Valentine’s Day is a special day for couples who want to express their love with material gifts. Sometimes those gifts include large bunches of red roses, cupcakes, cookies, chocolates, or even jewelry and surprise proposals. Usually, they don’t include politically charged cookies, however.
A baker from Washington has come under fire for creating just that: Sugar cookies embellished with the phrase “Build that Wall,” clearly referring to President Donald Trump’s long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the Herald News , Ken Bellingham, the owner of the Edmonds Bakery, received plenty of backlash for the cookies, including tons of phone calls from angry customers.
Even more surprising than the “Build that Wall” slogan iced onto the cookies was that it was lumped into boxes among other more appropriate Valentine’s cookies which were decorated with slogans like “Addicted to Love” and “Cool Beans.”
Despite the very obviously politically charged words on the cookie, Bellingham has denied they were to serve any political purpose, instead claiming the entire stunt was a joke.
He took to Facebook instead with his apology, writing, “I will not be making anymore cookies of a political nature, but a narrow line of Love and Sweetheart and maybe Nice Butt.”
His defense came after someone posted a note on the store’s window calling for customers to boycott it.
A baker made a ‘Build that Wall’ cookie for Valentine’s Day as a ‘joke.’ People were not amused. https://t.co/XaSo9ipH9u pic.twitter.com/HpHcDBm4WJ
— National Post (@nationalpost) January 29, 2019
According to Bellingham, people have labeled him “some horrible person.”
“Some are a little risqué, some are nice,” he explained of the cookies. “I try to be funny.”
Others felt very differently about the situation, with one woman of Mexican descent, Ana Carrera, taking it very personally. It was Carrera who took to Facebook to share photos of the cookies.
“A cookie like this does represent that there is some hate coming out this bakery,” she said of the cookies. “Whether he chooses to admit it or not.”
Since Carrera took to social media with her complaint, plenty of others have lashed out at the bakery, some on their Facebook page. On some posts on the page, the bakery responded with apology messages, explaining away the cookies by calling them “a mistake.”
Among those angry messages were also plenty of messages of support for the bakery, with many saying the controversy wasn’t going to keep them from visiting the store to buy their baked goods.
