Call for Rally Against Racism and White Supremacy at Oakland Whole Foods Market
The Movement Newspaper is calling for a Rally Against Racism and White Supremacy at Oakland Whole Foods Market. On July 17, 2017, our Design Editor, Adam Turner was the victim of an unprovoked physical and verbal attack by the WF security guard. While assisting a man with mental disabilities, Adam was pepper sprayed and called a fucking nigger! A few months before the Adam Turner incident, another North American African male was beaten unconscious by a security guard at the same store. Numerous NA Africans have encountered racism and white supremacy. One NAA male employee quit working because he claimed his fellow employees called the NAA customers niggers! It is clear Oakland WF is a toxic environment for NAA. We therefore call for a rally against this racist environment. We invite the community for a speak-out and invite the following activists to dialogue with the community on this matter (date,time and place TBA):
Online retailer Amazon.com’s agreement to buy Whole Foods Market, the upscale grocery chain, for $13.4 billion has some members of the Congressional Black Caucus concerned because they fear it could lead to more food deserts in African-American communities.
In a July 20 letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Democratic Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio said the CBC is concerned about what the merger could mean for African-American communities across the country that are already suffering from a lack of affordable healthy food choices from grocers. Amazon and Whole Foods announced a merger agreement in June. The deal, however, has to be OKd by he federal government.
“This merger should be scrutinized beyond the normal antitrust review process that only examines the competitive impact. It should also include a careful review of the impact further consolidation will have on communities representing many of the food deserts across the nation. As you know, the USDA defines food deserts as parts of the country void of fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy whole foods that are usually found in impoverished areas. Many of these areas are populations we represent. Therefore, we hope you consider whether this merger will contribute to increasing rather than reducing the number of food deserts, and potentially increasing health disparities for African Americans and the poor,” Fudge wrote.
The congresswoman added that the planned merger may exacerbate the food divide among vulnerable populations, including 41 million SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or food stamp) recipients, particularly those in low-income and rural communities.
Fudge said SNAP recipients cannot use their benefits to buy groceries online but they may be able to do so in the very near future.
As part of the 2014 Farm Bill, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing the roll out of 10 pilots that allow SNAP customers to use their electronic benefit transfer or EBT cards to purchase groceries online from retailers based in Maryland, New York and New Jersey.
Fresh, Amazon’s grocery delivery service, charges $14.99 a month and a person must be a member of Amazon prime, which costs $95 per year.
Fudge added the growth of online retailers has led companies to close their brick and mortar stores.
“Many of the communities we represent may feel the impact of these announced closures,” she said. “While Whole Foods may have a limited presence in many of our districts, further consolidation may force grocers who have a stronger brick-and-mortar presence in our communities to respond to this merger. As a result, it is possible these grocers will consolidate further and close stores that offer any, or the only, option to low-income communities,” she said.
Fudge added that CBC members do not oppose the merger now, but they want their concerns addressed.
Whole Foods, which is based in Austin, Texas, reported third-quarter sales of $3.7 billion. Amazon, which is based in Seattle, reported second-quarter sales of $38 billion. Its stock was recently selling at $987.58 per share.
woman with a basket of organic fruitThink oil and water. Lions lying down with lambs. Whole Foods Markets, Inc., opening an 18,000-foot store in the predominantly Black, low-income Englewood section of Chicago. That last incongruous pairing became a reality in September, after the pricey food critics call “Whole Paycheck” jumped the broom with a South Chicago community where double-digit unemployment and a $20,500 median income are the norm. The jury’s still out on the marriage, which fueled lofty expectations for both of the betrothed. Whole Foods entered the union looking to generate positive social-equity spin and handsome profits but is playing it close to the vest regarding how things have gone thus far.
Englewood, a so-called food desert where options for purchasing junk food far surpass those for buying fresh, nutritious alternatives, was looking to retool that paradigm. But with its one-year anniversary with Whole Foods fast approaching, the community appears to have fallen short of that goal, notes Chicago urban planner and community activist Naomi Davis. “The food desert phenomenon for me has been a Trojan horse into the Black community,” says Davis who has a law degree and runs a social justice organization called Blacks In Green. “I don’t think Whole Foods is here because they have a burning desire to serve low-income Blacks.”
Rather, Davis believes Whole Foods is a canary in a coal mine: In her estimation, the purveyor of expensive organic, local and sustainable food items really has its sights set on the Chicago residents gentrifying Englewood as they flee more expensive sections of the city. Phones calls and emails sent to Whole Foods Markets, Inc., by atlantablackstar.com were not returned. The company’s focus may have been diverted by a stock price that dipped 15 percent last year, as well as by a recent Amazon deal to purchase Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.
“We aren’t doing a nonprofit here. This is a for-profit business,” Whole Foods co-chief Executive Walter Robb told the Wall Street Journal last year after the Englewood store opened. “The model is slightly different, but to be clear, we’re operating to run a successful business here in Englewood.” In an effort to offer consumers cheaper goods than those sold at most Whole Foods stores, at Englewood the company lowered the prices of 30 staple items. In July, Congressional Black Caucus member U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio) was curious ifan approved Amazon/Whole Foods merger might have the potential togenerate more food deserts in African-American communities. Fudge wrote to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Maureen Ohlhausen, acting chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, requesting that the proposed merger be subjected to particularly thoroughanti-trust scrutiny.
“While Whole Foods may have a limited presence in many of our districts, further consolidation may force grocers who have a stronger brick-and-mortar presence in our communities to respond to this merger,” Fudge’s letter states. “As a result, it is possible these grocers will consolidate further and close stores that offer any, or the only, option to low-income communities.” Studies indicate that people in food deserts are more likely to die from, and suffer prematurely from, diabetes, hypertension and other diet-related conditions. They’re also more likely to be obese.
In 2013, when Whole Foods made its first foray into a Black Detroit neighborhood, the move coincided with a growing influx of white residents. And real estate site Zillow has noted that when a Whole Foods grocery store, or a Trader Joe’s enters a neighborhood, that’s usually followed by a corresponding rise in property values. Ultimately, the Whole Foods/Englewood marriage is a positive thing, according to Chicago community-impact consultant Mari Gallagher. “Whole Foods going into different communities of color is a game changer,” says Gallagher, who operates the Mari Gallagher Research & Consulting Group. “A Whole Foods coming into Englewood sends a different signal to the community and to the marketplace about what is possible. It might attract other grocery stores, it might attract entrepreneurs growing their own stuff and trying to get it placed in Whole Foods. “Retail attracts retail and like attracts like, in either a positive or a negative way.” Whole Foods’ move into Englewood is being closely monitored in Charlotte, North Carolina, by food activist Robin Emmons. In 2008, she quit her Bank of America financial analyst job and started growing vegetables on her quarter-acre backyard to feed to underserved Charlotte families. “Whole Foods is at the top of the continuum of food options here in America,” observes Emmons, the founder of Sow Much Good. “It’s hard for me to imagine that they would have a pure interest in alleviating disparities that exist in underserved communities. Also, they’re being acquired by Amazon, so we don’t know how all that is going to unfold. They’re [Whole Foods] concerned about profit and they’re accountable to their bottom line and their shareholders, not poor Black people. At the end of the day, Emmons says the eradication of food deserts in Black neighborhoods is pegged to: “How do we create something that is for us and by us, so we can keep our dollars circulating in our own communities?”
Bye-bye, black Harlem, glad I knew ye. Hello, Whole Foods, I do enjoy your products, but if you can gentrify greens, what chance do we really have? I first moved to Harlem in 1998. I was a young single mother in graduate school with a 2-year-old. Harlem offered me respite, refuge and safety in blackness and an affordable apartment in a doorman building. For me, after working downtown or going to New York University and being picked apart by microaggressions, Harlem was a place where I could blend in and relax. Take off the mask and just be. Where some people saw violence, I saw community. Where others saw pathology, I glimpsed my reflection in the shiny faces of little girls in cornrows and big teeth. I heard my tongue in snatches of passed conversation, and tasted my culture from the old men who sold collard greens and watermelons on the corner. And there was always music, sweet music, coming from its very pores. In the beginning, there were many thriving black businesses uptown, like 22 West, where my daughter and I used to feast on oxtails or fried-chicken dinners under postcards from Malcolm X; Pan-Pan, whose biscuits I still dream of; Majester’s fried fish; Odell’s Sugar Bar; Liberation Books; Harlem Lanes. PJs. The St. Nicholas Pub. The legendary Lenox Lounge, where the jukebox played serious soul music, and the art deco zebra prints on the wall made you feel like a fucking superstar. All black-owned. All now gone.
I’m not going to lie, Harlem was no utopia—I have known both friends and family who have died violently on Harlem’s streets—but I was never afraid. Harlem was a truly diverse community made up of all sorts: professionals, gay people, West Africans; bougie, hood, old, young; grown-ass boys with mad spit game; and curvy girls with bright-colored sneakers and even louder attitudes. It was indeed a food desert back then; my mother used to rail against the supermarket owners for the subpar cuts of meat or shoddy produce with sky-high prices. There was no sushi or Mexican or Asian fusion in those days—more like blocks and blocks of fried-chicken shacks and bulletproof Chinese. Yet there was always something exhilarating about crossing 110th Street. Harlem was the stuff of legend, and I liked to imagine James Baldwin, Langston Hughes or Zora Neale Hurston—giants in black literature—walking the same streets. Or passing the church where Marcus Garvey had his first meeting. Paying homage to James Brown at the Apollo after his death. Hell, I used to see DMX and Cam’ron on the regular. It was the best house parties and going to see Dave Chappelle’s show over on 106th and Park. But slowly, surely, things began to change. It first happened with real estate. A Starbucks opened on 125th Street in 1999. Then Bill Clinton moved his office uptown in 2001. Magic Johnson opened a movie theater. A Mormon church took up shop on Lenox Avenue. And in the last five years, the rents started to skyrocket. As Al Sharpton once said, Harlem is perfectly located—20 minutes to midtown, 20 minutes to the airport, 20 minutes to the Bronx, New Jersey or Westchester County. It seems that folks got hip to my little snatch of black paradise. The rents went up, the whites and tour buses started to come, and black people started to leave, relocating to New Jersey, Connecticut, the Bronx, even “down South,” in search of affordable housing. Many friends and family left. The shops began to close, and houses that were once $300,000 now easily go for well over $1 million. Studios that were once $500 are now $1,800 if you’re lucky.
And this was years ago...I’m sure it’s much worse now.
Every other day, there is a new restaurant opening, or new construction of “luxury” apartments, new bars with $17 cocktails and $30 entrees. The median household income in Central Harlem was $38,621 in 2015, less than New York City as a whole, but that’s mostly because of the many public housing projects in its small area. Who can afford this stuff?And now Whole Foods. A Whole Foods opened in the dead center of Harlem last week, on one of its most iconic corners: 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. Many see this, like the Starbucks many years before, as a dark portent. Or, to put it bluntly, the final nail in black Harlem’s coffin. When I stepped into the Whole Foods on opening day, it was overwhelming, but I had to admit I was impressed. They were giving out samples of this Brazilian cheese bread. (If you think those Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits are crack ... you haven’t yet indulged in these gluten-free puffs of paradise.) There were $5 lobster tails, sleeves of caramel cookies, cherries on sale and $2 potted sunflowers. I was open, and strangely seduced. Surprisingly, I was also kind of emotional. I choked up seeing native Harlemites—Puerto Rican mamis with two Jesus pieces trying to figure out mochi ice cream bars; African Muslim women in colorful headwraps, with their babies tied to them in vivid cloth; hood chicks tatted up; and granddaddies with canes having access to what many with money take for granted. We, too, deserve weird-looking, bumpy heirloom tomatoes and organic bok choy and grass-fed beef in our neighborhoods. We also deserve quick access to five types of rice milk for our lactose intolerance, wild-caught fish and organic cereal for our kids. We fucking deserve 17 million types of cheese and rows of probiotics for our guts. But—and this is a big but—at what cost? I’ve been around the block a few times now, and I know that things that first seem good are not always so. I mean, Magic Johnson was a black man “investing” in Harlem many years ago. But what has that really wrought in this historically black community? Small-store closures. Skyrocketing rents. Displacement. The death of character. I liken it to charter schools. Sure, they fill a gaping void, and may help a few, but their repercussions are far more detrimental to the community as a whole. Will Whole Foods become just another place in the hood where we will eventually feel unwelcome? Or yet another store or restaurant with offerings that the average Harlemite can’t afford? Our noses literally pressed to the window?
Right before the launch on July 21, Whole Foods was blowing up my Instagram timeline touting the fact that it has brought in “20 local vendors” as well as “jobs for the community.” But can the even 200 people whom Whole Foods employs make up for the impact of rising rent on a whole community? Can it prevent the Whole Foods effect, which is shown to drive up property values by as much as 40 percent (good for the few brownstone owners in the vicinity—not so much for renters)?
I actually spoke to some of the store’s employees, and they say the company pays a good wage with benefits. Most of them, according to store manager Damon Young, live in upper Manhattan or the Bronx and were able to transfer to the new store. All say that they eat better because of their Whole Foods education. But this story is not really about Whole Foods. It’s really about my sense of place and belonging in a community I have called my home for nearly 20 years. It’s about something you knew and loved intimately being snatched away. It’s about erasure and helplessness. It’s about anger and loss. There are now places in Harlem that seem to be white havens. Some of the new residents have seemingly carved out all-white spaces for themselves in certain restaurants and bars (it’s still very racially segregated in many ways) where they can “be comfortable” and perhaps “feel safe.” Ironic, isn’t it? Yep, this is about gentrification. In one of the most symbolic black communities in the world. Do I blame Whole Foods? Nah. It is far bigger than that. Gentrification did not begin with Whole Foods, but deep in my heart, I know that this new development does not bode well for those who are not wealthy. The verdict? Yes, I will be up in Whole Foods more than a little bit. But if I could have saved my beloved Harlem—its swaggy culture, black businesses and vibrant original people —I would give it up in a New York minute, cheese bread and all.
