Community activists attempted to shame a pharmacy chain for another store closure amid a shoplifting wave, protesting the wrong problem.
“What is your expectation as a corporate citizen…”
(Video: WBZ)
Metropolitan areas throughout the country have been feeling the brunt of their soft-on-crime policies as retailers have taken to locking up merchandise or packing up for safer prospects elsewhere. Bracing for the impact of a local Walgreens shuttering for good in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, a former NAACP leader blasted the company for putting their “bottom line” above the community.
“What is your obligation? What is your expectation as a corporate citizen to do what’s right for those communities beyond what’s right just for your bottom line?” former Boston NAACP president Michael Curry, now an advocate for the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, told WBZ.
“The communities where they’re closing these pharmacies are communities where people are desperately impacted by disease. Two or three times higher rates in cancer, diabetes, heart disease. Where life expectancy can be 15, 20 years less,” he had further lamented.
Ahead of a planned protest outside the location set to close on Jan. 31, following three other store closures in 2022, Reverend Miniard Culpepper of the Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church said to the outlet, “What happens to our seniors and our single parents that have nowhere to get to a Walgreens or another pharmacy anywhere near their homes? And so we think it’s insensitive — it’s unjust.”
Community members had gathered Friday outside the location with signs that read “Hell No Walgreens” as they demanded the store remain open despite the impact of crime on operations.
“This Walgreens is critical, not just to this community but the surrounding communities and the seniors,” asserted Culpepper.
In their own statement reported by the Boston Globe, Walgreens said, “With Walgreens’s goal to be the independent partner of choice, not just in pharmacy but also in healthcare services where we can improve healthcare, lower costs, and help patients, we need the right network of stores.”
The newspaper indicated that the next nearest pharmacy is a CVS said to be a 15-minute walk away from the closing Walgreens.
Activist attempts to bully the company into remaining open were ill-received on social media as users reacted to the likes of Culpepper and Curry demanding Walgreens take a hit with shame directed toward the leaders for not pointing their focus on the degradation of the community.
“Why are they addressing the stores and not the community? Shouldn’t the people do what’s right for their communities?” asked one user as Dilbert creator Scott Adams snarked, “I blame Walgreens for selfishly not wanting to lose money.”
“How about the leaders of the Black communities start taking some responsibility for the actions of those who are causing all of the havoc,” said another account. “You can’t put the blame on these companies for pulling out.”
Why are they addressing the stores and not the community? Shouldn’t the people do what’s right for their communities?
— The Appalachian Podcast (@GetOnTap) January 16, 2024
I blame Walgreens for selfishly not wanting to lose money. https://t.co/UwOHnJS6bE
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 17, 2024
How about the leaders of the Black communities start taking some responsibility for the actions of those who are causing all of the havoc.
You can’t put the blame on these companies for pulling out.
— Planet Of Memes (@PlanetOfMemes) January 16, 2024
Instead of getting upset with the companies for leaving, why not get upset with the people who rob the stores?
Gather people from the community to teach them about respect, because it’s obvious they know nothing about it.
— JokerWonderWoman (@JokerWonderW) January 17, 2024
NAACP wants stores to just give products away and go out of business.
This is Marxism and the redistribution of wealth.
It’s what lazy people think is right.
These adults are the result of growing up without a competent father at home.
— Paul A. Szypula (@Bubblebathgirl) January 16, 2024
They complain about the food/retail deserts THEY create!! pic.twitter.com/EyOYZJT5vZ
— Marie Isabella (@MarieIsabellaB) January 17, 2024
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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