On June 13th, the Giant near my house closed. This was inconvenient for me. I liked being able to walk to buy groceries. To a lot of folks in West Baltimore, it’s more than inconvenient. For some, walking is the only option, and the next nearest grocery store is miles away. Plus, other nearby stores are of the “swivel-window in bulletproof glass” variety, which don’t tend to stock nutritious food.
I live in a peculiar part of Baltimore. My neighborhood is green, safe, and well-taken care of. Most residents are bird-watching, latte-sipping, Biden-voters. The roads don’t have potholes. Everyone mows their lawns, and the houses are more likely to sport a Pride flag or a Ukrainian flag than an American flag. Exit my neighborhood and take a right, and you’ll find more of the same.
But make a left, and you’ll encounter the Baltimore you see on TV. Drug abuse, crime, unattended children, boarded up houses, unlicensed street vendors, etc. Strangely, the run-down neighborhood doesn’t intrude on mine. During the day, I feel comfortable leaving my car unlocked. At two o’clock in the morning, I can and have taken a stroll around the block. I hear gunshots every night, but the sound is always distant.
A clear line of separation exists between prosperity and poverty, and also, between white and black. The Giant grocery store was that line.
What made Giant special was that it allowed me to interact with people who are radically different than I am. If I sauntered through that poor neighborhood, I couldn’t guarantee that I would get hurt, but I would… draw attention. Not many skinny white boys roam West Baltimore. If a hoodlum wanted an easy target, I’d make a good pick.
But in that neighborhood, the bad actors are not a majority. Most of the residents are ordinary people, who never made it out. I believe that because of my trips to Giant. In dozens of visits, I once encountered a driver who yelled at me for (legally) walking in the road, then tried to sell me Oxycontin. (A questionable marketing strategy, but I wasn’t about to give him pointers). There were a handful of times when someone wandering the aisles seemed high. Otherwise, everyone— and I mean everyone— was friendly, warm, and normal.
I’m that guy who talks to cashiers. During my conversations at Giant, I learned a lot about how they see the world. Broad statements about the black community are dicey, both because they’re politically incorrect, and because generalizations are always imprecise. (This becomes obvious once you try it with whites. What can you say that applies to both a Southern tobacco farmer and an Ivy League art student?) That said, if you limit generalizations by geography, wealth, etc. I think it’s safe to draw a few conclusions. Here are a few things I learned about Baltimore’s lower-middle-class black folks:
They talk about God freely and proudly. Cashiers wished me a blessed day, asked about the church I attend, offered to pray for me, etc. That was refreshing. We crackers are too reserved. Even those who are devout and self-describe as “based,” or whatever, don’t evangelize with the same ease, confidence, and purpose as some of our black brothers and sisters.
They don’t excuse bad behavior in the black community. White liberals tend to blame systemic factors for gun violence, substance abuse, etc. The people I talked with believed that criminals know what they were doing and are responsible for their actions. There’s no one else to blame.
They possess a spirit of kinship that white people lack. Cashiers frequently greeted customers by name, asked about each others’ families, and showed a familiarity that doesn’t exist in bougie grocery stores. That spirit exists in the abstract, too. A parking lot bumper sticker referred to blacks as, “United, not Blighted.” Another said, “Pull Up Your Pants, Pull Up Our People.” I can’t imagine talking about “Our People” in reference to whites.
They don’t see racism behind everything. I’ve been conditioned to assume that black people have a “guilty until proven innocent” attitude toward white racism, which made me jumpy and eager to preempt misunderstandings. But when I accidentally cut in line or bumped into someone, my goof-ups never caused a stir. “Don’t mention it,” or something to that effect, was the consistent response.
That said, history and present-day injustices color their worldview. Your correspondent is neither insensitive nor suicidal enough to ask people what they thought about racism in America, so I’m relying on clues, but the clues pointed to a clear conclusion. T-shirts valorizing Malcolm X, MLK, Rosa Parks, etc. were common. Ditto with Freddie Gray, George Floyd, etc.
I’m sure I would’ve learned more, but now that’s Giant has closed, I’m not sure I’ll be able to. Opportunities to talk with lower-middle class black people are rare, and the place that made it possible got shuttered. RIP.
That's sad. I also have a grocery store I go to regularly, especially when I wanted to do some walking. The cashiers and guards as well as some customers have been familiar faces. It's like a place I can easily hang out in whenever I wanted to take a break from work at home. I can somehow imagine how it would feel like if it gets closed.