Someone nicely summed up the way I feel about People of Wal-Mart (go find the link yourself, I don't want to give them the traffic):
It would be one thing if the people making fun of "Wal-Mart People" were pure, honest, amoral decadents like Oscar Wilde. He had no pretense of moral superiority over anyone. But there's a disturbing overlap between people who call themselves politically liberal, and those who will snicker at what poor/lower-class people simply look like. It's too close to Colonialism reborn - a mandate, couched in "benevolence", to bring proper civilization to those hideous savages, the poor dears, who either need to be ruled (for their own good) or converted. Don't be surprised if the natives fight you every step of the way.
This photo is from the latest user-submitted photo blog to go viral, "People of Walmart [sic]." The caption there says, "I have to assume that this guy, in a fit of rage after a monster truck rally or tractor pull, ripped off his sleeves and then went to Wal-Mart to get a few cases of beer to enjoy on the couch on his front porch."The whole blog entry is here: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/09/make-classist-web-sites.html
Can you count the classist stereotypes in that sentence? (I came up with six.)
It would be one thing if the people making fun of "Wal-Mart People" were pure, honest, amoral decadents like Oscar Wilde. He had no pretense of moral superiority over anyone. But there's a disturbing overlap between people who call themselves politically liberal, and those who will snicker at what poor/lower-class people simply look like. It's too close to Colonialism reborn - a mandate, couched in "benevolence", to bring proper civilization to those hideous savages, the poor dears, who either need to be ruled (for their own good) or converted. Don't be surprised if the natives fight you every step of the way.
