by Sarah Michele Ford
In mid-March, Wal*Mart shoppers in Washington Township, New Jersey were shocked to hear the following announcement over the store’s public address system.
“Attention Wal*Mart customers: All Black people leave the store now.” (AP story about the incident)
As it turned out, the announcement was not made by a Wal*Mart employee; rather, the voice was that of a sixteen year old customer who had gotten his hands on the PA system mic.
We could probably write this off as a dare, or a brief moment of teenage stupidity, except now it has come to light that the young man in question allegedly did the same thing, at the same store, last December. And so it seems we must address this not as a prank but as a pattern of race-based harassment.
This brings to light another of the central themes of my introductory sociology courses: the conflict between our values of equality and group superiority. How is it possible, my students ask, for us to believe in both of these at the same time? The U.S. is a country founded on the belief that “all men* are created equal” and yet we have this long and troubled history of inequalities based on race, gender, sexuality, etc. I argue that these value contradictions are fundamental to our national identity, and that at various times in history one value will be more important than the other. We can hope that we are moving towards a time when equality will win out over group superiority.
But that brings us back to the young man in New Jersey. Is he just out of touch with the dominant values of the 21st century? Or does this event signal a bubbling up of a racist subculture? If nothing else, it serves to remind us that, no matter how much progress has been made towards that value of equality, we aren’t 100% there yet.
*Yes, the founding fathers really did mean white, landowning men. These days, of course, the term is interpreted in a much more inclusive way. Or is it?