It’s hard to read this RawStory article and not think we’ve reached some kind of consumerist event horizon, or that we’re now witnessing some final, absurdist connecting of the dots between education and capitalism. Back in ‘08, President Obama condemned Hillary Clinton for serving on the board of Walmart, a company notorious for its low-paying, dead-end jobs.
Those same jobs, though, are becoming increasingly welcome in a cities like Detroit where unemployment rate have rocketed up to an alarming 50%. Well, the Detroit solution seems as sad as it is inevitable:
Four inner-city high schools have decided that employment with Walmart is an opportunity worth training their students to pursue. The schools have teamed up with the giant merchandiser to offer a for-credit class in job-readiness training that also includes entry-level after-school jobs. According to the Detroit Free Press, the principal at one of the schools optimistically suggested that “the program will allow students an opportunity to earn money and to be exposed to people from different cultures—since all of the stores are in the suburbs.”
The announcement of the program outraged Donna Stern, the Midwest coordinator for the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights And Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “They’re going to train students to be subservient workers” she told the Free Press. “This is not why parents send them to school.”
Ah, yes, exposing inner-city kids to the “wild diversity” common to all suburban areas, that’s the Walmart goal!
