The Trials and Tribulations of Being an Ethical Shopper
Lyric Eschoe
I often go to the grocery store, to the extent where I wonder if I am a non-playable character in a video game, whose only dialogue choice is to mention how I’m heading to Target later on. So, I find it incredibly ironic that in 2020, in the time of our dear pandemic/uprising/climate crisis that now the only place I go to is the supermarket.
Supermarkets shifted into ‘essential businesses’, almost within a week. We saw people putting more value on them than they previously did before. People began to question what protections were being put in place for workers who were putting their lives on the line to keep these stores stocked and safe. It became clear which stores were concerned about protecting their employees and which weren’t. Of course, as time went on, these safety precautions all went out of the window. Corporate America hoped to sweep these changes under the rug and return to our "old way". They hoped we'd accept this new normal, which worked for a week until we saw the fiery resurgence of the Black Lives Matter Movement in mainstream media. This sets the scene for our dilemma.
There’s something so chaotic about corporate performative activism. We saw every brand imaginable, from Popeyes to Tinder, suddenly putting an up 4:5 graphic with a black background and white wording to let us know that they “stand with the Black community”. However, in most cases, they were the same brands with their own history of anti-Black behavior. I mentioned that I go to the store, at the very least, on a biweekly basis. The problem I noticed with stores was them posting their corporate diversity graphic, and then a week later, they sent an employee home for wearing a BLM mask.
As these brands started to get exposed for supporting BLM in public but not in private, there were mass calls to boycott them and instead support local small businesses. I already tried to make an effort to shop at locally-owned grocery stores since they were likely to be less crowded. However, the closest one to me was 4 miles away, and they were more expensive.
Seeing brands getting exposed left and right put me in a weird position. Online, I was preaching about the evils and advocating for the dismantlement of capitalism and how to work to be an antiracist. However, I found myself in situations where I bought from brands like Publix and Amazon. This was already the result of me boycotting my neighborhood Kroger because they didn’t even try to hide that they criminalized shoppers. It left me conflicted, I’m well aware that there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, however, I always advocate shopping “ethically.” It often feels like the conversation around boycotting is very clean cut. There is a brand that does something, there’s a movement to boycott, then that’s it. In reality, it tends to be a little more nuanced than that. When you have a brand like Gucci, something I’m not even in the tax bracket to afford, it's pretty easy to boycott. When it comes to something I use monthly, it becomes a little bit harder.
When we’re not stuck on “Zoom University”, Walmart and Chick-fil-A are two of the most accessible and affordable places to me in the AUC. I’m extremely against what both companies invest in, but when stuff has been tight, I can’t deny that both are a 10-minute walk away for cheap food. Amazon often has affordable items I need for class, and they arrive in a more timely manner than any other retailer.
I think oftentimes boycotting is presented as this end all be all solution that doesn’t stop to take in the nuances of a situation. Certain areas are surrounded by these establishments, and many people who live in these places can’t afford to go to an entirely different neighborhood to shop. Which, I guess comes down to me, how does a young Black college student who is actively advocating for the end of capitalism manage to shop ethically in this day and age? Well, the answer is I don’t, and honestly, I don’t think it is completely possible for a person to or should even be expected to fix the problem alone.
We want to be as ethical as we possibly can because it seems like no matter where we turn, we run into something problematic. In an alternate version of 2020, where everything is fine, I’d probably end this by saying something about that’s why it is important to support small marginalized-people owned businesses, and you should. However, the impact of COVID has made it difficult for many of them to stay open and fulfill orders, on top of the lack of aid and funding from the government. As we’ve seen, this issue is more nuanced and challenging than we’d like it to be, and there will probably be more conversations as the year goes on.