Just finished reading the News-Sentinel attack on Rev. Michael Latham's, executive director of NAACP attack on Wal-Mart. BobCaylor writes that Latham's call for a boycott could hurt the revitalization on the southside. Caylor suggests that clients on the southside are not entitled to the same treatment, because Wal-Mart is not a public service, but a privately owned business. In other words, Wal-Mart can do what ever they darn please. And just like Wal-Mart, the private citizens can do whatever they darn please, including boycotting the store.
But, let's take a closer look at the underbelly of the beast, meaning the body of the threat of a boycott, and the arms and legs of the media coverage of the threat of a boycott, and the market manager of Wal-Mart indifference to the threat. Begs the question, who is really benefiting from all of this posturing? I believe all three, the media sells paper, NAACP will get sponsorships, jobs or money, and Wal-Mart will hire less people to operate it store on the southside.
Wal-Mart is not doing the folks on the southside any favor. Wal-Mart is coming to the Southside because of the amount of disposable dollars spend on the southside. The author of the Million Dollar Slaves writes that a star athlete's father tells his son, to hold out for the best offer by a college. The college is not giving you a scholarship, you earned the scholarship. In other words, the son is bringing something that the college wants, no different for Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart wants the southside dollars to support it store, than it needs to listen to the wants of its shoppers.. scanner, lay-away, longer hours.
Besides, the SouthCentre Mall is not being developed for shoppers, it's a training center for police recruitment. The real development is happen on the boulevard to downtown. I just saw another business going in to meet the needs of the southside, a laundry mat. Ricker's City Laundry at 3817 South Calhoun, has invested in brand new washers and dryers in a building next to a gas station, ice cream place and bus stop. Somebody researched the market demographics of that area to meet the needs of the people. I just hope they use hot water unlike some of the laundries on the southside. All the money is going north to downtown, why else would the city want to build a baseball stadium downtown?
SouthCentre Mall is a sham, being used to drive up the prices of home in the area for homeowners who are going to need housing after the city's programs begin razing the homes closer to downtown.These rumors of a staged boycott, is just puppet master rallying the troops, to pretend that someone is looking out for the average hard working joe. Latham is just a puppet among the puppet master, but I stated earlier, I didn't say he was a friend of mines. But I have to hand it to him, the appointed honorary privileged representative of the Africian-American monolithic community does knows how to work the system. Matter of fact, this Saturday, I believe the NAACP is having an event in the downtown area, the Grand Wayne Center, September 16, 2006 at 6:00 p.m., but the media already knew this.
So who's zooming who?
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