I've decided that you all deserve transparency. As some of you may have noticed we were unexpectedly closed this Friday May 8th. To those of you that were inconvenienced by this we do offer our apologies as we do understand our clients often travel to see us. We pride ourselves on our friendly and inviting atmosphere and I found myself unable to provide that welcoming energy for the day. I feel it would have been a disservice to continue to operate without giving space to properly digest what had happened.
The morning of May 8th around 2:00AM someone took to the strip of businesses here in Old Colorado City and tagged several store fronts. Most people had random tag names, lines, symbols. However, the store front of White Rabbit had written on the front in large black lettering "White Power"! We do not currently believe there is any immediate danger to the store or any of our patrons. This seems to be a lowly act of a single coward shrouded in the silence of the early morning hours.
We do take this act seriously as, per the verbiage, this is a hate crime. We are the only Native owned bead store in Colorado Springs and that does not seem to be mere coincidence. We do continue to be open and operate on regular business hours.
I would like to take this moment to highlight where this rhetoric stems from and what it has grown into. Hate speech has been normalized in more recent years. There are people who feel emboldened and protected by our current systems put in place and it is up to all of us to hold people accountable to heinous rhetoric. ANY kind of aggressive, hateful, divisive behavior will not be tolerated here. This REMAINS a place of community, education, creativity, acceptance, and safety. We are committed to this community and serving your continued project needs. Huge shout out to our security team at FLEX, for they're continued efforts of keeping us safe and providing security footage (available on our social media) and our window guy at 719 Shine for dropping everything removing this for us! Be kind to one another.