Selling Out the Dream

Mikaela says:
How do you go from civil rights activist and MLK's go-to man to Wal-mart's PR peddler?

I have no idea, but Andrew Young has done it.

He's heading up the Wal-mart created group, "Working Families for Wal-mart" whose express mission is counteracting Wal-mart's bad image. You know, the image of the company as a gigantic money-making bohemoth that sells all foreign merchandise to working-class families that couldn't afford to shop there if they worked there and who wouldn't have health insurance as Wal-mart employees. You know, Wal-mart the Union-preventer.

No, no, Young says, in the LA Times story. You got it all wrong. Wal-mart helps working class families become middle class -- through buying shit! China-made shit.

Young himself would like to see a Wal-Mart in every poor urban community.

"To have a Wal-Mart in your neighborhood means you can live a middle-class lifestyle," he said. "Wal-Mart has done extremely well in small rural towns, but the most lucrative market is the inner city. It is a trillion-dollar economy and it is definitely underserved."

Underserved or unexploited? You want inner-city folks to do their part in lining the pockets of the Walton clan? Is that it? Afraid they'll get left out of the "global economy" that provides oh-so-well for middle-class and working-class Americans? Right.

In two weeks, Wal-Mart will open its first store inside the freeway loop that surrounds Atlanta and distinguishes the city from the suburbs. The Gresham Road store is in a struggling, predominantly African American community not far from gentrifying neighborhoods.

"We're trusting and hoping that Wal-Mart revitalizes the area," said James McWhorter, church administrator of the Greater Piney Grove Baptist Church, which acted as a pre-hiring center for the new store. Nearly 5,000 people applied for 450 jobs.

Jobs but not good jobs. Jobs that keep people in poverty. Sign me up!

Where are the examples of Wal-mart revitalizing neighborhoods? Where has that happened? Really, I want to know. Maybe I'm ignorant. I often am.

Why all this excitement about Wal-mart? Because Mom and Pop stores "take advantage of poor African Americans."

"Many residents would love to have a Wal-Mart come in," said Beasley, who works in a poor northwest Atlanta community where, he said, small stores often charge high prices for spoiling meat and vegetables and impose 2% fees for cashing checks.

But, counters another leader,

"One of the things my generation has a problem with is that we silence and mute social justice for the sake of sponsorship of a chicken dinner," said the Rev. Markel Hutchins, 28, associate pastor at Philadelphia Baptist Church in Atlanta. "We should not forget that Wal-Mart makes its money off the backs of those whom we serve."
...

Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com, a 150,000-member group backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, suggested that Young serve the poor by helping to make Wal-Mart a better company.

"Wal-Mart is creating a permanent underclass," he said. "It's in direct contrast to the ideals of economic and social justice in America.
...

Wal-Mart is not the first private company that Young has supported. After serving as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta, he set up GoodWorks International, a consulting group for corporations.

In 1997, Young established a contract with Nike. After touring factories in Asia with Nike interpreters, he said he found no evidence of widespread mistreatment of workers. Young was criticized for not addressing the issue of low factory wages.

In his later years, Young explained, he has become disillusioned with trade unions and government and has turned to the private sector to generate wealth in poor communities.

"What I've found is that if you want to generate wealth, you have to be where the money is," he said. "The challenge for democracy and free enterprise in the 21st century is to do for the poor what Roosevelt did for the middle class."

Right, because Wal-mart gives a shit about generating wealth for the middle class. That's why they pay so well. Right. In the absence of all evidence lending credibility to that assertion, I keep forgetting.