Rod Dreher has stumbled upon the startling realization that old, failing malls usually become the “black mall” before going totally defunct. And it’s a phenomenon, to his credit, he’s interested in exploring. Decidedly not to his credit, he doesn’t really want to know the actual reasons, but instead something else entirely:
Here in Dallas, I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon. I’m thinking of a particular mall that has become known as the kind of mall where poor and working-class Mexicans shop, and is on the glide path to defunctitude. If a mall gets known among white people as “the black mall”—or, I suppose, in a regional variation, as “the Mexican mall”—they just won’t go to it. Stuff White People Hate? Right-minded white people will deplore the trend, but the kind of liberal, educated white people who deplore this kind of thing aren’t the kind of white people who would be caught dead actually shopping in the black mall. They’re embarrassed by other white people who won’t shop there, and who don’t feel bad about it.
I wonder if this is a spiral: does a mall start to falter economically, making it accessible to minorities with less money to spend, who frighten middle class white people (and middle class folks of other races) away? If not “frighten,” then serve as a subconscious sign that this mall is in decline, and not where the cool people shop? I know, I know, racism and classism, let us all deplore it and move on. I’m interested in this cultural and economic dynamic. (emphasis added)
Seriously? I understand that the revelation of race and class’s impact on society can be a wake-up call, but it’s rare that someone walks right up to it and then scampers away like a scared kitten who got too close to the vacuum cleaner when it came on.
The issue, of course, is that race and class cut the wrong way when it comes to political ideology, and it doesn’t really make sense that liberal white people would be embarrassed by the lack of other melanin-lacking people around them (in fact, according to the normal conservative shibboleth, liberal whites actually hate and deplore other white people, for a variety of reasons usually related to the fact that they’re always reading Shakespeare instead of Toni Morrison and watching Judge Judy rather than Judge Mathis). So, what’s going on here?