NPR reports on how rural stores are surviving these days

Stephan Bisaha reports for NPR from Kewanee, Mississippi, on the Alabama state line in Lauderdale County, population 80,000.  Here's an excerpt: 

STEPHAN BISAHA, BYLINE: The Simmons-Wright Company store in Kewanee, Miss., has two floors filled with baskets of cotton, cast-iron skillets and Mississippi-shaped magnets. And with inflation squeezing customer wallets, sales are down for nearly all of it.

* * * 

BISAHA: Even before dollar stores, there was Walmart, and many country stores had to shut down. Those that did survive have been the ones able to adapt with the times. Pickett expanded his restaurant business by delivering burgers to a truck line across the border in Alabama. But even the food side of Pickett's business is feeling the sting of this high inflation that we haven't seen in 40 years.

PICKETT: Well, the beef and the meat has almost doubled in price. And we've gone up just a little bit. We hadn't gone up the percentage we need to go up. I know we're going to have to go up. We just don't want to run everybody off, regular customers.

BISAHA: Other country store owners say the same thing. They're raising prices as little as they can because they're based in poor communities that just can't afford it. Before, Pickett wouldn't mind throwing some extra fries into the meals. But now, to keep prices down, Pickett's team measures everything. Even the hamburger patties get weighed before cooking. Yet concern about a possible recession means long-term survival could require more drastic changes. One idea he's considering is leaning into the store's nostalgia and making the place an event venue.

PICKETT: Like a wedding on the weekend - if you let them rent the cotton gin for a photo shoot and have a wedding up there, it'd be 10,000 bucks, you know, or more.

BISAHA: Country-like nostalgia is already a big part of the business. The old nutcrackers and antique soda bottles might not sell, but they draw in customers like 75-year-old Lewis Hankins (ph). He made the short drive here from Alabama, and he can't stop playing show and tell with the rusted farm equipment he pulls from the shelves.

Other posts about country stores are here and here, and one touching on rural nostalgia linked to farm instruments and other old paraphernalia is here.   Also, don't forget there was a country store in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the subject of this post. 

On the corporate causes of inequality across the rural-urban divide in northwest Arkansas

Olivia Paschal writes for The American Prospect from my neck of the woods, "The Modern Day Company Towns of Arkansas."  I'm going to excerpt some parts here that highlight the inequalities Walmart and Tyson Foods are driving, as those inequalities play out across the rural-urban divide.  

Tyson and the rest of the poultry industry have shaped Springdale’s economy and population, as well as the rural economy in the surrounding hills, over the last eight decades. Feed mills and processing plants line the highway; workers cluster in neighborhoods near the plants. The names of the poultry industry’s local entrepreneurs—Tyson, George, Parsons, and more—are attached to streets, parks, and facilities around the city, from John Tyson Elementary to Parsons Stadium, where the rodeo is held. Springdale is an industry town through and through.

One reason the poultry industry’s monopolization of Springdale flies under the radar as much as it does is because of another, flashier “company town” less than half an hour north. Bentonville, Arkansas, is home to the corporate headquarters of Walmart, and to several members of the company’s founding family, one of the richest families in the world.

* * * 

But the flip side is apparent in the region, too: workers stuck in cycles of poverty because of the companies’ low pay and lack of benefits, a culture of silence around criticisms or dissatisfaction with the corporations because of how much power they wield, the emptying out and pricing up of the rural hinterlands in service of regional urbanization driven by corporate investment. The infrastructure and development initiatives cater largely to upper-middle-class lifestyles, not to those working in factories, in warehouses, or on the retail floor. These contradictions are fundamental to company towns—amenities on the one hand, exploitation and undemocratic institutions on the other.

* * *

The incalculable wealth of these two companies and their founding families has been extracted from other places, including their own rural hinterlands. It’s been well documented how the arrival of a Walmart impacts small businesses and the local economy in a given town, lowering wages and driving competitors out of business.

 * * * 

Tyson’s business model, especially in rural markets where it can exert near-monopsony control over chicken farmers, is similarly exploitative: The company traps chicken farmers in contracts over which they have very little say, a practice for which it has come under scrutiny for years.

Another post that makes some similar points about the region is here.  

Poignant reflection on a central Illinois town in decline

The last in a series of essays by Tom Morello (guitarist with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, among others). appeared in the New York Times a few days ago.  It's headlined "Class Struggle in My Family's Hometown."  This one is datelined Marseilles, Illinois, population 5,094, where Morello spent summers during his childhood.  The small city is on the Illinois River, and along with the good (e.g,  community events, Little League, bike riding) Morello highlights some negative aspects of its history (e.g., environmental degradation, high incidence of cancer).

Here's an excerpt about the recent "class warfare" there:  

Lately, Marseilles has seen some more hard times. The factories and the mines are long closed. Norman Rockwell streets once vied to see who could have the tidiest lawn. Recently, on our block, three abandoned houses had gone back to nature, roofs collapsed, trees growing through windows, raccoons taking up residence. There may still be a Little League, but when I spoke a few years ago with some teenagers with teardrop tattoos on their faces, they spoke of their limited prospects: Walmart, the Army, selling meth.

The town was once solidly union, voted Democrat and gave birth to America’s most militant leftist grandma, Mary Morello. Now Confederate flags dot some of the lawns. There’s a lot of good, hard-working people doing their best, but there’s a palpable feeling that they’ve been abandoned by Democratic and Republican administrations. It’s fertile ground for a demagogic grifter who attributes their problems to immigrants and Muslims, deflecting blame from a capitalist order that sees them as marks and cannon fodder. Where poverty meets disinformation, intolerance can bloom.

Cross-posted to Working Class Whites and the Law.  

Coronavirus in rural America (Part CLXXI): Where COVID policy merges with the wider political landscape in nonmetro America

Sabrina Tavernise's story out of Enid, Oklahoma, population 49,379, appeared on the front page of the New York Times yesterday.  The headline was "First they fought about masks.  Then over the soul of the city."  Even though I don't think of Enid as particularly rural--and even though Tavernise doesn't play up the place's rurality--this story represents what urban America, particularly coastal urban folks, have come  to think about rural America and the flyover states generally in relation to the pandemic.   

The story features a Black city councillor, Jonathan  Waddell, retired from the Air Force, who has lived in Enid with his family for seven years.  They had planned to make it a permanent home, but Waddell's advocacy for a mask mandate caused him to be ostracized from the community.  Now he is looking for a job outside the region.    

Meanwhile, another major player in the story is a deeply religious 45-year-old woman who has home-schooled her children.   She represents a class of folks who have become politically active to respond to pandemic restrictions.  In particular, she founded the Enid Freedom Fighters who have opposed pandemic restrictions, including mask mandates.  

Some excerpts about Waddell and Crabtree follow, but let me lead with these comments from one of the Enid residents who attended the City Council meeting where the mask mandate was debated in the summer of 2020: 

“The line is being drawn, folks,” said a man in jeans and a red T-shirt. He said the people in the audience “had been shouted down for the last 20 years, and they’re finally here to draw a line, and I think they’re saying, ‘We’ve had enough.’”

This strikes me as a good summation of how many in rural America were feeling in the run up to Trump's election--it's why many supported him.  He was, as Thomas Edsall put it in a New York Times column, the enemy of their enemy.   They felt beleaguered after years of being told what to do by bureaucrats and technocrats, and when the pandemic hit with its attendant public health restrictions, they weren't willing to accept any more regulations.   

Tavernise further describes the meeting: 

One woman cried and said wearing a mask made her feel like she did when she was raped at 17. Another read the Lord’s Prayer and said the word “agenda” at the top of the meeting schedule seemed suspicious. A man quoted Patrick Henry and handed out copies of the Constitution.

Mr. Waddell was so jarred driving home from that meeting that he kept checking his rear-view mirror to see if he was being followed. He viewed himself as conservative, so he was surprised at how his advocacy of indoor mask wearing caused him to be ostracized: 

[Waddell] knew Enid was conservative. Garfield County has voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1940. But he considered himself conservative too. He is a registered independent who believes in the right to bear arms and fiscal responsibility. And anyway, national politics were not important to him. Good schools and low housing prices were what he cared about.

And by the end, a realization that this was not about masks:

Mr. Waddell thought it had to do with fear. He said America is in a moment when the people who ran things from the beginning — mostly white, mostly Christian, mostly male — are now having to share control. Their story about America is being challenged. New versions are becoming mainstream, and that, he believes, is threatening.

“You don’t just get to be the sole solitary voice in terms of what we do here, what we teach here, what we show on television here,” he said. “You don’t get to do it anymore. That’s where the fight is.”

He sees it as the next chapter in the story of what it means to be an American, of who gets to write this country’s story. But he does not see the country getting through it without a fight.

Then there is Crabtree, aged 45, who owns a business selling essential oils and cleaning products.  She also works as an assistant to a Christian author.  Crabtree moved to Enid just two years ago, and she's also new to political engagement--spurred to action by her COVID skeptic beliefs.  Crabtree accepted Jesus as her savior at age 4, and she blamed her parents' generation for not being sufficiently devout and vocal about their Christianity. 

The more she researched online, the more it seemed that there was something bigger going on. She said she came to the conclusion that the government was misleading Americans. For whose benefit she could not tell. Maybe drug companies. Maybe politicians. Whatever the case, it made her feel like the people in charge saw her — and the whole country of people like her — as easy to take advantage of.

Tavernise quotes Crabtree:   

I don’t like to be played the fool, And I felt like they were counting on us — us being the general population — on being the fool.

Crabtree described some local consequences of her activism: 

She felt contempt radiating from the other side, a sense that those who disagreed with her felt superior and wanted to humiliate her. She said she was taken aback at how people were ridiculing her on a pro-mask group on Facebook. She said she remembers one person writing that he hoped she would get Covid and die.

Interestingly, this sentiment seems to reflect that of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who visited Crabtree's church, Emmanuel Enid.  Kirk said of an "unspecified 'metropolitan elite'" : 

They want to crush you....They call you the smelly Walmart people. They do. You should hear the way your leaders talk about you. They have contempt for you. They want to try to turn Oklahoma into nothing more than a producing colony for the rest of the country.

Sadly, there is some truth to Kirk's assertion--that the ruling classes do hold many in middle America in contempt.  Indeed, what Kirk asserts is not inconsistent with Hillary Clinton's 2016 "basket of deplorables" comment--well, depending on how one defines "deplorable."  

Then there are Crabtree's views on race, even as Tavernise notes that Enid has experienced very rapid racial diversification in the last decade.  Crabtree is quoted:  

Why all of a sudden are we teaching our 5-year-olds to be divided by color? They don’t care what color your skin is until you tell them that that 5-year-old’s grandpa was mean 200 years ago. 

Also of interest are details of how Crabtree is passing her beliefs on to her children. We're told her high school graduate son is too busy being a patriot and working to save the country to go to college, where he'd have to "pay $100,000 to fight indoctrination."  Instead, he got a job at Chick-fil-A. 

Finally, here is Tavernise's commentary, her framing on what is happening in Enid (emphasis added):

From lockdowns to masks to vaccines to school curriculums, the conflicts in America keep growing and morphing, even without Donald Trump, the leader who thrived on encouraging them, in the White House. But the fights are not simply about masks or schools or vaccines. They are, in many ways, all connected as part of a deeper rupture — one that is now about the most fundamental questions a society can ask itself: What does it mean to be an American? Who is in charge? And whose version of the country will prevail?

Social scientists who study conflict say the only way to understand it — and to begin to get out of it — is to look at the powerful currents of human emotions that are the real drivers. They include the fear of not belonging, the sting of humiliation, a sense of threat — real or perceived — and the strong pull of group behavior.

Oh, and I can't close this post without acknowledging that folks on the Left are complaining that this story even got printed because it tells us what the right is thinking.  Here's a Tweet from my feed calling Tavernise's story a "two-sides approach to a broad topic where one side relentlessly lies, threatens violence, denies scientific reality, and so much more.  This one featured academics, however!":   

I am not sure what Gillmor wants--to ignore that folks like Crabtree exist, perhaps?  What would he have the New York Times do?  Not even ask questions about why folks in Enid believe what they believe?  

About Gillmor: He is with the News Co/Lab at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, which he describes on his webpage as "an experimental lab, which he co-founded in 2017, that collaborates with others to improve the information ecosystem."

Globalism's negative impact on rural places

Jared Phillips, a professor of history, rural development and human rights at the University of Arkansas, published a thoughtful op-ed in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette today, "At what cost?  Rural areas bear the cost of globalism."  His focus is the Arkansas Ozarks, where he lives and works and where his family has lived for five or six generations (just like my family, I might add).  Here's an excerpt focusing on burgeoning inequality within the region--inequality that is obscured by the region's growth and facial prosperity:  

Well, in the last few decades, the fleeting wealth created by global corporations like Walmart has hidden a legacy of loss for the Arkansas uplands, making it difficult for many to believe that globalism can indeed be beneficial--especially when we're told that we as a community aren't needed, displayed best by a recent campaign to attract people here that promises $10,000 and a bicycle.

This image is incomplete, however. Because of efforts like this, and the millions of dollars funneled into the region by the Walton Foundation and its partners, Ozarkers look more prosperous, stable, and well-positioned to meet the future than ever before. But are we? I wonder.

The Ozarks is generally a rural and remote region, and following the trend of much of America, since 1950 farm numbers have plummeted by 59 percent. Certain sectors--like dairy--within agriculture have dropped by 99 percent. As these farms disappeared--and with them the small towns they surrounded and supported--the region's urban and semi-urban populations boomed as outsiders flocked to Walmart, or Tyson, or the University of Arkansas.

As farms folded, land values have jumped, and folks on the fringes are pushed into troubling employment at places like those listed above--all three of which have troubling histories of how they treat and pay their respective work forces.

This shift paved the way for a new story in the hill country, one defined by globalized progress and corporate ambition. This prosperity, however, is only true for the upper ranks of Ozark life.

* * *

This type of community change--rural decay coupled with corporate extraction and an expansion of inequality--has fueled the expansion of a strong anti-federal, anti-outsider ideology in corporate boardrooms and back hollers alike.

Most folks--at least those outside the region--think all of  Northwest Arkansas is rural.  It's good to see someone who knows and cares about the region disaggregating rural from urban and honestly observing that the rising tide in northwest Arkansas is definitely not lifting all boats.  

Black Lives Matter in rural America (Part VII): The flip side of the coin

I wrote this post in early June about the many rural and small town places where Black Lives Matters activists were taking the issue to the streets.

Among the small towns I was delighted to be able to mention in my June post was Harrison, Arkansas, population 12,943.  Harrison happens to be the place where I was born, and I grew up 20 miles south of there in neighboring Newton County, a place I've frequently written about here on the blog (see "my hometown" tag/label and the "Law and Order in the Ozarks" series).

Well, in contrast to that May protest in sympathy with Black Lives Matter, great obloquy fell on Harrison a few weeks ago when a YouTuber named Rob Bliss, having spent at least three days there, made and published a video about the place and its people--a video that has gone viral.  Bliss spent his time mostly holding a Black Lives Matter sign near the WalMart, and he had a go pro camera under his shirt, the lens peeking out from a hole or some such to record his interactions.  He then released a video montage of the most racist things people said in response to him and his sign.  After the video went viral, and the Washington Post picked it up, along with a number of other media outlets, including the nearby Springfield News-Leader, about 80 miles away in southwest Missouri.  The short video--just over 2 minutes--has now been viewed several million times on YouTube.  

Here's an excerpt from Gregory J. Holman's story for the News-Leader:

"Harrison, Arkansas is the most racist town in the United States," a man in the video says, characterizing Harrison as "Ku Klux Klan Headquarters." (According to public records databases, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan national director Thomas Robb uses at least three Harrison post office boxes, and the KKK website published makes reference to "The Knights Party whose national headquarters is in Harrison, AR.")

Then the video shifts to the parking lot of a Walmart and depicts a number of interactions between people visiting the store location — none of whom appeared dressed in stereotypical Klan hooded robes — and the man making the video.

"Have a little pride in your race, brother," shouted the male driver of a minivan. "White pride worldwide!"

"I wouldn't stay after dark, man," another man tells the filmmaker.

The video also shows several people making obscene hand gestures toward the camera and using profanity. In one brief conversation, a person says "(Expletive redacted) Black lives!" In another, a person uses a slur word typically intended to dehumanize Jewish people.

The video also shows a man wearing a Walmart employee badge asking the filmmaker to leave the store location.

The Washington Post story by Jaclyn Peiser includes this paragraph:

Bliss is a director and producer based in Los Angeles and is known for making viral stunts aimed at socially conscious messages — including a video from 2014 when he recorded a woman being constantly heckled while walking around New York. .... [Bliss] edited his [Harrison] footage down to a two-minute video, which he argues provides vivid firsthand evidence that racism is alive and well in parts of the country.

The Post story's link to the Bliss video shows the opening screen, which features Bliss standing in front of a billboard for two entities I'd never previously heard of "AltRightTV.com" and "WhitePride Radio.com."

Screenshot from Rob Bliss video taken in Harrison, Arkansas, July 2020

To me, the presence of this billboard is a big part of the story--a bigger deal than what folks said in Bliss's carefully curated video.  Here's my thinking:  I believe if Bliss stood for three days holding a Black Lives Matter sign, on virtually any street corner in America--or outside any Walmart in the country--he could gather an equivalent or greater number of racist or racially insensitive comments than appear in his Harrison video.  In fact, when I think about the Walmart closest to where I live in suburban Sacramento, the Walmart in Orangevale, California, I have no doubt of that.  This does not in any way justify what the people in the Harrison video said--nor what the ones in Orangevale might say given the chance.  My point is that these racist attitudes exist everywhere--not just in a place where a branch of the KKK has decided to set up shop, which is why Bliss selected that place.

What you would not see in Orangevale, California--or anywhere else in greater Sacramento--is a billboard like this one.  Why, I wondered, would the owners of the billboard, the Harrison Sign Company, permit this sort of advertising?  More on that below.

By the way, I did open the home pages of AltRightTV.com and WhitePrideRadio.com, and the headlines didn't look different from those you'd see on Fox News or OAN.   I'm not saying this makes these media outlets ok or unproblematic.  I'm saying that, on the surface, the only clear red flags the day I visited the sites were the names of the sites themselves.  I didn't click through to any content. 

Here's what the Mayor of Harrison said in response to this statement at the end of July:

On July 27 a video recorded in Harrison was released on various social media platforms. It has since been viewed by over 3 million people, who now know Harrison only through this distorted portrayal. On July 28, Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Bob Largent; Boone County Judge, Robert Hathaway; and I released a joint statement denouncing the video as unfairly representing Harrison and eroding decades of work to overcome our past racist reputation. I would like to take this opportunity to share some thoughts, feelings, and opinions I have about the situation.

​When the video first aired, several people, including me, came together to look into the truth behind this video and its creator, Rob Bliss. I believe this was nothing less than a professional “hit job.” Our opinion became clear: Rob Bliss, and a partner, both from Los Angeles, are professional agitators who saw an opportunity to exploit Harrison. Bliss presents himself as an “agent of change” when, in fact, he is only interested in making money, and doesn’t actually care about the issue. He has done similar stunts in other places. After posting his highly edited videos, he immediately starts a “Go Fund Me” page where he collects thousands of dollars in donations, in addition to the money he is paid by YouTube and other social media for views. He promotes his video and “GoFundMe” page until he has eked out all the money he can, and then he moves on to his next project. If you doubt this, I challenge you to do your own investigation. The words of the people in the video were way beyond horrible and cannot be justified. 

Those individuals should be ashamed of themselves. However, it is important to know that Bliss and partner spent at least three days in Harrison on a very busy street and in front of a very busy Wal-Mart. We estimate that about 80,000 people would have passed by in those 3 days. They were able to, through provocative comments of their own, which they did not record, get just a couple dozen of those people to respond with disgusting comments, making up just two minutes of highly inflammatory video. We have a local Black Lives Matter group that have been leading peaceful and productive protests. Rob Bliss did not contact this group at all for a partnership. Quinn Foster, organizer of the local Black Lives Matter protests, denounces Rob Bliss as a profiteer, out to make money from a movement in which he has no real interest. Visit the Facebook page of Ozark Hate Watch for more information.

​Many other southern towns and Harrison’s distant past includes some well-documented racist acts of violence. The town and our local race relations group have worked over many decades to overcome our history of racism and its lingering reputation. We are not the racist town we have been made out to be. The fact that the Ku Klux Klan and leader, have settled in nearby Zinc Arkansas, and that a few supporters have rented billboards to display their hateful message has only added to Harrison’s undeserved notoriety. Our race relations task force has worked to successfully remove four of the five privately owned billboards. They continue trying to remove the last one. Neither Bliss, nor the media has contacted our task force or our Black Lives Matter group for comments or insight into the true nature of the majority of people in Harrison.

​Since the video went “viral,” over three million people have seen. The story has reached at least 14 major media outlets, including an article yesterday in the Washington Post. We have been flooded with emails, social media posts, and phone calls from people spewing hate, vile comments and vague threats. This is one of the most devastating things that I have been through as Mayor, and there have been many. I know that when we are attacked, our community can come together to fight this. We must pray that we can move beyond this and become a better community because of it. I urge you to combat hateful comments with something good. Your opinion is powerful. Please respectfully stand up for our town whenever you get the chance.

These comments made by some of our very own citizens were reprehensible and horrible beyond belief. Like many communities across the country, we do have racist people among us, but we are not going to let a few define our city going forward. In the last few decades, we have taken community efforts to denounce racism on all fronts and we are committed to doing more.

The Harrison Chamber of Commerce issued a statement on August 9 that included this language:

The Board of Directors of the Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce voted unanimously on August 7th to condemn racism in all forms and the hateful speech heard in a recent viral video filmed in the city. The Board’s action also formally requested the Boone County Quorum Court and Harrison City Council to do the same, as well as support legislation imposing enhanced sentencing for convictions associated with hate crimes. A proposed resolution for each body accompanied the Chamber’s letter. 

“To do what is right, our city and county must immediately address the legitimate concern of racism in Harrison and Boone County,” said Melissa Collins, principal broker at Weichert, Realtors-Market Edge, and chair of the Chamber Board. She continued, “Simply put, there should be zero tolerance for hate speech in our community. The Chamber’s unanimous vote on Friday, coupled with immediate action by the Court and Council, will be the largest show of community unity in anyone’s memory.”

Dr. Stewart Pratt, Superintendent of the Harrison Public Schools and a three-year Chamber Director, noted that the suggested resolutions reflect the core beliefs of area schools that all students are of equal value. Dr. Pratt stated, “I hope the Board’s action and suggested resolutions will encourage and assist our governmental entities to reflect the same beliefs about the importance of all persons and denounce the use of ‘Hate Speech’ and violence based on an individual’s race, sex, or socioeconomic status.”

A 2013 Democrat-Gazette story about a Harrison billboard that said "Anti-Racist is a Code Word for Anti-White," included this information about the history of Harrison as a "sundown town," as well as its current association with the KKK:

Harrison has been dogged by image problems since race riots more than a century ago. The problem was exacerbated in the 1980s when Thom Robb, leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, moved to Zinc in Boone County and began using a Harrison post office box for the group’s mailing address.

The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture says, “Though nowhere near as murderous as other race riots across the state, the Harrison Race Riots of 1905 and 1909 drove all but one African American from Harrison, creating by violence an allwhite community similar to other such ‘sundown towns’ in northern and western Arkansas” where blacks were not welcome at night.

The passage of time hasn’t put to rest Harrison’s reputation as racially biased. Harrison’s City Advertising Tourist Promotion Commission continues to consider hiring a marketing firm at an initial cost of $30,000 to combat the bad image.

That 2013 Democrat-Gazette story also included this information about who paid for that prior billboard:

Claude West, who owns Harrison Sign Co., said he had the “wrap” — the printed material — put on the billboard but he’s “just the middleman.” West wouldn’t say who leased the 12-by-24-foot billboard at $200 a month for a year.

A young man leased the billboard about three weeks ago, saying the statement on the billboard referred to the government, West said. The man told West anyone who complains about the government is called a racist, apparently referring to the fact that President Barack Obama is black.

“I’m not a racist, but I don’t like Obamacare,” West said, paraphrasing the man’s explanation.

“Listening to him, I didn’t see anything wrong with this,” said West. “Would I do it again? Probably. I don’t know why it has exploded like this. I think there’s a tension. I think people are uncomfortable about where the country is going.”

People, including the man who leased the billboard, have a right to free speech, he said.

* * * 

He said he has taken calls from around the country about the billboard and has been called “racist” for allowing it, an accusation he denies. He plans to make himself available during the protest today to answer questions, he said.

Also on the point about Harrison, Arkansas as the headquarters  of the KKK, I note from this piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Education two years ago that a town in North Carolina also claimed that "distinction," or more precisely that it was the home of the KKK.  Those may be two different things:  current headquarters v. home.  Hmmm.  Anyway, as I have written earlier, it's interesting to have grown up so nearby and never to have heard in my youth that Harrison had this reputation and supposed distinction.

I did not see this YouTuber story covered at all by the Harrison Daily Times, but I don't subscribe and may have missed something.  I do get the Harrison Daily Times daily newsletter by email--a default because I subscribe to the sister publication, the Newton County Times.  I understand from a friend who writes for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that the statewide paper didn't cover vlogger Bliss's Harrison expedition because his intended audience was not local or Arkansas, but rather national.  Also, importantly, Mr. Bliss did not return the reporter's phone calls.  So, that statewide outlet did not run it as a news story, though Democrat-Gazette columnist Mike Masterson has written two columns about the matter.  I don't have access to them since I don't subscribe to the paper. 

In other "Black Lives Matter" news out of rural America, is this story, dateline Douglas County, Nevada (population 46,997), where the County Sheriff Daniel J. Coverley told the county library not to call 911 in case of an emergency.  Why was he miffed (and acting like a child)?  Because the library trustees had indicated their intention to discuss at an upcoming meeting a "statement supporting diversity and inclusion."  Here's what the sheriff wrote to the library:

Due to your support of Black Lives Matter and the obvious lack of support or trust with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, please do not feel the need to call 911 for help. I wish you good luck with disturbances and lewd behavior, since those are just some of the recent calls my office has assisted you with in the past.

The sheriff later recanted his threat.

Postscript August 23:  Re my comments above comparing Harrison, Arkansas to Orangevale, California, here's a headline from the Sacramento Bee a few days ago:  "Orangevale man accused of leading white supremacist group has gun order extended for year."  The judge commented in court in announcing the decision:

No one has the right to instill fear in other members of the community or act insidiously toward a targeted group such as a Jewish community or an African-American community. ... These are not jokes. He shouldn’t have the privilege of owing a firearm.

Like I said, sadly, white supremacists are everywhere.  

Retrospective on a rural physician

I heard a story on NPR a few days ago out of Logan, Ohio, population 7,152.  I believe the journalist in that story interviewed a public education administrator in Logan; he talked about how the school district is scrambling to serve rural and low-income students.  I have not, however, been able to track down that story to blog about it.  What I did come across in trying to find that recent story about public education in the age of coronavirus is this extraordinary story from just two months ago (though it feels, in the age of coronavirus, like it could be two years ago) about a family physician, Scott Anzalone, who has worked in Logan, Ohio for two decades.  It's part of Marketplace's series on work in the 21st century economy.  An excerpt follows:

[Anzalone] describes himself as the “last physician standing in private practice in the region,” as others have retired or been bought out by large health care systems. Maintaining a private practice in rural community isn’t easy. He balances the needs of his patients with the demands of operating the business, serving as president of the local school board and a part-time position with Ohio University’s school of medicine. His university and school board positions offer retirement benefits, something that can be tough to get when you’re self-employed. In the two decades he’s lived in Logan, Anzalone has seen the community change by the arrival of Walmart, declines in the manufacturing economy, and more recently by the opioid crisis.

On arson (and love?) in rural, coastal Virginia

A student emailed me this NPR story a few days ago; it's actually a review of a new book, American Fire:  Love, Arson and Life in a Vanishing Land, by Monica Hesse, a Washington Post journalist.  The book tells the fuller version of a story Hesse reported for the Post in 2014, that of 86 fires that besieged Accomack County, Virginia, on the DelMarVa peninsula, over the course of just a few months in 2012-13.  Here's how Hesse describes her attraction to the story:

This story had everything. It had 86 fires ... over the course of five months; it had a community that was in a panic; it had the setting of a place that used to be the richest rural county in all of the United States and has now fallen into disrepair, which is the reason they had all of these abandoned buildings to begin with. And then it had a love story. And so you couldn't ask for a more epic human experience than everything that was wrapped up in this story for me.

Here's another absolutely priceless part of Michele Martin's interview with Hesse--priceless, I think, for what it captures about rural America--or at least some slices of it--right now (and, I suppose, for what it captures about human nature):

There was one person who I didn't quote in the book, who said to me, "Don't put this in your book, but I kind of miss the arsons because I really felt like my life meant something at that time; because I really felt like I knew what my community needed from me and I could do that in a really tangible way." And so one of the things that I hadn't expected to find was how, while the community was being burned down, the community was also knitting itself together in really close and unexpected and kind of lovely ways, too.

One of the most interesting aspects of my dig into this story and the book it spawned was the comments readers left on the initial Washington Post story, once they were drawn back to it by the book's publicity.  That is, these comments were left in July, 2017, not in 2014 when the story initially ran.  The point I want to make about the story (and presumably the book) is the defensive posture they put Eastern shore residents in.  Here is one comment:

Hesse is spinning a fantasy to promote her forthcoming book. The Eastern Shore is gorgeous - not the Dogpatch she depicts. She makes it sound like all the residents are uncouth white trash. In reality, the Eastern Shore is like most places, only more beautiful - the affluent residents have a wonderful lifestyle while the poor people, unemployed people, and living-on-the-dole people have it not so great. She has taken two miscreants who would generally be considered white trash and tried to romanticize them into something more compelling and glamorous. Hesse has attempted to make sense in a sensationalist way of an irrational act while idealizing a petty crook and his attention-seeking moll - but, hey, she is now marketing a basically uninteresting crime in the vehicle of a non-fiction best seller. Please leave that to Joseph Wambaugh who had a really compelling arsonist as well as writing talent. Sorry, but reading about this is about as interesting as shopping at Walmart and getting coffee at McDonalds.

Here's another:

I am stunned and frankly angered by the reckless hyperbole of this writer in describing the Eastern Shore of Virginia as a "vanishing land," "decimated" and "half gutted before the fires even began." That's complete nonsense. It's true we have many economic challenges, like most of rural America, but we chose to live here, run a business and never regretted it. I've never had such good friends and neighbors who look out for each other, and any day of the week and I can experience pristine nature, see myriad bird life, and get out kayaking on the water within minutes (no traffic!). We have the longest undeveloped seaside left on the East Coast, 70+ miles of it. We haven't wrecked our barrier islands like other places. We have the Chesapeake Bay on the other side, a booming aquaculture industry and some of the best sea kayaking on the East Coast. Come and stay longer, going kayaking or get out on a fishing boat and see what life is really about here. We work hard, play hard enjoying unspoiled Nature and are very proud of our Shore. I'm disappointed that the antics of two disturbed individuals of 5 years ago somehow makes this a sad and forlorn place in anyone's eyes. Believe me, we have moved on.

I'm not saying whose depiction of the Eastern Shore is accurate--just that it's interesting to see how the folks who've chosen to live in a place can be so sensitive about its depiction--and vigorous in their defense of it. I first noticed that when I started to write about my own hometown.  In some ways, bad-mouthing someone's home town is tantamount to bad-mouthing their mother.  The stuff can be pretty close to the heart.

As for the descriptions of Accomack County, they remind me of time I've spent in the northern neck of Virginia.  Read more here.

And back to the book for a moment:  I see it is on the NYTimes list of 10 books they recommend this  week.  

On Main Street, nostalgia, efficiency, and rural America

Louis Hyman of Cornell's Institute for Workplace Studies has a provocative op-ed in today's New York Times, "The Myth of Main Street."  Hyman argues that nostalgia is getting in the way of reasonable and appropriate expectations for "Main Street" America.  He begins by noting Trump's appeal to an American of yesteryear and explains why that America is inefficient, even a luxury.  

Throughout the Rust Belt and much of rural America, the image of Main Street is one of empty storefronts and abandoned buildings interspersed with fast-food franchises, only a short drive from a Walmart. 

Main Street is a place but it is also an idea. It’s small-town retail. It’s locally owned shops selling products to hardworking townspeople. It’s neighbors with dependable blue-collar jobs in auto plants and coal mines. It’s a feeling of community and of having control over your life. It’s everything, in short, that seems threatened by global capitalism and cosmopolitan elites in big cities and fancy suburbs.

Hyman is an economic historian, and he explains the historic trajectory as one the that has always short-changed rural America:

You can draw a straight line from the Jeffersonians in the late 18th century to the agrarian populists in the late 19th century to Mr. Trump’s voters, all of whom have felt that the city hornswoggled the country.

His whole column is well worth a read for its detailed explanation of how most folks can't afford the luxury of local, small-town merchants.  In fact, the folks who can afford it are usually living in upscale urban locales and tony suburbs.  The rest of us are basically relegated to big box stores and fast food.

While Hyman is mostly talking about the private sector, his op-ed piece reminds me of something Cornell demographer Daniel Lichter said a few years ago at a University of South Dakota symposium on the rural lawyer shortage:  in the face of population loss (itself a consequence of industrialization, mechanization), rural America has to look for efficiencies in regional centers or hubs.  It's no longer feasible for every community or even every county to have a high school--or other sorts of key services, public (a courthouse, a public health office, a public defenders office) or private (a grocery store).  

This discussion of Main Street as a myth--and its pitting against Wall Street--also reminds me of Sarah Palin's posturing in the 2008 Presidential election, which I wrote about in this law review article.  It's interesting (if depressing) to be reminded of the parallels between the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections.

A melding of rural stereotypes in a tragic tale: toddler shoots mother at an Idaho Wal-Mart

This event weaves three staples of rurality--guns, the inter-mountain West, and Wal-Mart store--into a tragic tale.  

A 2-year-old shot and killed his 29-year-old mother yesterday at a Wal-Mart in Hayden, Idaho, population 13,294.  Read the story on NPR here and in the New York Times here (where it is one of the 10 most emailed stories this morning, no doubt a reflection of the fascination of the "interest public" with a world it cannot begin to understand).

The New York Times describes what happened:  

A 2-year-old toddler, sitting in a shopping cart in a Walmart, his mother’s purse unattended and within reach as she shopped. Three girls, all under age 11 — relatives of the boy and his mother, the police said — tagging along. … The clothing aisles near electronics, back of the store.

* * * 

[S]hortly before 10:20 a.m. on Tuesday, as the store video cameras recorded the scene, the little boy found a gun in his mother’s purse and it discharged once at near point-blank range from where she stood, less than arm’s length away ...

The NYT story by Bill Morlin and Kirk Johnson quotes Lt. Stu Miller, a spokesman for the Kootenai County sheriff’s office, who said he did not know if she had a permit to carry the concealed weapon.  (NPR reports that she did have a permit).  But he put the practice of carrying a loaded weapon into perspective by noting:    

It’s pretty common around here — a lot of people carry loaded guns.  

Stefan Chatwin, the city administrator, also commented on the area's "gun culture," noting that the city just last week amended its gun laws to be consistent with Idaho law, making clear that a gun owner is "justified in firing a weapon in defense of persons or property."  (See a related story out of Montana here).  

NPR quoted the victim's father-in-law, Terry Rutledge, who called her "a beautiful, young, loving mother."  He added:   

She was not the least bit irresponsible.  She was taken much too soon.

Another person interviewed for the New York Times story, self-employed artist and Kootenai County resident Judy Minter, was slightly more judgmental of the victim--judgmental about her parenting, not her gun ownership:  

There’s a lot of people who do carry guns in this area.  But for her to have it within reach of her child — that was not very smart.

Hayden is in the state's scenic panhandle, just 40 minutes from Spokane and near Coeur d'Alene, along I-95.  Ms. Rutledge's family lived in Blackfoot, Idaho, population 11, 854, the state's potato capital, in the southeast corner of the state.

Another story about a child killing a relative with a loaded gun kept in easy reach is here.

Rural others "subsist on [urban] trash"

That was a line from Joe Williams's review of the just released documentary Rich Hill, which I featured yesterday here.  I  have been pondering film critic Williams's invocation of the tension between rural and urban--the "us vs. them" phenomenon across the rural-urban axis, as in his review's opening line:

Exit the interstate to venture across the moonscape of rural America, and you may glimpse a breed of alien that looks vaguely human but subsists on our trash.

This strikes me as a powerful--and rare--admission from an urbanite (Williams writes for the St. Lois Post-Dispatch, so I assume he dwells in that city's urban milieu, and he does use the pronoun "our").  He is essentially stating: "We urbanites are using you ruralites."

Of course, rural America subsists on the scraps from metropolitan America's table in more ways than one … think the rural prison building boom, toxic waste disposal, etc.  See related posts here, here, and here and a Call for Papers about "Rural as a Dimension of Environmental Justice" here).

Reminds me, too, of this week's story out of Loving County, Texas, population 95.  That county's leaders are seeking to bring all of our nation's nuclear waste there as a way of bolstering the local economy.  Here's the lede for Matthew Wald's story, headlined "County of 95 Sees Opportunity in Toxic Waste":

Loving County is big, dry and stretches for miles, and is the perfect place, local officials say, to store high-level radioactive waste. 

Officials here hope to entice the federal government — with $28 billion to spend on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste — into considering the possibility. 

The federal government canceled it lag to store the waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain site.  Wald quotes Skeet Jones, Loving County judge (chief elected official):

With the money that this would generate for the county, we might even be able to pay the taxpayers back. We could build some roads. We could bring in some more water. We could have a town that’s incorporated, have a city council, maybe even start a school. … Maybe even a Walmart.

Loving County's school was closed years ago, and the few young people there are sent to nearby Winkler County's schools by bus.  According to a 2006 New York Times story about Loving County being the nation's "emptiest place," a plaque on the county courthouse declares:

Mentone [the county seat] has no water system (water is hauled in) nor does it have a bank, doctor, hospital, newspaper, lawyer, civic club or cemetery.

A quick search on nytimes.com for this August 2014 story about Loving County also brought up a 1998 story, which labeled Loving County and Mentone the nation's richest place because it had the highest per capita income in the nation.  Loving County's affluence is attributable to oil and mineral wealth:  

360 producing gas and oil wells and 18 more being drilled [as of 1998], creating an enviable problem for the county — forcing it to keep lowering its tax rate.

Indeed, theres more good economic news about Loving County.  This 2012 story indicated it has the lowest income inequality in the nation, and I note that the county's poverty rate is a low 10.6%.

In the sense that Loving County is affluent, it is odd that the county is willing to make its populace vulnerable by seeking the nation's nuclear waste.  The more typical environmental (in)justice story is the purveyor of a negative externality seeking out of a powerless and poor rural place on which to dump the externality (see links above).

Sounds to me like the affluent Loving County residents simply don't want to pay the higher taxes that would help provide the infrastructure the county needs.

Could Wal-Mart be key to delivering rural healthcare?

The New York Times reports today on Wal-Mart's move into the health care business with clinics in many stores.  A focus of the story is on rural health care deficits and how Wal-Mart could be part of the solution.  Rachel Abrams's report notes that Wal-Mart has been dabbling in health care delivery for some time, but now it's making a more significant move by setting up clinics in five stores in South Carolina and Texas, with a sixth store opening in Texas by the end of 2014.  

Here's an excerpt that attends to the rural:

Like its competitors, Walmart is looking to grab a bigger share of the billions of health care dollars being spent in the United States and benefit from the changes that have resulted from the Affordable Care Act. 

With its vast rural footprint, Walmart is positioning its primary care clinics in areas where doctors are scarce, and where medical care, with or without insurance, can be prohibitively expensive. If they succeed, the company said, it is prepared to open even more. 

“If they’re rolling it out across the rural stores primarily, they’re actually filling an important gap in the health care ecosystem,” said Skip Snow, a health care analyst at Forrester Research.

Wal-Mart says its clinics can offer a broader range of services than the acute care clinics leased by hospital operators at Wal-Marts elsewhere.  Further, Wal-Mart is presenting itself in these five markets as a primary medical provider, which is fundamentally different to how CVS, Walgreens, and other chains are marketing themselves.  

Fighting "dollar stores" in Vermont, and losing

Vermont towns' battles against big box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target are generally well-known, and have been the subject of earlier blog posts like this one.  Now the New York Times is reporting on a new retail scourge, chain dollar stores like those under the brands Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar.   The dateline is Chester, Vermont, and Abby Goodnough reports here that the historic town known for its stone buildings is about to get its very own Dollar General, just down the street from the town common.  Because these stores tend to have much smaller footprints--the one in Chester will be 9,100 square feet--than big box stores, they are much less likely to run afoul of local zoning regulations.  The town's Development Review Board imposed 35 conditions on the Dollar General, including the requirement that the store have clapboard siding and that shopping carts be kept inside.  Here's an excerpt from the story:

[O]pponents [of the store] say that the Dollar General, which has opened 15 stores in Vermont in recent years, including one in Springfield, less than eight miles away, will be the beginning of the end for what might best be described as Chester's Vermontiness.  They theorize that second-home owners will abandon the town rather than abide a discount chain store, tourists in search of a bucolic escape will avoid it and Lisai's Market, the beloved local grocery store, will be forced out of business.   

"People come here and stay at the inns and eat at the restaurants not because we have Disney World but because we have Chester," said Claudio Veliz, an architect who moved here from New York.  "That is the hull of our boat, and Dollar General wants to put a fist through the hull."  

The population of Chester (a Census Designated Place) is 1,005 according to the Census Bureau's State and County Quick Facts, but wikipedia lists Chester's population as 3,044, and State and County Quick Facts lists the town's population as 3,154.  It is in nonmetropolitan Windsor County, which has a population of 56,670.

What do MF Global and ranchers in Kansas have to do with one another?

Well, according to this NPR story, many farmers and ranchers "were major clients of MF Global, buying futures contracts to hedge against swings in the value of their crops and livestock." More than a billion dollars of the cash of MF Global's clients was declared missing when the giant trading company went belly up a few weeks ago. Journalist Lynn Neary interviewed rancher Tim Rietzke, who has spent some time trying to reach MF Global by phone to determine the status of his funds that were held in a brokerage account there.

Rietzke is a well-spoken rancher from nonmetropolitan Comanche County, Kansas, population 1,891. In particular, Neary introduced him as from the county seat, Coldwater, population 828. Rietzke explained the consequences of his missing $30,000 that was being held by MF Global:

Well, much like a household budget, if you had $30,000 in the bank and all of a sudden that money disappeared, it would change your personal life. And it changes your business life much the same. Let's say in the ranching business you wanted to buy some replacement females or breeding stock or a pickup, now you're not sure what should I do. I don't want to put myself in a bind and have to borrow more money.

Also striking to me was Rietzke's response to Neary's question about the size of his operation. He answered instead with this description of where he lives:

Of course, we're prejudiced, but we think we have a beautiful ranch. The cattle are handled just like they were a lot of years ago, all by horseback. Really, I guess if you came out here, you would think that you had gone back in time, but in our county, there are only 1,900 people. There is no stoplight. It's an hour to fast food any direction. It's an hour to Wal-Mart in any direction, but we like that.

That strikes me as quite an expression of rural attachment to place.

The next long quote from Rietzke's suggests something akin to the informal order and general absence of law typically associated with rural places, with the final bit suggesting discomfort with the web of fiscal globalization that links his life to Wall Street and European debt.

[A]lot of people out here still do business with a handshake. So in other words, I'm going to buy hay from somebody and he said, okay, I'll see you hay for $100 a ton and you shake hands, they deliver the hay and you write them a check.

And I don't need to give him down money. I don't need to write a contract. And there's still an enormous amount of business done in our area just like that. So this is really a different part of the world.  When I had a hedge account to protect my prices, I didn't want to invest in European sovereign debt.  I didn't want to invest in MF Global.  I had nothing to do with their business.

A portrait of detasseling corn in a changing rural Nebraska.

In response to the many posts and other news coverage that has covered recent changes regarding agriculture and the rural economy, I decided to interview someone who has witnessed these trends first hand.

Ericka K. was born in 1981 and grew up in rural Nebraska. She lived in the town of Doniphan for 17 years and then settled in Lake Tahoe, California. The population of Doniphan was 763 as of the 2000 census.

In many ways her family consists of the typical rural America stereotype: Her father is a small-business owner, her mother works on a Sioux reservation as a special education teacher, one brother is in the military, another brother works for her father, and her sister is a nurse.

Here is what Ericka had to say about rural Nebraska:

Q: Do you consider Doniphan rural, and if so, what makes it rural?
A: Yes, it's a farming community, mainly corn. The corn makes it rural. I always hid in the corn fields when my parents were mad at me. Also, our closest neighbor was over a mile and a half away--if someone killed you no one would hear you scream. That was scary as a kid.

Q: How big was your graduating class?
A: There were 32 people in my class.

Q: When did your family first settle in Nebraska ans what did they do?
A: On my mom's side, my family was in Nebraska since the 1800's farming. The family farm was in a town I don't think even exists anymore. I remember visiting it when I was a kid and there was nothing there, all the buildings were falling apart. On my dad's side, most of the family is still farming in Minnesota. They had animals and grew all types of crops when I was a kid, but now it is all just soy and corn.

Q: What were your activities as a kid, did you have a job?
A: I was in 4H, sports and band. I worked detasseling corn as a teenager. About half of the people in my class detasseled every summer.

Q: What is the detasseling job like?
A: You can start detasseling corn--all feed corn--at 14. It's a 4-6 week job in the summer. You get up early and meet at the school at 6AM. You have to get the work done early because it is so hot in the summer, and even hotter in the fields. I wouldn't do it again. You get spiders and corn all over you. If there are storms with lightning you have to evacuate the fields quickly, but you still get soaked. And it is gnarly when tornado watches are going on. My mom still supervises the kids who do it. I only did it two years, but many kids did it throughout high school.

Q: Has recent immigration changed the demographics of who detassles corn?
A: I don't think so. It was always locals when I worked their. I think it still is. My impression is the immigrants all work in the meat packing plants and factories in that area.

Q: Are people you know in Doniphan still involved in agriculture?
A: Not many. So many of the farms have been bought out--there aren't a lot family farms anymore. It's all being done by a few people now. Probably about 10% of my class still farms.

Q: What does the rest of the people in your class do?
A: Most of them moved out of Doniphan and to close-by larger communities with more job opportunities. Lincoln, Omaha, Hastings, Grand Island. There just aren't jobs in Doniphan. There is one burger joint, a school, and a couple of churches. If you aren't farming or working at the school there is nothing. For example, in Grand Island, which has about 40,000 people, there are two Walmarts. But, none in Doniphan.

Our interview demonstrates, in part, that the rural economy is changing. Part of this change is due to changes in American agriculture. These changes, in turn, effect American culture as so many young rural residents, like Ericka herself, leave their towns to find opportunities that aren't available back home.

Rural King - where every trip is an adventure

Sometimes the internet is a beautiful thing - today I discovered RuralKing.com, the website of Rural King Supply, self-described as "America's Farm and Home Store." Rural King is based in Mattoon, Illinois and has been open for over fifty years. While the flagship remains in Mattoon, there are 46 other stores in seven states.

There are a number of striking things about Rural King. First, the variety of things one can purchase at Rural King rivals Wal-Mart. You can purchase everything from livestock feed to fashion clothing and toys. As the website points out, "you never know what you will find at your local Rural King and that's why every trip is an adventure." My favorite item was the "rural mailbox." I'm not sure what makes it rural, but I'd probably buy it for $12.99.

Second, the store espouses so many of the stereotypes we have studied thus far in class. Rural King is currently soliciting photos for a 2012 Calendar - in case people need inspiration for subject matter, Rural King provides a number of suggestions: "Possible subjects include; [sic] farm scenery, county fair [sic], pets and farm animals, or any unique photos related to rural life, and or [sic] Rural King." Third, Rural King is featured on Wikipedia and has over 7,000 fans on Facebook.

One of my assumptions regarding rurality is a sense of disconnectedness, yet Rural King Supply is a direct challenge to that assumption. Other recent posts on the blog discuss the closing of post offices and lack of broadband internet, but Rural King is banking on the fact that people not only have access to, but are reliant on, such services. Using the internet since 1997 to feature its line of products throughout the country, leveraging social media websites, and capitalizing on niche markets throughout the United States, Rural King has thus far been able to compete alongside the Wal-Marts of the world. I hope they keep it up and open a store in California - I'm in need of a good adventure.

Wal-Mart's rural stranglehold

That provocative phrase is part of the title of a new report released by United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The Daily Yonder discusses the report here, noting that the Departments of Justice and Agriculture held hearings this week on competition in agriculture, including discussions of the growing margins that retail grocers are able to take--in part because of retail consolidation in behemoths--most powerfully Wal-Mart. An excerpt from the executive summary of the UFCW Report follows:

The Department of Justice/Department of Agriculture workshops investigating corporate consolidation in agricultural markets represent an enormous opportunity to rebuild and revitalize rural America by ensuring justice and fairness for working men and women across the food industry. Without a doubt, consolidation and concentration in the agricultural economy has caused decreasing incomes for farmers, ranchers, workers and the rural communities that depend on agriculture.

Our rural communities, our food supply and the fate of a major portion of the American economy depend on us fixing this problem. However, we can’t solve this dilemma unless we are willing to look at the whole picture of the American food chain—from the farm to the grocery store shelf.

Without an adequate investigation into the critical role that consolidation at the retail grocery level—led by the world’s largest retailer, Walmart—we can’t get an accurate or adequate assessment on how to fix our broken agricultural economy. This report provides strong evidence that Walmart exerts unprecedented influence over the meatpacking industry and other agricultural and food sectors. It also shows that Walmart’s relentless quest for lower costs has unfairly squeezed income from meatpacking workers, farmers and ranchers resulting in Walmart receiving a grossly disproportionate share of the retail food dollar at the expense of other stakeholders in the food supply chain.

Wal-Mart goes urban, with better wages and smaller stores

America's quintessential small-town, big box retailer, having saturated nonmetropolitan areas and suburbs, is going to the city. Here's the story from today's New York Times.

The retailing behemoth has been negotiating with the Chicago City Council over a site on the city's South side six years. Now, after apparently agreeing to pay entry level workers $.50/hour better than the minimum wage, Wal-Mart is making some progress with the local authorities. It's a reminder of how much more desperate for jobs--and how much less organized--small towns are when it comes to dealing with Wal-Mart and a prospective store. An excerpt from the Times story follows:

What would it take for urban areas to welcome Wal-Mart?

The answer seems to be a terrible job market and stores that do not look much like traditional big boxes.

* * *

If Wal-Mart can succeed in the urban market, that could mean several hundred stores just in major cities like New York, Chicago and Detroit, bringing several hundred million dollars in additional earnings, analysts said.

In addition to paying better wages, Wal-Mart is looking at placing much smaller stores in urban markets. Indeed, the stores would be as small as 8,000 square feet, about 4% of the size of a new Supercenter.

One town's battle against Wal-Mart

A story in yesterday's Boston Globe features St. Albans, a small town in Vermont, population 5,086, that has spent sixteen years fighting retail giant Wal-Mart. The battle, believed to be the "nation’s longest ongoing Wal-Mart fight," commenced in 1993 when Wal-Mart sought to build a retail store on a cornfield across the street from the town's drive-in movie theater. Residents, environmentalists, and preservation groups have been fighting the development plan ever since.

The St. Albans Wal-Mart fight has raged in courtrooms and in town offices, produced a mountain of motions and rulings. At a recent hearing, pleadings from both sides totaled 1,000 pages. And there is no definitive end in sight. A judge is expected to issue a decision this fall that could send the case to the state Supreme Court, for the second time.

The residents of St. Albans are divided on the issue of bringing Wal-Mart to their town, with the debate causing significant tension and resentment in the community. Project opponents argue that building a 160,000 square foot superstore will have devastating long-term effects on the community, including shuttering local businesses and eroding the very "essence" of St. Albans, particularly the quaint downtown area. Supporters of the superstore maintain that St. Albans needs the cheap goods and employment opportunities that Wal-Mart has to offer.

Unemployment in St. Albans City, the town’s urban core, was 10.1 percent last month, and 2005 figures put median household income at $44,750, well below the Vermont average of $52,682.

Arguments of the project proponents also center around the issue of underwear. A waitress at Nana's restaurant explains, “You can’t even buy a pair of underwear here. Well, you can, but it’ll cost you $30.’’ Lee J. Kahrs, staff writer for the St. Albans Messenger introduced a 2004 piece on the Wal-Mart conflict with this visual:

Imagine you are enjoying a sunny afternoon in Taylor Park. All of a sudden, you remember you need new underwear. No problem! You zip across Main Street to the new Wal-Mart in downtown St. Albans.

For now, the residents remain divided as the 16-year battle drags on. If Wal-Mart wins, Vermont will have its fifth--and largest--Wal-Mart store and the people of St. Albans, it seems, will finally be able to purchase some underwear.

Attention rural Wal-Mart shoppers

When a more-cruel-than-humorous website mocking Wal-Mart shoppers went viral last week, the sheer volume of visitors crashed the site's server. The premise of the site is simple: photographs of "out-of-shape, poorly dressed and otherwise awkward" Wal-Mart shoppers are posted on daily basis, along with biting commentary and visitor comments. The website is intended to be a comical gag, a humorous and entertaining look at people who, according to the website, "obviously don’t have mirrors."

The humor is not appreciated by everyone, however, including rural strategists who say that "the site goes out of its way to mock poor and rural patrons of the store, reinforcing stereotypes along the way." The website certainly smacks of classism, with the photos portraying the poor and rural as immoral, unfit, lazy, dirty, and uncivilized.

"American culture likes to single out people who appear to be different," said Tim Marema, vice president of the Whitesburg, Kentucky-based Center for Rural Strategies. "Whether it's a joke or not, all depends on which side of the camera you're on."

Furthering stereotypes can strengthen the rifts between rural, urban and suburban residents and, in the worst-case scenario, can affect the way some people are treated by government and industry, he said.

Interestingly, the site publishes only the state in which each photograph was taken, providing no additional geographic information. Since Wal-Mart stores are nearly identical inside, the notion that any given shopper is a rural resident is largely conjecture (a guy with a mullet? Must be rural! A couple in matching shirts emblazoned with the American Flag? Must be rural! A live goat walking down the frozen food aisle? Definitely must be rural!).