Social Stratification in the Deep South

Today we attended services in the 16th Street Baptist Church - quite an experience to say the least.

I was raised Lutheran, Missouri Synod Lutheran to be exact, and turned Episcopalian only after I could no longer stand the social conservatism of my home church. Those white Protestant services are about as far from the black Baptist church as you can get. I got a taste of the black church experience when I lived in Detroit, however, and would attend the funerals of my Wayne State co-workers’ families. 16th Street Baptist did not disappoint: fabulous choir and jazz-band music, brow-mopping preacher, waving, swaying parishioners, and sinners coming down from the aisles to be saved.

What was most interesting was the “reflection” time in the bus following the church service. To some of the students, this kind of church was normal; to others it was other-worldly. I found my own reaction was closest to Ricky’s because as I watched the rapture on the faces of the choir members and the intense preaching of the pastor, I was reminded of what my friend from yesterday in the park said, “God is all the blacks ever had and all they will have. In the days of despair, they clung to his promises and in the days of deliverance they still look to him.” As Ricky pointed out, this kind of fatalism can lead to apathy or at least acceptance of one’s low condition and continues the cycle of poverty. Another saying came to mind as I sat in church, thoroughly enjoying the gospel music - that of Karl Marx calling religion the opium of the people. It keeps them occupied and keeps them down. And yet the joy on the faces in that church was real. Hmmmm…

My other experience of the day was when we drove 20 miles to a WalMart bypassing at least one Wynn-Dixie on the way, burning $3.25 a gallon gas at an alarming rate in our huge bus to get groceries for dinner. I didn’t know we were headed to a WalMart until we pulled into the parking lot.

Without thinking, I blurted out, “WalMart? I’ve never been in a WalMart in my life and I’m not about to start now!” So while everyone else went in to buy their groceries, I waited out in the bus. Later, Tania asked me what I had against WalMart and I told her the many reasons: how it is the worst example of capitalism in this country, keeping the obscenely high level of profits in the hands of the family while refusing to pay workers a living wage, how the company pays no health care benefits so the taxpayers of the state have to pick up those costs in Medicaid, how they keep women out of management levels, how their own research study showed the depressing effect on the local economy when WalMart moves in, how they arrange for outside contractors to hire illegal immigrants to clean their stores so they don’t even have to pay minimum wage for those services, and if that weren’t enough, I am from Detroit, home to K-Mart, where WalMart is to K-Mart what Toyota is to Ford and GM. They don’t pay a living wage or health care costs so it is impossible to compete with their low prices. That’s why I don’t shop at WalMart.