If you would like more information about Oregon, please FReepmail me. I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last month.
Posted on 02/05/2014 8:52:18 AM PST by inkling
Trader Joe’s wanted to build a new store in Portland, Oregon. Instead of heading to a tony neighborhood downtown or towards the suburbs, the popular West Coast grocer chose a struggling area of Northeast Portland.
The company selected two acres along Martin Luther King Blvd. that had been vacant for decades. It seemed like the perfect place to create jobs, improve customer options and beautify the neighborhood. City officials, the business community, and residents all seemed thrilled with the plan. Then some community organizers caught wind of it.
The fact that most members of the Portland African-American Leadership Forum didn’t live in the neighborhood was beside the point. “This is a people’s movement for African-Americans and other communities, for self-determination,” member Avel Gordly said in a press conference. Even the NAACP piled on, railing against the project as a “case study in gentrification.” (The area is about 25 percent African-American.)
After a few months of racially tinged accusations and angry demands, Trader Joe’s decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. “We run neighborhood stores and our approach is simple,” a corporate statement said. “If a neighborhood does not want a Trader Joe's, we understand, and we won't open the store in question.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at ricochet.com ...
Hey, they can’t have Trader Joe’s ruining the ambiance of their plantation.
Trader Joe’s is not an expensive store overall. It’s a great store for a single person or couple. Uh well, I haven’t seen any hog jowls or chitlings there though.
Actually, in this case, not. It would likely be successful at this particular MLK location.
But that's why the community organizers are fighting it: they don't want success, because success threatens to make their community fade away, in which case they will no longer have anything to organize.
Here's a comment to another article by a black prospective resident:
newportlandresident 58 Minutes AgoAs a new African-American resident to the Portland area, I find this decision of Trader Joe's very disheartening. In my former state, Ohio, I shopped at Trader Joe's. Their prices were decent for single low end of the middle class salary. I found their food choices enlightening for those who have to manage diabetes and high blood pressure...two major chronic illnesses that plague the African-American community. Good health leads to good outlook for one's community.
I have recently been driving to the MLK considering moving to the area and taking up roots, but after reading this, I cannot see myself supporting a neighborhood with such leadership views.
And here's another, by an admitted liberal:
Poohzkv 7 Minutes AgoBeing a flaming tree huggin lib, I find the discouraging of Trader Joe's an asinine move on the "activists" part. I also hate the word "gentrification". Why is upgrading a community and bringing in jobs turning in to a dirty word?
Just a shakedown. Nothing important.
I love it when an entity learns that diversity is an expensive carnival ride.
I worked for a large corporation and we get bitten a dozen times while I was there. Everything from the diverse Computer Security Chief who kept sending out viruses to the store in the ghetto that lost so much money that it had to be removed from all reports.
They would have been culturally relevant by selling Newports and Malt!
Amen to that. Useless, counter-productive rabble rouser.
Trader Joes = good store. These people are the losers.
“”The company selected two acres along Martin Luther King Blvd. that had been vacant for decades”...”
I’ve thought for some time that all the “maps” programs should have a “ghetto avoidance route” programmed in that has as its nucleus, all the MLK boulevards in the country. Because if it “says MLK, you can be sure it’s in the heart of the local $hit hole neighborhood.” I know that the one’s in Berkeley and Oakland, CA fit that description to a tee.
If you would like more information about Oregon, please FReepmail me. I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last month.
Interesting, thanks.
Yes. I would say, the age control page for Colt 45 Malt Liquor captures the mood perfectly.
The irony is that Lefties are generally screaming about these places being “food deserts”. Hard to think of a store more likely to get the Moochelle Stamp of Approval than Trader Joe’s.
Sounds like mau-mauing, to me. The folks from PAALF aren't interested in the plight of black people, and making their lives better. This is about making the lives of the Community Organizers better.
Well duh! that's because the EVIL CORPORATIONS are clear cutting the old growth rainforests for exotic tropical hardwoods to make paper grocery bags. /s
bunch of flippin' morons
Black community agitators would rather have the instantaneous gratification of kicking whitey outta da ‘hood than actually support job creation.
Yet, they’ll be first up to bitch and complain that business owners who don’t want to set up shop in Blackistan are “racist.”
Lesson #1: Don't.
I’m not a fan at all of Trader Joe’s. On one hand, their liberal policies and clientele led to this type of political payola scheme’s and I’m glad what goes around comes around. But on the other, 25 years of blight should cause everybody to want improvement and Welcome Trader Joe’s. Go figure.
Kinda like the east-west crossing in Berlin... "You are leaving the American Sector"
My understanding is that those opposed to the new Trader Joe’s are unhappy with the “gentrification” of the neighborhood and that a Trader Joe’s would further that process.
The opponents want to bring “displaced” blacks back to the neighborhood, apparently the kind of blacks that would not or could not shop at a Trader Joe’s. I can only assume that this means they would like to turn the vacant two acre site into a mini-ghetto to bring back the original neighborhood ghetto.
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