Monday, February 14, 2011

The Tuskegee Experiment Part II: Wal-Mart Moves into Washington D.C. and Chicago

Wal-Mart. We’ve talked about this company before (Black Friday twice, cheaper prices for unwanted goods, braving the back of the line, PA announcements gone awry, and worse, who represents the real peopleofwalmart.com) and must now discuss how this store is attempting to penetrate into new, exotic markets within foreign nations.
Wal-Mart attempted a real Tuskegee Experiment with unsurprising results

If Detroit can claim that vehicles made there are “imported” to the United States, then Wal-mart’s bid to open stores in metropolitan areas that have similar demographics to the Motor City can only be construed as attempts to offer their services to a developing (nation) marketplace.

Wal-mart is about to open a store in Washington D.C., an area seemingly ill-equipped for a store that operates under strict guidelines of maintaining a high profit margin. Thievery – either organized or by a desperate individual – cuts deep into a retailers ability to turn a profit, a problem Wal-Mart has traditionally avoided:
Wal-Mart declined to offer any explanations for the rise in losses but denied it has cut security staff and said employee morale is rising rather than falling.


Although Wal-Mart declined to reveal any details, analysts suspect Wal-Mart -- which for years had a theft loss rate that was half that of its peers -- is getting closer to the industrywide average.
Theft is a big problem for all retailers, costing them $41.6 billion last year, according to a joint study released this week by the National Retail Federation and the University of Florida. The study found that the theft rate as a percentage of sales ticked upward slightly to 1.61% of sales in 2006 from 1.60% in 2005. 


Whatever the cause, such theft -- which late founder Sam Walton once called one of retailers' top profit killers -- adds one more challenge when Wal-Mart is already struggling with sluggish sales at its established stores due to an overall economic slowdown as well as its own stumbles in its home- and apparel-merchandising strategies.

Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and CEO of Wal-Mart's U.S. store division, briefly acknowledged the theft problem in a mid-May conference call with analysts. He cited shrinkage as well as increased markdowns and higher inventory for dragging down first-quarter profit margins.
"We are concerned about shrinkage and are investigating the cause and are taking steps to correct it," Castro-Wright said. Company officials won't comment on those countermeasures.

To maintain healthy profits, Wal-Mart must continue to have high profit margins. Opening a new store in an area prone to high rates of crime is not conducive to this business model. Is this one reason why the new store in Washington D.C. is becoming such an interesting debate?:

When politicians, agency officials and other establishment types discuss the pros and cons of Wal-Mart opening stores in poor, retail-starved neighborhoods in the District, they often talk about pretty high-minded stuff. Fair pay. Job training. Environmental safeguards…

First, would a new Wal-Mart there really stock the same quality of food and products as its stores do in better-off, suburban communities?

"I'll believe it when I see it," Mya Harris, 24, said skeptically. "Sure, you can put the store here, but what are they going to put inside it?"

Second, and I was amazed when this anxiety was aired in fully half the interviews, residents worry that the store would suffer severely or even fail because of petty theft.

 "There'll probably be a lot of shoplifting going on. They'll need a lot of security," Terriea Sutton, 35, said.

Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk. Addressing a small, anti-Wal-Mart rally at City Hall on Monday, Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn't resist the temptation to steal.

Wal-Mart said District residents needn't be so self-critical. Although security is "always a concern and a focal point for all stores, there is no more concern over these District locations than any other store locations," company spokesman Steven Restivo said.

It's sad that people have such a low opinion of their own community. Happily, with prudent oversight from the city, Wal-Mart's arrival should be a significant step forward for the neighborhood and the District as a whole.

When white flight from major cities began 40-50 years ago, the major stores fled with them. In a bid to seek new profits and enlarge its market share, Wal-Mart is expanding to areas where gentrification is slowly taking place:
 Starting with its new big-box store under construction in Chicago, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it will build 50 stores in urban neighborhoods distressed by high unemployment and other social problems in cities around the country.

    Lee Scott, the company's chief executive, made the announcement Tuesday at the Austin neighborhood construction site of Chicago's first Wal-Mart store.

    He said the new stores planned for inner-city neighborhoods over the next two years would create 15,000 to 20,000 jobs.

    "We will be bringing back about 400 jobs in this store," Scott said. He said the Austin store, like some urban stores elsewhere in the country, will have special programs to benefit local businesses, such as help with selling to Wal-Mart.

    Local minority and women-owned businesses will be sought out for construction work on the new stores, Scott said. The general contractor for the Austin store is an African-American woman, and minorities and women were among those hired as subcontractors. The store is to open this summer.

    Wal-Mart said it has not decided where it would locate the new stores.
    "We have been approached in the past by Detroit," said John Bisio, spokesman for Wal-Mart. "You could also look at communities in parts of Houston."
    He said Philadelphia might also be a candidate.

    Economists say an increasing number of businesses are recognizing that while residents of some urban neighborhoods may be poor, the density of population makes for substantial buying power.     

   Critics say small merchants cannot compete with Wal-Mart's prices, and that many of its employees end up on Medicaid because of low incomes and high insurance costs.
    Until recently, Wal-Mart stores more likely were to be found in rural areas or suburbs than in the heart of major cities. But analysts say the company is intent on locating in densely populated city neighborhoods, even those where household incomes are low and crime is high.

    Joseph Beaulieu, stock analyst with Morningstar, said Wal-Mart realizes it must remake its image if it is to be welcomed by cities.

    "They have had a hard time working with municipalities," Beaulieu said. "Over the past year and a half, they have shown increasing flexibility. They are going to have to change their reputation."

Wal-Mart’s business model that helped it grow into one of the largest companies in the world was to bypass heavily populated cities filled with crime (and, well, Black people) and instead open stores in suburbs and rural areas heavily populated by white people.

This business model of avoiding minority areas served Wal-Mart quite nicely, with high profit margins and selling in bulk making it possible to offer products at lower prices.

It should be noted that Wal-Mart did participate in a minority outreach program before, opening a store in Tuskegee, Alabama. A heavily Black town on the verge of financial ruin, Tuskegee was home to an infamous experiment that preyed heavily upon its Black population.

Wal-Mart opened a store in Tuskegee back in 1981, and Wal-Mart accountants quickly found that opening stores for the positive, charitable publicity it would generated wasn’t economically viable. Rumors have persisted that losses from theft exceeded store revenues and that this Tuskegee Wal-Mart was closed one day, its inventory surreptitiously removed thanks to the cover of night and an army of trucks, and that the store was boarded up and empty the next day.

These might be apocryphal stories, but one thing is crystal clear: The Tuskegee Experiment failed by Tuskegee's Black citizenry pillaged the store with an intensity rarely seen at Wal-Mart.  

The Wal-Mart Tuskegee Experiment was a failure. Opening a store in a heavily minority area (next to a school that has produced 70 percent of all of America’s Black veterinarians) was a financial burden Wal-Mart wasn’t prepared to force stock holders to endure.

Wal-Mart’s hope of opening new stores in untapped markets is to be commended, but even the customer base of the new Washington D.C. store worries about shoplifting and an augmenting of police files. The Tuskegee Experiment was a monumental mistake that few people seem willing to talk about anymore, and one is left to wonder if Wal-Mart learned any lessons.

A company that has pioneered data-mining, revenue management and tracking purchases to predict consumer habits seem bent on disregarding the lessons of the Tuskegee Experiment. One can only wonder these Wal-Mart stores will look like at the end of every month:
Bill Simon is head of Wal-Mart’s American operations. At a conference on September 15 put on by Goldman Sachs, he said that there is a big jump in sales at the beginning of the month, when welfare payments arrive, with an “ever-increasing amount of transactions being paid for with government assistance.”

As he explained:
“And you need not go further than one of our stores on midnight at the end of the month. And it’s real interesting to watch, about 11 p.m., customers start to come in and shop, fill their grocery basket with basic items, baby formula, milk, bread, eggs, and continue to shop and mill about the store until midni

ght, when . . . government electronic benefits cards get activated and then the checkout starts and occurs. And our sales for those first few hours on the first of the month are substantially and significantly higher.

“And if you really think about it, the only reason somebody gets out in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they’ve been waiting for it. Otherwise, we are open 24 hours—come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m. But if you are there at midnight, you are there for a reason.
Will the book section of Wal-Mart stay segregated in these new stores? It’s safe to say that Wal-Mart learned absolutely no lessons from the Tuskegee Experiment and, in fact, buried that mistake deep in corporate red tape.

The lessons extrapolated from this tale should be obvious to all. It should be noted that this story smells of Mall Envy.



25 comments:

Harold "Harry" White said...

Foolish endeavor by Wal-Mart. Just like with the issue of "mall envy", those same denizens will completely disregard their local Wal-Mart for whatever and wherever white people spend their dollars. In Houston where I reside, despite the fact that Sharpstown, Almeda and Northwest Malls are all "urban-centric", black patrons will go to great lengths to go to Memorial City, Baybrook, Willowbrook or the Galleria because "Ain't nothin' poppin' over there".

Despite the fight for Civil Rights, the only lesson that most black people have learned is that whites and other races have, they better "let us in...or else!" Sadly, any and all attempts to redress these past "wrongs" are rebuffed by BRA because racism for profit is a golden goose.

Then again, much like that time-honored story, the golden goose was inevitably killed and the farmer (black people) was doomed to hunger and poverty due to his own actions. It happened with the sugarcane farms in Haiti (profitable) and with the farms of Zimbabwe (also profitable).

Black people are creative alright...they create new and exciting way to fail every decade. Except for Ethiopia, which proves daily that the black folks were failing long before recorded history.

Anonymous said...

Used to go to Wal-mart in rural Virginia and it was immaculate and pleasant. It was so nice even Mennonites would shop there and had their own horse post in the front of the store. In suburban DC Wal-mart is a nightmare. Imagine Pakistan smashing into El Salvador and then Somalia. The customer base is third world and unpleasant to spend any time around. If suburban DC is bad, I can't imagine what those feral blacks will do in DC.

Inner city grocery stores generally require armed guards and hiring local blacks will further degrade the store (constant employee lawsuits, organized theft by employees). This is a big mistake.

BowleDover said...

Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn't resist the temptation to steal

Yet another example of the depths us blue-eyed devils will plumb in order to screw over the noble Black Man. As if discriminating against them by not opening businesses in their neighborhoods for no good reason other than racism isn't enough, now we're coming up with fiendish, diabolical entrapment schemes such as...opening businesses in their neighborhoods. Evil, I tell you, pure evil!

Anonymous said...

I grew up in New Orleans East in the 1980s. The local mall, The Plaza, had an indoor ice skating rink. The fondest memories I have of my childhood are going to The Plaza during Christmas. The Plaza managers decorated it to the hilt. Amazing.

The a bunch of capitalized capitalists came in and built section-8 apartment complexes all along the I-10, and I mean DOZENS of them. A few years later, Dillards annouced they were closing because they couldn't control "shrinkage" (theft) because the SECURITY GUARDS were letting their cousins steal everything not nailed down.

"Shrinkage" at Wal-Marts located in >20% negro areas must really piss off the stock holders.

I don't mind paying taxes. I'm proud to pax taxes because I know roads and police won't pay for themselves. Beyond that, I have a real problem paying taxes so BLACK people on welfare can buy products made in China. But hey, maybe I'm sensitive ....

The Engineer

Hirsch said...

Not sure if it's apocryphal or not, but there was a story that Sam Walton used to ride in a helicopter over cities and towns where he was considering opening one of his stores. The criteria was that the community should be filled with churches; the more churches there were in a locale, the more likely Walton was to open one of his stores. Black neighborhoods are filled with baptist Churches.

Wal-Mart Be Racist said...

I was racially profiled at Wal-Mart just last night here in Durham, NC (a "chocolate city"). Due to the ongoing theft at this store there was an employee posted at the exit checking the bags and receipts of everyone, 100% black, as they were leaving the store so I had to wait in line for a minute to leave. When it came my turn the Wal-Mart employee waived this green eyed blonde devil through without glancing at the receipt in my hand or the three bags in my cart. The funniest thing to me is that the theft checker was himself black! I chuckled all the way to my car.

John Sobieski said...

This is nothing more than a political correct move by Walmart and will fail. These innercity walmarts will be robbed blind and the stockholders will pay for this 'feel good' folly.

Desiree said...

I go to Wal-Mart every week. Just today I went in to buy chewing gum (a bad habit).

I can't believe I am saying this on this site but I go to one Wal-Mart and it is one of those 'markets'. It's in a 'nicer' area, although the patrons are black and white, even on the First of the Month (EBT upload day), as well as the employees (Las Vegas is very diverse and nice areas are often mixed communities).

But... I will only go to this one because the others have too many, well, black people. This is why I can't go to others. I pulled into the lot of one (and this Wal-Mart is nice and clean, though) and it was just a lot of black people!

And I cannot go in because I don't want to get 'hit on', which is especially difficult when you have an identical twin. Also, black people are obsessed with twins, which is annoying.

So, while I definitely don't like all-white stores (I feel like they are profiling, which is a truly humiliating experience), I loathe going into a predominantly black store and feel like I've survived battle when I can get in and out without a fellow black trying to chat me up and ask the typical questions. I was grabbed at a Wal-Mart and I have not been back to that one sense (well, outside of Xmas, which was horrifying).

There. I fucking said it because Wal-Mart is a sore subject. I don't like so-called TNB (I watched an episode of Police Women of Cincinnati and I was saddened by the way a black 'mother' conducted herself). But I can't blame them because they usually are of lower socio-economic classes (I have money) and they know not what they do.

I love black people, I just hate the harassment that comes with being me. I have no qualms in saying that some of them--definitely not the majority--act a fool...

White Guy said...

"Imagine Pakistan smashing into El Salvador and then Somalia."

I know exactly what you mean.

I'm in Miami, Fl right now and had the displeasure of shopping at a Wall-Mart here.

Think of Haiti ramming into Cuba then Guadalajara and then Puerto Rico. It's a disgusting, dirty and filthy shopping experience. A mish-mash of perverted French and perverted Spanish rang from wall to wall. The damn cashier didn't even speak English.

100 percent third-world customer base.

The store was literally filthy and unbearable. It was a stressful experience to say the least and I left angry and agitated.

The Wall Mart in Lewiston, ID is the exact opposite ... I wonder why?

I can't wait to leave this third-world cesspool. How these idiot DWLs think we can have a first-world nation with a third-world population is beyond me.

Pedro the Ignorant said...

Costs of even building this store will be astronomical.

Building material theft will begin on Day One and stock theft will continue until the inevitable closure due to "shrinkage", probably within months.

What are these people thinking? You could put the whole of the USMC on guard outside the doors and a sizeable percentage of the stock will still disappear.

Anonymous said...

Blacks scream and moan about being "underserved" and "overlooked" by businesses. My town tried to put a huge chain grocery called Cub Foods in the inner-city to "serve" the black population. They were robbed at gunpoint so many times and experienced so much theft that they closed within six months. Just ask any black person, shoplifting is a family value in the black community. Besides drug dealing and turning tricks, stolen goods are a viable career option for inner-city thugs. They roll into the hood, open their trunks, and you can pick out what you like. They see nothing wrong with it.

Find a wallet on the ground? Take the cash and cards and throw it back down. See patio furniture not nailed down? It is yours for the taking. Blacks are entitled to EVERYTHING in their own minds.

A few weeks ago, I saw two ghetto fabulous black women in the local mall parking garage unloading clothing and shoes into the trunk of their crappy car. They had loaded their purses with shoplifted items and then went back in for more. I reported this to the black security guards, showed them the car, gave the plate ID, and even showed them the two she-thugs, but they did nothing.

I would never open a business in a black neighborhood. Never!

Anonymous said...

"I loathe going into a predominantly black store and feel like I've survived battle when I can get in and out without a fellow black trying to chat me up and ask the typical questions."

So, what are the "typical questions" that blacks ask, Diseree?

Something like "hey miss lady, pssst! pssssst!, you shawl do look nice today miss lady" Or maybe, "Give me your wallet, bitch.", or "What the fuck YOU lookin' at?" Maybe they are so drawn to you because you "have money" and they can smell it?

And it is funny that you call them "fellow black" and then say you have survived a battle after experiencing them in their natural habitat. You are afraid of blacks and you should be. And yes, the majority of blacks do behave in this manner, just ask any white person and see how hard they work to stay away from you. You have obviously not spent much time with REAL blacks.

and this:

"I love black people, I just hate the harassment that comes with being me..."

made me laugh lo hard I almost peed my pants.

Anonymous said...

"I have no qualms in saying that some of them--definitely not the majority--act a fool..."

Love how you get real sassy ghetto black with us now and then. Wake up Diseree!!!

Black "actin a fool" means rioting, killing, raping, mugging, looting and mayem. It is part of the black collective's value system.

Black "actin a fool" is turning huge parcels of American land into a trash heaps in black neighborhoods and cities.

Black "actin a fool" is another word for third-world bush behavior and is urban terrorism against the American people.

It will cause blacks to destroy themselves and everything in their path. I don't take this lightly and most whites don't either. You should not celebrate the vile pathology of black people.

Anonymous said...

"Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk. "

Like I said before, just ask any "real" authentically black person and they will tell you the truth about blacks. Listen to them! If you can't find one to talk to, get a DVD by Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle. They will tell you the truth about blacks.

Blacks are criminal by nature. Like Diseree says, "actin' a fool". If you give them a rope, they will hang themselves (no pun intended.) If you give blacks a crack (no pun here either), they will find a way in. A black will destroy everything in his path, it is his nature. The white man dangles shiny carrots in front of black noses to his own demise.

Blacks do not deserve nice things. If really wanted nice things, they would create them for themselves.

South East Asian said...

Opening a business in a black neighborhood is no different from opening a business in a warzone.

I feel sorry for those asian immigrant who don't know any better LOL

Anonymous said...

"I feel sorry for those asian immigrant who don't know any better LOL"

Don't feel too sorry. Asians know how to deal with blacks and they are doing quite well for themselves. Get yourself a shitty little building, put up a few "No Loitering" signs and a big iron locking security gate and you are in business. Blacks do not demand much in the way of aesthetics, don't you know.

In the black ghetto, blacks spend thousands of dollars on hair weaves and wigs, cheap ghetto clothing and fake bling, and pork rind chips and red pop that the Asians can laugh their way straight to the bank.

Cha-ching. Blacks can cry all they want about not owning anything in "black" neighborhoods, but even if they could not ALL rub their brains together in unison, they could not work up enough IQ for that.

The blacks are the dumb ones, ass out, a day late and a dollar short, once again. There is nothing sustainable in the black ghetto, including the shopping options.

Anonymous said...

Difference between whites and blacks is as follows.

Whites sometimes think about their distrust of blacks, our nation's "black problem", the damage that blacks create, but will not act out violently and do not loom over it constantly. We are not race obsessed, but only attempt to keep our society stable. Whites pity blacks because they are not like whites. Whites don't dream at night about destroying the black race, and would never intentionally physically hurt blacks (unless provoked, of course.) Whites are more humane, civil, just, and fair. Whites discuss with each other about how to manage and often how to help the black race be better. We are mostly interested in promoting other whites, however. This is why blacks are often left out on the good stuff, because they choose not to participate and to instead self-segregate. This breeds black rage and jealousy.

Blacks, in contrast, are not humane and have intent to harm and kill. They often act at the most basic animalistic level. Fight or flight. They are hell-bent on destroying white people, white culture, who they see as their oppressor. Blacks are extremely jealous of whites and do not realize that without whites, they would not exist in large numbers.

Blacks don't have the power or organizational skills to actually harm whites in large numbers, and often turn their rage inward and hurt their own people instead. Self-hatred actualized. Blacks have intent to steal, loot and rape. They have intent to disrupt, to threaten, to destroy. It is in their nature.

We are not the same.

~AV~ said...

God I love this site! News placed neatly and squarely in front of us. Those of us with eyes that can see...know what is lurking in about 12 months when all the welfare checks...trickle to a close...when the entitlements all dry up and disappear...WalMart and other super stores will soon have their challenges when the "entitle'ees...decide they need their stuff....and riot their way thru the stores...

Anonymous said...

Part of me thinks that Ghetto Walmart is going to be one giant sting operation like you see on Cops, Baitcar, or To Catch a Predator. All of the employees will secretly be undercover police officers that line up all the inventory as bait and wait for the perp to walk out of the store. Then, right outside the door a cage will fall on them the perp will get hauled into a jail at the back of the store where the look on incredulously and hilariously deny everything even as the officer plays everything back on surveillance tape.

~AV~ said...

It seems to me...that the black ghettos are better suited to the "Dollar Store" clientele...anyhow...WalMart offers products that are outside the average ghetto dwellers shopping experience...just too tempting...just isn't as much fun shoplifting from a dollar store...now is it????

Anonymous said...

I used to manage a retail store and the blacks were ALWAYS shoplifting or trying to use a stolen credit card. And Diseree wonders why she gets profiled all the time. Because blacks steal! It is called "gettin' mines". White people are just stingy, and so blacks are entitled to take things.

I remember once walking through a Crate and Barrel at our upscale fashion mall a while back, saw a couple of hood rat black women with fists full of expensive cutlery and huge purses on their shoulders.

The women had Aunt Jemima style scarves wrapped around their heads and were wearing what looked like hip-hop pajamas. They were shoplifting, of course, and stood out like a sore thumb. Their big eyes were darting all around in search of security guards, who do not exist at the fashion mall.

I followed one of them, and when her eyes met mine, she knew I was on to her and she darted around a corner and hit the up escalator with the merchandise. I told a floor manager that they were shoplifting, and he just said, "Yeah, I already saw them. Blacks come here all the time and steal things. Unfortunately we can't do anything about it or stop them because they will sue us for racism. We have them on tape but were told to never stop them because they might have guns."

Damn law-abiding white people, always gettin' in the way and sheeeit.

Has it really come to this????

~AV~ said...

Check this shit OUT! Black leadership...no wonder feral blacks...are FERAL....


http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/02/15/john-wiley-price-dallas-county-commissioners-go-to-hell/

~AV~ said...

to Harold "Harry" White....

I'm in Houston too.....

Anonymous said...

Yes. It has come to this. I've worked retail in the past. My shoplifters were, with one exception, negroes. ALL bounced checks were written by negroes. Stereos bought on a Friday and returned Monday aftrt the party were returnee by negroes.

Anonymous said...

I went to a WalMart and couldn't find an item that I was looking to purchase. I asked a clerk for help and she responded "No habla ingles." I screamed "fecking learn it!" I walked out. The wonders of diversity just slapped me in the face. -- the Man