Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?
Donald Edwards (warrl@blarg.com)
15 Apr 1995 21:54:22 -0700
Paul Bernhardt (pb1487@u.cc.utah.edu) wrote:
"Donald Edwards (warrl@blarg.com) wrote:
": My personal opinion is that it isn't race per se that makes the
": difference (I would say that most likely, stores in areas where
": most of the people live on "entitlements" have more of a problem
": with theft than stores in areas where most of the people work),
": but the factual correlation with race exists.
"Another fact of stores in minority areas is that prices are higher in
"those stores than in high SES areas. The reason is somewhat due to
"shoplifting but is also due to the fact that minorities have less
"mobility, therefore comparison shopping is less of an option for them.
Take it another layer. Who owns these stores? An amazing percentage
of them are owned by relatively new immigrants who can barely be said
to even speak English. And who live nearby.
Why?
If the higher prices allowed the owners of these stores to make more
profit than the owners of similar stores in more affluent areas, then
the stores in low-income areas would command premium prices and the
low-income, barely-English-speaking immigrants would not be able to
afford to buy them.
You'd see small business owners moving their businesses *into* the
low-income areas, not out of them.
These businesses (in general) do *not* command higher *profits* with
their higher prices. If the poor became equally mobile, and went
further to get lower prices, these businesses would not lower their
prices... they would close.
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