Sheletta: Patti’s pies won’t be on our plate this Christmas because we’re breaking up with Walmart

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If you’re looking for me for the foreseeable future, I’ll be sitting in a Walmart parking lot with my clipboard, legal pad and pen, on the job and taking names.

I’m officially a Black Karen. I’m making a list, and checking it twice, of all the Black people still shopping at the big box retailer after the company that brags about rolling back prices went and rolled back their diversity initiatives.

When these customers drive in, I’m there to tap them on their shoulder before they walk into the store to let them know, “We’re not shopping here. Get back in your car and get your behind to Target.”

After studying the playbook of white Karens who call the police on curious Black bird-watchers and people peacefully picnicking in public parks, I’m ready to scold those who don’t regularly read the news: “Have you not heard, child? Walmart turned its back on us, so we can’t give Sam Walton’s grandchildren any more of our money.”

I’d been trying to get the word out, one shopper at a time, about how Walmart betrayed its loyal Black customers. Then it occurred to me that I have a whole column I can use to spread my message.

So, listen up, Black shoppers. Let me holler at you — and our allies — for a three minute read.

We’re going to have to find a new place to buy Christmas gifts because we’re breaking up with Walmart. And this split isn’t on us, it’s on them.

Black folks’ favorite retailer earned our allegiance by being affordable to help us stretch our hard-earned dollars. We appreciated the cheapest merchandise and fell in love with Patti LaBelle’s pies.

But now, those low prices are costing us too much. We can’t continue shopping at Walmart because they aren’t just rolling back prices, they’re rolling back progress. So, we’ve got to roll on out of their stores.

Just in time for the holidays, Walmart announced sweeping changes in its commitment to Black customers.

Walmart waved goodbye to the $100 million Center for Racial Equity established after the murder of George Floyd to address systemic racial inequality. Walmart employee training on racial equity has been phased out. The initiative to diversify suppliers by giving priority consideration to Black-owned businesses? Done and gone.

Don’t go looking for any Walmart policy or program that mentions diversity, equity or inclusion. Once regarded as a long-overdue way for Walmart to support our people, anything DEI is now labeled “woke” and therefore unworthy.

This leads me to ask, Walmart, were you playing in our faces all this time? After all the money we spent at your stores over the years, did you ever really give a damn about us? We thought the promises you made after George Floyd died would be a movement. Turns out, it was just a moment. And a brief one at that.

Walmart bowed to pressure tactics from conservative activists and backed away from everything they said they’d do, dashing the hopes and dreams of Black entrepreneurs who’d hoped to get their products on those shelves.

It’s time to lace up and get on the court to show Walmart we still got game. We’ve got to run a play they don’t think we have the guts to do: Stop shopping at their stores.

“We can do what we the people always have done: resist,” said Mahmoud El-Kati, author, activist and professor emeritus at Macalester College. “We have those warriors among us in every generation. ‘If there is no struggle there is no progress,’ as Frederick Douglass said.”

On Dec. 5, 1955, 69 years ago, the Black community of our parents’ and grandparents’ generation began the Montgomery bus boycott. Black people had endured decades of insulting treatment by the Montgomery Bus Line — shortchanged, stranded and forced to ride in the back of the bus. When riders like Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks got fed up and got arrested for refusing to give up their seats for white people, the Black community said “enough.”

The bus company thought Black people would have to ride or die — how else would they get to their jobs and make their living? But they underestimated the power of our determination and courage.

For more than a year, Black Montgomery residents refused to set foot on those buses despite the unimaginable hardship associated with their boycott. Without public transportation, they biked, hitchhiked, even rode mules and horse-drawn buggies. They walked so much that they literally wore out their shoes. Black churches around the country rallied and collected fresh footwear to show their support.

It took 382 days of steadfast sacrifice, but the bus company felt the pressure and the loss of revenue that came when 75% of their customers would not ride. The Supreme Court ruled laws that segregated Alabama and Montgomery buses were unconstitutional.

“This country changed because Black people, who were oppressed and tired, stood up. What Rosa Parks and others did was a victory for democracy, not just for Black people,” said El-Kati. “Democracy is a constant struggle, but every victory makes another victory. We did it before and we can do it again.”

It’s time to take our $1.8 trillion in Black spending power to Target, Cub, Hy-Vee or Aldi. It won’t be convenient to shop elsewhere, you say? Think of our ancestors who wore out their shoes and suck it up, buttercup. In comparison to what they did, shopping at another retailer doesn’t seem so tough.

Shopping at other stores may cost us a few pennies, but it won’t cost us our pride.

Don’t let Walmart’s Christmas commercials make you nostalgic. I saw you “Love Jones” lovers swoon over ads with Nia Long and Larenz Tate. As far as I’m concerned, they might as well put Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover in their holiday campaign, because like Celie told Mister in “The Color Purple,” “Until you do right by me, everything you think about is gonna crumble.”

Our Black dollars will tell the tale. We can show them better than we can tell them.

And speaking of crumble, Patti can keep those damn pies.