WALMART OPENS HALAL-MART IN DEARBORNISTAN
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WALMART OPENS HALAL-MART IN DEARBORNISTAN
Well looks like Walmart, the world's largest retailer, has decided that
ethnocentric pandering is the way to go in what once was the "melting pot"
of America. The United States of America's successful centuries old melting
pot of immigrants has, in recent years, turned into nothing more than a
"chunky soup". Now it looks like "America's store" is furthering the
balkanization of the United States - all in the name of profit.
Walmart has decided to go full tilt into setting up the latest in its
ethnocentrically targeted stores in Dearborn Michigan - whose mushrooming
Islamic population has caused many to rename the city - Dearbornistan. Not
only do many of the staff, of this big box store, speak Arabic - but the 650
employees are receiving "sensitivity training" how to best appease the
muslim customers - also known as dhimmitude.
With such major help from this greedy international corporation, already
accused of lowering wages and forcing thousands of American jobs overseas,
is their sefish combination of pandering and profits going to become the
downfall of Americanization? - Is this what the "new" America is becoming?
Shall we soon be the Balkanized States of America? Do we really want or need
a 20,000 sq. ft. giant retail store that is "akin to a farmers market in
Beirut"?
article in full - emphasis mine

Arab-America's Store

Wal-Mart stocks falafel, olives and Islamic greeting cards to attract
Dearborn's ethnic shoppers.

By Keith Naughton | NEWSWEEK
Mar 10, 2008 Issue

Brian Ulrich for Newsweek
Big Bazaar: Arabic-speaking staff can guide customers to the Middle Eastern
goods
As Arwa Hamad strolls a new Wal-Mart, an eight-foot display of olive oil
stops her in her tracks. "Oh, wow," she says, marveling at the sight of so
many gallons of Lebanese extra virgin. "We could go through one of these in
a week in my house." Around the corner, row upon row of gallon jars of
olives-from Turkey, Greece, Egypt and Lebanon-soak in deep hues of purple,
red and green. "Look at the size of these olives," says the stay-at-home
mother of three and native of Yemen. Hamad, 34, has shopped at Wal-Mart
before, but never one like this. She is overcome with nostalgia as she spots
Nido powdered milk and Al Haloub Cow, canned meat she calls the "Arabic
Spam." "My father loves this," she says. "People from war-torn countries,
this is what you lived on when you couldn't go out of the house to shop."
This Wal-Mart, though, isn't in a war zone. It's in Dearborn, Mich., home to
nearly a half-million Arab-Americans, the largest concentration of Arabs
outside the Middle East.

As America changes, so does the store where America shops. In Dearborn this
week, the world's largest retailer opens a store like no other among its
3,500 U.S. outlets. Walk through the front door of the 200,000-square-foot
supercenter and instead of rows of checkout counters, you find a scene akin
to a farmers market in Beirut. Twenty-two tables are stacked high with fresh
produce like kusa and batenjan, squash and eggplant used in Middle Eastern
dishes. Rimming the produce department are shelves filled with Arab
favorites like mango juice from Egypt and vine leaves from Turkey used to
make mehshi, or stuffed grape leaves. A walled-off section of the butcher
case is devoted to Halal meats, slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law
(when a Wal-Mart manager noticed the pork section was too prominent he
ordered it moved, since Muslims don't eat pork). In the freezer case, you'll
find frozen falafel. You can also pick up a CD from Lebanese pop singer
Ragheb Alama or buy Muslim greeting cards.

Wal-Mart's Arab-American emporium provides a preview of the retail giant's
latest strategy to boost business as it reaches the saturation point in its
American expansion. Over the past two years, Wal-Mart has tested its "store
of the community": it has stocked stores in Chicago and Atlanta with
products aimed at African-Americans and set up a hitching post at an Ohio
store near a large Amish community. The Dearborn store, though, is the most
extreme example of the concept. Wal-Mart offers its standard fare, plus 550
items targeted at Middle Eastern shoppers. "In the past, Wal-Mart has been
pretty cookie-cutter when it comes to merchandise," says Dearborn store
manager Bill Bartell. "But this time, we really got to know the community.
We're blazing a trail here."

Typically when Wal-Mart comes to town, it drops its big-box store on the
community with a thud. Then it rolls out rock-bottom prices that undercut
local merchants, who often wither and die. That Bigfooting has led to
passionate community opposition in many markets, including suburban Detroit,
where it opened its first supercenter just a year ago to protests over plans
to stay open 24 hours (Wal-Mart backed down to 18 hours a day).

To fit into this bastion of ethnic tradition, Wal-Mart started two years ago
to meet with imams and moms, conducting focus groups at Middle Eastern
restaurants. Wal-Mart learned the community wasn't as concerned about seeing
Arabic-language signs as they were with dealing with Arabic-speaking staff.
So Bartell hired about 35 Arabic speakers, including Suehaila Amen, a local
middle-school teacher who is providing ethnic-sensitivity training to the
650 employees. He also learned not to bother stocking traditional Muslim
clothing, like the headscarf, or hijab, Amen wears. "The community told us,
'I would not feel comfortable coming to Wal-Mart to buy my hijab'," says
assistant store manager Jordan Berke. "We're not here to overstep our
bounds."

Despite the sensitive sell, local shopkeepers still worry about Wal-Mart.
"There is a fear factor in the business community," says Osama Siblani,
publisher of Dearborn's Arab American News. To allay those fears, Wal-Mart
is making an extraordinary promise: it will not undercut the prices of the
small local merchants (though it will still go after Kroger). The insular
company even agreed to be scrutinized by a "community advisory board" made
up of local Arab-American leaders to ensure it isn't harming the mom-and-pop
shops. One example: Wal-Mart agreed to charge one dime more than local
grocers for a six-pack of pita bread.

Arwa Hamad says her devotion to Dearborn's Muslim merchants doesn't simply
rest on one thin dime. After all, when her husband goes to their Arab
butcher, he buys in bulk. "It's hard to get half a lamb at Wal-Mart," she
says. And yet, the more she wanders the aisles, the more she likes. There
are the Turkish sweets and dried dates her kids love, and the Nescafé coffee
she adores. "This brings back memories from home," she says. "I'll never
forget Mustafa's corner store, but as soon as this place opens, I'm coming
here with my checkbook." Going native just might be the next way Wal-Mart
wins.