It’s hard to tell anymore if a story is real or fake. When I first read an article about how black activists didn’t want a Trader Joe’s store in its neighborhood because “the development would price black residents out of the area,” I thought the story was from The Onion.

There was this story from the The Daily Currant: “A woman was arrested today for stabbing to death three shoppers at a Chicago area Wal-Mart in order to secure the store’s last X-Box One.” The Daily Currant and The Onion are satire sites, but their fake stories are close enough to reality to be believed.

But it’s true that a number of so-called black activists don’t want Trader Joe’s to invade Portland’s “historically African-American neighborhood” because “the development would displace residents and perpetuate income inequality.” Income inequality is better than no income.

There’s also a racial element to the story. A Trader Joe’s “would ‘increase the desirability of the neighborhood’ for ‘non-oppressed populations.’” Non-oppressed populations = white people.

Better to keep black people in poverty than to incentive them to escape the ravages of government welfare programs that empower politicians and the expense of the poor.

There is a Trader Joe’s not so near to where I live. My wife and I love shopping there, but we don’t shop there very often because of the distance. We would love to have a Trader Joe’s in our neighborhood.

“The Portland Development Commission had offered a steep discount to the grocer on a parcel of nearly two acres that was appraised at up to $2.9 million: a purchase price of slightly more than $500,000. The lot is at Northeast Alberta Street and Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and has been vacant for years.”

A vacant lot that has not been producing anything was going to be brought into production. Do I have to say it? There are some blacks who don’t want to see black neighborhoods succeed. They need them depressed in order to take political advantage of them.

This tactic is similar to the way Communist countries propagandized their people. The glories of Communism were extolled while capitalism was condemned as exploitive. The thing of it is, the average Communist citizen never saw the sprawling supermarkets filled with food. They never saw that there were no long lines or empty shelves. If that’s exploitation, I’ll take a barrel full.

The Trader Joe’s “store would have been the anchor of a two-building development that included space for four to 10 shops and 100 parking spaces. A company owned by African-Americans in Portland had been slated to build it.” No deal, said the “black activists.”

Let’s not forget that long-term jobs would have been created. “[T]he chain is continuously praised as one of the highest paying grocers in the world. New employees start out at $10-20/hr., supervisors make $45k-75k/yr. and store managers bring in six-figure salaries. Also, the company makes regular contributions to employee 401k accounts.”
This is called cutting of one’s nose to spite his face.

Trader Joe’s will continue to build its stores. People will be employed. The standard of living of everybody involved will be increased, just not in this “historically African-American neighborhood” in Portland, Oregon.

And what will many of the black citizens of this “historically African-American neighborhood” be told to blame their condition on? White privilege.