Hello all. It's been a LONG time since I did anything with Everyday Radical, but I feel like it's overdue given this past month.
The goal of Everyday Radical was to collect little things you could do to disengage from economic systems that force us to feed money into companies/economic structures that we may not agree with. It may not seem like much but learning how to make a solid vegetable stew from scratch, or a home made batch of mustard means you can stop consuming so much plastic, you can much more easily avoid spending money with companies that have sketchy hiring practices, or sketchy environmental records, or that take political action you are opposed to. It is very possible that over the course of the next several years we will see the erosion of regulation on a scale we haven't witnessed in a very long time. While I do not believe that "principled economic action" will ever replace government regulation, when you have a limited set of tools available to you, you have to work three times as hard to make the tools you have get the job done. It doesn't mean you don't get the job done.
So with that in mind I'm going to try to post something to this blog, or the corresponding Facebook page at least a few times a week. A lot of it will probably be recipe re-shares, or just short ideas that I will try to frame with a few words about how they can help us disengage from damaging systems, but I want to get back to this idea.
With that in mind I'm going to kick it off with a somewhat longer post about an observation that's been bothering me recently. We need to stop paying affluence tax. I am defining affluence tax here as the money we pay not necessarily for higher quality products or value, but so that we appear to be of a certain socio economic status, and in many cases that will specifically mean appearing appropriately "white". I have seen this most dramatically around food consumption, but it exists everywhere.
Over the past year I have mostly stopped shopping at mainstream grocery stores. I occasionally go to the Jewel Osco in my Neighborhood to get an odd item I can't find elsewhere, and very VERY rarely I will venture into a Whole Foods to get an especially obscure cheese or piece of meat, but those trips are down to maybe once every three months or so. My grocery shopping primarily takes place at Aldi's or a medium sized neighborhood grocery down the block from where I live. The rarity of my megamart visits has brought something into stark contrast for me. There is a massive markup on the food in the megamarts, and the only value you get for that markup is being seen shopping at "the right kind of store". You get more well lit aisles, and you get a nice convenient servant to bag your groceries for you, and the prestige of not being seen shopping somewhere you might have to do your own bagging.
The other thing you get is the "advantage" of being seen shopping where other white people shop. I've reached the point where the people who work at my local corner mart recognize me and are happy to see me, but when I first started shopping there I stood out like a sore thumb, and there was a certain amount of distrust I experienced, which having observed the behavior of other white people in this grocery I have to say was more than a little justified. The dynamic at Aldi's wasn't nearly as stark, and due to Aldi's volume no one recognizes me, but I am aware that my whiteness puts me in the minority of people who shop at Aldi's, at least the one in Uptown.
A month or so ago I stopped in at Jewel because it was on my way back from getting coffee with a friend and I figured I'd just grab some sandwich makings to have around the house since we were low. Literally everything I bought was twice the price of the same products at the corner grocery, and honestly was of questionably quality. This was deli counter product and I was kind of furious, not only at the general ripoff, but the sudden realization of what people were willing to pay to be pampered and treated as though they were in a certain class, which just happens to be more prominently white. I have been far FAR less willing to spend my money at mainstream groceries, and even less so at grocers like Whole Foods since this experience.
Given what's happening in America right now we should absolutely do work to adjust our perceptions so we see this deference to our privilege/whiteness where it lives and reject it. I've seen a lot of people ask "what can I do?" in response to the sudden realization that we may need to be fighting the good fight moving forward. If you aren't the kind of person who sees themselves marching in the streets then rebel with your pocketbook. Shop at a grocery store owned by and tailored to people who aren't privileged and white. If you are lucky enough to make a solid income don't accept the societal deference that leads us to make sure that money stays with people of our class and color. Break that economic chain as hard as you possibly can, and leave the privilege of being coddled behind when you walk into a store that isn't designed for you. Walk in those places with an understanding that you are not the center of that experience and make a choice to be fine with that. Trust me, you don't actually need all that deference. The people who work at and own the local Latin, Vietnamese, pan-Asian, etc. grocery can use your green, and once you break yourself of the notion that 4.99 is an appropriate price for a can of cold brew coffee (a thing I actually saw recently) you won't miss the luxuries of mainstream shopping that much.
If you aren't lucky enough to live in an area with less mainstream grocery options you can do the same work by buying sane brands, by shopping at local food marts, local restaurants not tailored to luxury, and just generally patronizing businesses owned and operated by and for communities other than upper middle class white folks. It makes a difference, even if only one bag of groceries of lunch at a time.
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