Apparently, Walgreens is supposed to be a not-for-profit charity.
Did you know this? I certainly didn’t. But thank heavens for Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley for setting me straight on the matter and pointing out that the chain closing stores in areas with rampant theft represents “disruptive, life-threatening acts of racial & economic discrimination” against “black & brown communities.”
Pressley, a member of the so-called squad (natürlich), made the comments on the House floor after the pharmacy chain announced it was closing another store in her district, this time in the Roxbury area of Boston — “a community that is 85 percent black and Latino,” she made sure to note.
“This closure is a part of a larger trend of abandoning low-income communities like the previous closures in Mattapan and Hyde Park,” both in her district, Pressley said.
“When a Walgreens leaves a neighborhood, they disrupt the entire community,” the congresswoman continued. “And they take with them baby formula, diapers, asthma inhalers, life-saving medications and, of course, jobs.
“These closures are not arbitrary and they are not innocent. They are life-threatening acts of racial and economic discrimination.”
“Why was there no community input? No adequate notice to customers?” she said. “And no transition resources to prevent gaps in health care? Shame on you, Walgreens.”
“Having a website with talking points about health equity and underserved communities is not enough,” Pressley concluded. “Walgreens is a multibillion-dollar corporation that needs to put their money where their mouth is and stop divesting from black and brown communities.”
.@Walgreens‘ closures of pharmacies in Roxbury, Mattapan & Hyde Park are not arbitrary or innocent.
They are disruptive, life-threatening acts of racial & economic discrimination.
As a multi-billion-dollar corporation, they must stop divesting from Black & brown communities. pic.twitter.com/iSvhFWw8Bl
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) January 31, 2024
According to WFXT-TV in Boston, that closing part about “no transition resources” was patently false; Walgreens is automatically transferring patient files to another location roughly a mile away and is offering free same-day delivery of prescriptions for 90 days.
It might have been nice of Pressley to mention that — but then, it also might have been nice for Pressley to mention why Walgreens was leaving.
No, the closure likely wasn’t arbitrary, but not for the reasons quoted by the congresswoman. According to CrimeGrade.org — which compiles police, FBI and other data and computes an area’s relative safety based on machine learning algorithms — the neighborhood of Roxbury scores an F overall, with an F in theft as well. (As with public school report cards, there is no F-minus or G.)
The outlet’s analysis concluded that a crime happens every 3 hours and 26 minutes in the neighborhood where the Walgreens is closing and that 92 percent of American neighborhoods are safer.
“Your chance of being a victim of theft in Roxbury may be as high as 1 in 29 in the northwest neighborhoods,” the analysis said.
The sites of the other closures are scarcely much better, according to the site. The theft crime grade in Mattapan is D-minus, and it’s a D in Hyde Park.
Walgreens, which has been one of the chains hit hardest by retail theft, has announced its intentions to close roughly 200 stores across the nation this year. Apparently, Pressley believes these closures ought to occur at random — or maybe in low-crime areas so that Walgreens can subsidize stores in high-theft areas such as Roxbury, Mattapan and Hyde Park.
According to WFXT, the chain “says there are several factors taken into account when closing a store — including dynamics of the local market and changing in buying habits of patients and customers.”
Should Ayanna Pressley be in Congress?
One surmises this is a nice way of saying the company makes these decisions based on whether the buying habits of customers actually involve buying the merchandise they leave with — because those diapers and that baby formula Pressley talks about aren’t free, even if they are oft treated as such by those patronizing the stores.
Not that the other options are much better; in California, where the legal system is practically a blueprint for how to encourage retail theft, even the cheapest items are often kept behind lock and key.
Is this what Pressley wants — stores where practically everything has to be unlocked by an employee? Or does she want more aggressive police presence and laws to deter the kind of theft that makes chains leave high-crime areas?
She didn’t speak to this on the House floor, but she didn’t need to: Of course she doesn’t. She’s a member of the “squad,” remember? It’s the legislative whirlpool where reality gets sucked in and drowns under the murky waters of whatever formless, illogical talking points fit under the aegis of what we now simply call “wokeness.”
In this case, that illogic is that corporations are just nonprofits that exist to give people products and jobs, or else they’re evil “multibillion-dollar” octopi sucking the life out of “black and brown communities.”
And where are they to get the money for those products and jobs? Well, that’s where the “logic” behind this talking point ends. Pay up, suckers! Or you’re racist.
Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. That’s not how it’s ever worked — but alas, politicians like Ayanna Pressley can convince their constituents that the corporations are the real enemy, which is probably why Roxbury residents were protesting outside the Walgreens that’s about to be shuttered.
If these residents wanted real results, they would have protested outside of Pressley’s Capitol office instead, or simply voted in better representation for themselves.
No such luck, I fear.
