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 fruit
Think 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.
The
Islamic world needs a Martin Luther, someone to usher in an Age of
Reform that will radically alter some of the fundamental values of Islam
that are retrograde, archaic, primitive and must be discarded into the
dustbin of Muslim history so that Islam can regain its position as a
culture of enlightenment rather than darkness. At an Islamic Art
Conference I attended this past weekend in Oakland, California, along
with Muslims from around the world, there was discussion of how Islam
has suppressed artists, calling Muslim art haram (religiously proscribed), shirk (associating partners with God) and other negative terms that essentially condemn Islamic art as evil.
When
I addressed the audience, I noted that I am the “father of Islamic
literature in America” by default because other Muslim writers were told
to give up the art of writing, creative anyway, but I ignored the ban
and thus my work is all that remains, aside from poet Sam Hamad and a
few others who’ve written during the last forty years that may surface
with proper research. Not only writers, but painters, musicians,
dancers, singers and others were suppressed. Even minister Farrakhan, a
musician and singer, was made to give up his art. But we know it is
artists who give people visions and prophecy, thus when they are
suppressed, the people are likely to walk in darkness as we see at the
present moment. In my remarks at the conference, I challenged the Muslim
artists to be revolutionary and yes, disobedient — to hell with those
who desire to suppress Muslim art, they are the backward ones, they are
the evil ones and must be opposed by, yes, any means necessary. So much
that goes for Islam is ancient and primitive, really, not worthy of
discussion in the modern world among people of intelligence. Elijah
Muhammad used to say the wisdom of this world is exhausted, and this
includes Islam. It must be revolutionized or thrown into the dustbin of
ancient thought. The Islamic revolution must, will and shall be led by
Muslim artists with vision for a day when Islamic culture will be the
vanguard of world culture, projecting the most positive and scientific
aspects of the new millennium. Islamic culture must come from behind the
veil, or if anything, put the veil on men and let the women march forth
as harbingers of the new world order. Contrary to what men think, women
have been found to be the most advanced sector of society,
intellectually and spiritually, so we would do well to listen to them
for answers to the right path.
Clearly, Muslim men are not on sirat al-mustaqim (“the
straight path”). Over a billion people of Islamic faith are currently
steeped in poverty, ignorance and disease, wallowing in political
oppression of the most backward, Stalinist variety. And when the
politicians are not oppressing, the mullahs and Imams do the same work,
even to the point of following the Christians in the sexual exploitation
of boys and girls. Let a Muslim Martin Luther step to the front of the
line and represent the way of truth, freedom, justice and equality.
Muslim collaborators with imperialism, colonialism, and all manner of
retrograde religiosity and political oppression must be condemned.
Islamic scholars whose theology is based on primitive laws, edicts,
fatwas must be ostracized because their actions only add to the utter
confusion and ignorance pervading the Muslim world. Surely, the
destruction the Tsunami brought to South Asia is a sign of Allah’s
displeasure with the Muslim people, along with Christians, Hindus and
others. If we continue down the path of primitive worship of myths and
rituals, surely Allah has even greater destruction planned for those
without eyes, ears, the deaf, dumb and blind. After Allah has blessed us
with light, how can we yet walk in darkness? How can we possess
“supreme wisdom” yet have nothing, behave as spiritual slaves to any
storefront imam with a rote memory of Al-Quran? Let a Martin Luther
Muslim arise to destroy idols of ignorance and suppression of
creativity. Yes, let everything praise Allah, from the flute to the
lute, from the dancer to the poet.
* * *
Marvin X is
a distinguished poet, playwright and essayist of the Black Arts
Movement (BAM). He is the founder and director of Recovery Theatre in
San Francisco. He also co-founded the Black Arts/West Theatre and Black
House, which served briefly as the headquarters for the Black Panther
Party and as a center for performance, theatre, poetry and music in the
Bay Area. He works as a lecturer, teacher and producer.
