Big Box Stores Linked To the Presence of Hate Groups

[swag]

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/04/big-box-stores-linked-presence-hate-groups/1745/

by Emily Badger

A new study published online in the journal Social Science Quarterly – which seems sure to turn heads at Walmart headquarters – suggests that big box stores may be even more closely correlated with the presence of hate groups than many of the factors that have long been used to explain them.

Before anyone gets too worked up, the study’s authors aren’t saying that Walmarts cause hate groups to form (they’re also using Walmart here as a stand-in for all big box stores; Target merely got off the hook in the study headline). Rather, this research suggests national mega-stores like Walmart may fray the social capital in a community – by disrupting its economy and displacing the community leaders who run local businesses – in ways that enable hate groups to take hold.

The authors, Penn State’s Stephan Goetz, New Mexico State University’s Anil Rupasingha and Michigan State’s Scott Loveridge, examined the locations of Walmarts nationally from 1998, alongside data on hate groups from the Southern Poverty Law Center and several other regional indicators. Of all the variables they looked at, the number of Walmarts in a county was the second-most significant predictor of the presence of hate groups, behind only the designation of a county as a Metropolitan Statistical Area, or in other words an urban one.

Big box stores have previously been shown to produce steep declines in traditional downtown shopping districts, both in the towns that host them and surrounding communities. And economic turmoil, the authors write, is considered one precursor to “hate activity":

The hatred is not necessarily directed at the groups causing the change. Thus hate group members could easily shop at Wal-Mart while simultaneously striking out at other groups due to perceived changes in their community’s general economic outlook, regardless of the cause.

. . . more

[rfranklin]

1. Like the "Reagan Democrats" who blamed their woes on affirmative action and welfare...

whe it was actually the Republicans shipping their jobs overseas and killing the unions to drive down wages.

[freshwest]

6. +1,000

[provis99]

2. of course, there is this from 2006:

Walmart Apologizes for selling Nazi T-Shirts
http://consumerist.com/2006/11/walmart-apologizes-for-selling-nazi-tshirts.html

Also, seen at Walmart:


even Nazis gotta buy cheap Chinese junk, I guess.

[swag]

3. Ha! Great link!

[Gibby]

4. Very interesting. Back in the days of the Luddites

one of the main reasons the so-called Luddites opposed aspects of the industrial revolution (brought on by the profit-driven Republicans of yesteryear), was because of the social breakdown they foresaw industrialization causing.

Now in our era, big box Republicans love to claim that they are all about "family and community values" but apparently their mass merchandizing (industrialization) is destroying the community.

Typical republican hypocrisy.

[Sherman A1]

5. Interesting

Thanks for posting.