Friday, September 11, 2015

PROTEST Whole Foods in Oakland





The always engaged Flaneur chanced upon this action yesterday






 It could not have happened to a better villain than this Whole Foods. 
Faithful readers have had a look at what I look like:
 older, not displaying middle-class income indicia, 
flannel shirt, longish hair, sandals, back pack,
-- the type of person who started the natural foods movement
Sometimes when you enter a place you can sense
that the listless idiotic security guard
perks up when he sees you
and walks down the aisle in where one is shopping
 
This always happens at this Whole Foods, I have even overheard the heartfelt complaint of a guy with clean-looking long hair and beard who was exasperated by being followed throughout the store.
The clerk turned him over the the very same ignorant security guards who smirked and shirked.
There is one gung-ho armed black security guard
 who stands and glares through wrap-around sunglasses as you check out.
I have raised my hands to him and said, "don't shoot"
I have a hunch that they harassed one too many Black Lives Matter folks 
and this demonstration and picket line is the result

Bear in mind that a Whole Foods store can come as a godsend in a nutritional wasteland, 
but they can't get away with being at the forefront of treating anyone
other than a bourgeois fatty buying an enormous amount of food
as an undesirable or a suspect

Rampant class discrimination and bigotry will not stand
Soon after the picket went up protesters swarmed the joint,
Chanting and charmingly rampant
they forced the store to close for business














10 September 2015







So here's the story from SF Weekly:



Facebook user Zoe Marks posted graphic photos of the victim of the attack, who she says was "trying to buy groceries with his EBT card* and ended up in a stretcher."

"I just saw a young man violently assaulted by an armed security guard at Whole Foods - slammed repeatedly against concrete pillars, put in a chokehold, restrained, and suffocated until he was thrown face down on the pavement unconscious. The guard locked him out of the store despite the fact he was immobile. Not a single employee called the paramedics."
She added, "I'm sorry for more graphic images of violence against black citizens, but I was here and spoke to the victim (to keep him conscious), perpetrator, several bystanders, and cops. 
Armed private guards cannot be tolerated in our grocery stores and communities when this is what they do to paying customers."

Marks, who appears to be visiting Oakland from Edinburgh, also took to the the Whole Foods Yelp to share her account of the incident:
It's time to disarm your guards and put customers first. This young man was violently assaulted by an aggressive security officer while trying to buy groceries with EBT . He was slammed against a concrete column repeatedly, placed in a chokehold, and then suffocated over his mouth before being thrown face first on the pavement in front of the store. Instead of medical care your staff locked him out, lying unconscious in a pool of his own blood while horrified fellow customers demanded calls to the paramedics and shouted they would NEVER shop at Whole Foods Oakland again. 

* food stamps






SECURITY GUARDS 
 AN INSULT TO CIVIL RIGHTS




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