Cops investigating racist letter sent to NJ yarn shop

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Authorities are investigating after a Black-owned yarn store in Union Township allegedly received a racist letter calling for the store to fail.

The owner of Beyond Yarn posted a photo of the handwritten, three-sentence letter to the stores Instagram page last week after she said it was delivered to the store. The unsigned letter cited the Black Lives Matter movement that gained prominence following the murder of several Black men by police.

The letter read, I Cannot Support your business due to the fact that BLM destroyed my business in 2020.

I hope you fail. black people f*** up every thing they touch, it concluded.

A spokesperson for the Union County prosecutors office told NJ Advance Media on Thursday that the office is investigating, along with the Union Township Police Department and Union County Sheriffs Department.

The stores owner, Theresa Macklin, called the note a hate letter in an interview with NBC New York.

I just felt like it was an ignorant person who just doesn’t know what it is like to love anybody or care for anybody and they just have a whole bunch of hatred, Macklin told NBC.

She said she has no clue who wrote the letter.

This is definitely out of the blue. Since this store has been open, no one has come into this store nasty, mean or anything. Everyone gets along in here and everyone feels safe when they walk through those doors. And thats how I want to keep it, Macklin said in the interview.

She did not immediately respond to NJ Advance Media to comment further.

The store has grappled with the challenges of staying open due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Macklin said.

Beyond Yarn was founded in July 2019. According to a GoFundMe account started by the store in January, it is the only Black-owned local yarn shop in Central Jersey.

Macklin wrote on GoFundMe that the store was forced to temporarily close after seven months in business due to COVID restrictions and was unsuccessful in applying for pandemic-related relief grants and loans.

The store compensated by moving some of its events online, including its courses, crafting group and yarn tastings which are social events involving food and drink.

There were growing pains, but we managed to stay alive and bring in a new audience we couldnt have reached in Union alone, Macklin wrote on the site.

Last weeks social media post about the racist letter prompted widespread support throughout the community.

In response, Beyond Yarn offered a follow-up post to Instagram: Thank you for the outpouring of love from everyone. Love will always outshine hate!

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Rob Jennings may be reached at [email protected].

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