OK here's a surprise. Andrew Young is dead right and Wal-Mart knows it. That's why they fired him. We're not supposed to be able to handle the truth and Young's got just enough juice to attract people capable of dismembering Wal-Mart's marketing tactics and get right to that truth.
I'm lazy so I'm not going to get a direct quote from Young, but I trust the guys at Slate did the appropriate amount of research when they said this:
In the Sentinel interview, Young said that Wal-Mart "should" displace mom-and-pop stores. No doubt he's correct that Wal-Mart can provide some of the same goods to inner-city consumers at lower prices. But that's only because Wal-Mart doesn't aspire to provide its employees a minimally decent standard of living. (Economies of scale, of course, also lend an advantage.) Whether the result is a net benefit to low-income blacks I leave to others to decide. But Wal-Mart's stinginess is no reason to judge harshly inner-city shop owners of any race who seek some sliver of economic security.
On the other hand I don't expect the guys at Slate however to grok how seriously black folks in the hood look at the fact that they are not business owners. The sliver of economic security that the merchant with a commercial account at the local bank is greater than that of the average family in the hood.
Yeah you can blabber about minimally decent standards of living, but haven't you Hollywood lefties even watched Clerks? What kind of standard of living do you think a liquor store employee lives? Let me make this clear. Mom and Pop stores are inferior in every way in the 'hood from step one. See at Wal-Mart there's a smiling person at the door who tells you hello and will help you find anything in the store. In the ghetto there is a scowling non-black individual eyeballing you in a security mirror from behind a plexiglas bullet shield. What part of the American dream is that? It is inequality in disrespectful defiance of folks politically oriented to feel put upon by their relative lack of economic independence and clout. It only takes a little spark to ignite a smokebomb of fuming frustrated complaint. That's what Young was smoking.
The Slate guys are right about one thing, which is a very interesting and subtle difference I think it makes sense to uphold. Andrew Young didn't describe that frustration, he expressed it. It was therefore Andrew Young acting like an oppressed minority from the 'hood, which he clearly is not. So he misspoke and misrepresented himself by trying to be political when he should have been a marketing flack for Wal-Mart. He must not need the money.
Then again, he was being interviewed at length by one of the last black newspapers in the nation. Maybe he thought Whitey wasn't watching.
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