People of Wal-Mart? I Guess I'm One Too
Dear Friend, Colleagues, and Fellow-Travellers,
Can we knock it off with the puerile snickering over People of Wal-Mart, already*? Also with the classist Wal-Mart slang-"Walmart children," "Walmart creatures," etc?
I mean, sure, it's really easy to feel superior to a population of largely poor people, many of whom are fat, many of whom may be on social assistance, many of whom do not share our values, fashion sense, or resources. These people aren't like us. So we mock them.
But really? Is there any glory at all in mocking the poor, the dispossessed, the fat, and those who might be in ill-health? Somehow, I'm failing to see the humour.
You know what? I've shopped at Wal-Mart. Clad in overalls and a second-hand shirt, and a windbreaker a couple of sizes too big, I've looked for cheap school supplies, a warm hat and mittens, and snacks for the upcoming week. I shopped at Wal-Mart at around 8:00 on Thursday nights-one day a week I could go into town from the farm, and Wal-Mart and the grocery store were the only places open that late. If I wanted to buy things I needed, and they weren't groceries, I bought them at Wal-Mart. Because when you work 10-12 hours every day, and you live in a small town, and you don't have your own transportation, sometimes Wal-Mart is what's available to you.**
So I'm a person of Wal-Mart. And maybe, had you seen me there in those days, you'd have laughed at my haircut, or my overalls (they were clean!), or my horrible shoes, or my pile of purchases (Hallowe'en decorations and candy, a not-especially-ugly scarf, piles and piles of index cards for English classes, cheap kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies for the bunkhouse). Maybe you'd have taken a photo of me getting back into the taxi with my co-workers to head back to the farm, and eating the fries they'd bought at McDonald's and shared with me out of generosity. Maybe you'd have laughed at their bad teeth and skin, their unfashionable haircuts, the fact that they were mostly shorter than I and rounder, or some other damnfool thing that tells me that you're too ignorant to think for even a moment about your class-based biases.
Oh sure, it's easy to say "But people should know better! Even poor people can put on pants/get a haircut/not eat McDonald's/shop at Zellers!" Because it's super easy for us to know the circumstances of people's lives-their health, their jobs, their access to choice, their backgrounds. Super easy because we're privileged and middle-class and oh-so-superior, and therefore we know what people should be doing, how they should dress, how they should cut their hair, what they should be eating, and what time their kids should be in bed. Because people who shop at Wal-Mart? Should totally be conforming to our standards, because that's what they exist for.
We don't know whether that mother shopping at 10:30 at night when her kids "should be in bed" is there because she got home from work at 7:00, fed the kids until 9:00, and then had to take them shopping because there was no childcare, or whether she took the kids and left because her husband was drunk and was going to wake up mean, and Wal-Mart was safer than home. We don't know whether that fat person on the scooter is on a fixed income and is making it go as far as he can because he hasn't been able to work since his back injury. We don't know why people are fat. We don't know whether they are poor. We don't know why they are at Wal-Mart. And we sure as hell don't know what we'd do in their circumstances.
You want to be funny and incisive? Make fun of Stephen Harper. Make fun of Michael Ignatieff. Go after Dalton McGuinty, or people who pay $2500 a plate to listen to some windbag in a suit pander to their biases. Turn your wit to cutting down those in power, and pointing out their flaws, and to calling out stupidity and hypocrisy in those who know better. Go ahead-you're smart enough. OR just make LOLcats of Jane Austen novels. Why not?
People of Walmart is right up there with making fun of the kid in your class who walked funny or who didn't speak English. It's an easy way for those of us in positions of relative wealth and privilege to maintain our own status, and assert our superiority over those who have less privilege.
Which is to say, it's not really funny at all.
*no link, b/c no love.
** No, I'm not going to give you the backstory here. My point is that I don't have to justify myself or my choices to you, and neither does anyone else who shops at Wal-Mart, unless you've both campaigned against the company.
Can we knock it off with the puerile snickering over People of Wal-Mart, already*? Also with the classist Wal-Mart slang-"Walmart children," "Walmart creatures," etc?
I mean, sure, it's really easy to feel superior to a population of largely poor people, many of whom are fat, many of whom may be on social assistance, many of whom do not share our values, fashion sense, or resources. These people aren't like us. So we mock them.
But really? Is there any glory at all in mocking the poor, the dispossessed, the fat, and those who might be in ill-health? Somehow, I'm failing to see the humour.
You know what? I've shopped at Wal-Mart. Clad in overalls and a second-hand shirt, and a windbreaker a couple of sizes too big, I've looked for cheap school supplies, a warm hat and mittens, and snacks for the upcoming week. I shopped at Wal-Mart at around 8:00 on Thursday nights-one day a week I could go into town from the farm, and Wal-Mart and the grocery store were the only places open that late. If I wanted to buy things I needed, and they weren't groceries, I bought them at Wal-Mart. Because when you work 10-12 hours every day, and you live in a small town, and you don't have your own transportation, sometimes Wal-Mart is what's available to you.**
So I'm a person of Wal-Mart. And maybe, had you seen me there in those days, you'd have laughed at my haircut, or my overalls (they were clean!), or my horrible shoes, or my pile of purchases (Hallowe'en decorations and candy, a not-especially-ugly scarf, piles and piles of index cards for English classes, cheap kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies for the bunkhouse). Maybe you'd have taken a photo of me getting back into the taxi with my co-workers to head back to the farm, and eating the fries they'd bought at McDonald's and shared with me out of generosity. Maybe you'd have laughed at their bad teeth and skin, their unfashionable haircuts, the fact that they were mostly shorter than I and rounder, or some other damnfool thing that tells me that you're too ignorant to think for even a moment about your class-based biases.
Oh sure, it's easy to say "But people should know better! Even poor people can put on pants/get a haircut/not eat McDonald's/shop at Zellers!" Because it's super easy for us to know the circumstances of people's lives-their health, their jobs, their access to choice, their backgrounds. Super easy because we're privileged and middle-class and oh-so-superior, and therefore we know what people should be doing, how they should dress, how they should cut their hair, what they should be eating, and what time their kids should be in bed. Because people who shop at Wal-Mart? Should totally be conforming to our standards, because that's what they exist for.
We don't know whether that mother shopping at 10:30 at night when her kids "should be in bed" is there because she got home from work at 7:00, fed the kids until 9:00, and then had to take them shopping because there was no childcare, or whether she took the kids and left because her husband was drunk and was going to wake up mean, and Wal-Mart was safer than home. We don't know whether that fat person on the scooter is on a fixed income and is making it go as far as he can because he hasn't been able to work since his back injury. We don't know why people are fat. We don't know whether they are poor. We don't know why they are at Wal-Mart. And we sure as hell don't know what we'd do in their circumstances.
You want to be funny and incisive? Make fun of Stephen Harper. Make fun of Michael Ignatieff. Go after Dalton McGuinty, or people who pay $2500 a plate to listen to some windbag in a suit pander to their biases. Turn your wit to cutting down those in power, and pointing out their flaws, and to calling out stupidity and hypocrisy in those who know better. Go ahead-you're smart enough. OR just make LOLcats of Jane Austen novels. Why not?
People of Walmart is right up there with making fun of the kid in your class who walked funny or who didn't speak English. It's an easy way for those of us in positions of relative wealth and privilege to maintain our own status, and assert our superiority over those who have less privilege.
Which is to say, it's not really funny at all.
*no link, b/c no love.
** No, I'm not going to give you the backstory here. My point is that I don't have to justify myself or my choices to you, and neither does anyone else who shops at Wal-Mart, unless you've both campaigned against the company.