Reply #3: I can't speak for Walmart [View All]

[JackintheGreen]

but I did grow up surrounded by mom and pops in small town Midwest. Yes, there was, and is, plenty of racism there. But those small stores damn well knew that they couldn't keep nonwhites out because that would heavily impact their bottom lines. They were in no position to turn away business because, even 20 years ago, there was plenty of big box competition. And once they started stocking groceries! Oy vey....

More than 20 years ago, I can't say. Hiring: yeah, there probably was discrimnination. But, oddly enough, I do live in Philadelphia now, and I taught in a grade school in the middle of a very depressing, but racially mixed (Latino, Black, Arab) neighborhood. And there is plenty of racism directed at us honkies at the mom and pops.

Places like Walmart don't remove racism, they just bury it beneath a pile a corporate red-tape.


Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, my comments about the midwest are based on my growing up in central IL, twice as far from Chicago as from St. Louis. My HS competed against the likes of Beardstown, Pekin, Morris and Peoria, but not Fisher, Sibley, or Gibson City because out student population was too large.