In the fight against anti-Semitism and hate we must protect ethnic stores, instructor says

Typically, these incidents motivate a push for policies that protect Jews and other minorities from hate. This includes action to increase the presence of law enforcement at the houses of worship and schools belonging to a targeted minority. We should include places they work, says Charles Chear.

By Charles Chear

The recent killings at a kosher market in Jersey City by Black Israelites was, unfortunately, not an isolated incident of hate. Only a few years ago in Paris a Jewish grocer and hostages were killed by a terrorist affiliated with ISIS. In Pittsburgh, members of a synagogue were killed by a white nationalist.

Typically, these incidents motivate a push for policies that protect Jews and other minorities from hate. This includes action to increase the presence of law enforcement at houses of worship and schools belonging to a targeted minority. Indeed, hate violence against a minority often starts by targeting the places where they live and worship, but also where they work. This was the case in Jersey City.

The late anthropologist Walter Zenner spent his life studying Jewish subgroups, focusing on violence against Jews not as a religious group per say, but as an ethno-labor group. He followed the argument that Jews were typified as ‘middleman minorities,’ a merchant class between dominant and marginalized classes in a given society. In its’ simplest exchange model, middleman minorities buy from dominant groups and sell to marginalized, or poorer, groups.

In reality, of course, Jews occupy every strata of society. However, a legacy as shopkeepers in poor, urban neighborhoods means a lasting stereotype as middleman minorities. Jews, along with Chinese, Indians and other ethnic groups, are fraught with stereotypes that depict them as clannish people who only seek to enrich themselves. Joan Terrell-Paige’s hurtful Facebook post about Hasidic Jews as ‘brutes’ is an example. Worse, these stereotypes lead Black Israelites and white nationalists to find common ground in hate against middleman minorities. When this hate leads to violence, a place of business becomes an obvious target.

Yet, a corner store or ethnic market owned by middleman minorities is not a place we typically think to prevent hate violence. On the other hand, violence toward a house of worship or school arouses immediate action, driven by notions of sanctity and the protection of children. However, if hate violence against middleman minorities occurs frequently at the stores they operate, shouldn’t as much effort be made to protect them at such places of work?

Along with Zenner’s anthropological research, occupational health research suggests that people who work in retail stores, especially in poor and urban areas, face high rates of violence including physical assault and homicide. Although such occupational health research is seldom disaggregated by ethnicity or religion, we know from other sources that urban retail stores are synonymous with immigrant and minority owners and workers. Because corner stores and ethnic markets are typically a family-run business, the presence of children is not uncommon.

Take, for example, the metropolitan areas that run through New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia. Jewish delis and corner grocers were sold to Koreans. Dominicans and Yemenis run many of the bodegas. Cambodians and Vietnamese have a niche in operating alcohol stores. Chinese subgroups operate Chinese takeouts. With the sheer number of ethnic economies, fueled by hardworking families, policymakers should have long addressed the place-based violence they experience as a distinct labor group. Yet, this is not the case.

One problem is that the idea of middleman minorities languishes as a social theory, barely making a nudge in policymaking. During the Los Angeles riots, there was piqued interest with the broadcast of Korean-owned businesses being looted and destroyed, but this quickly waned. What the incident in Jersey City shows us, however, is that a brand of animosity toward middleman minorities still exists. In Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City, and elsewhere, Black Israelites continue to congregate downtown and spout hate about Jews and occasionally Asians, too — much of which is rooted in middleman minority stereotypes.

In order to prevent hate violence against all religious and ethnic minorities, we must protect them from hate where they work, in places like corner stores and ethnic markets. Unlike a corporate office or a bank with on-premise security, the stores that middleman minorities own and operate go unprotected. These stores, of course, should be designed to welcome all —except those who come with hate and violence.

Charles Chear is an Instructor, assistant director of Student Affairs and Newark campus coordinator for the Rutgers University School of Social Work. Chear is also a doctoral student studying immigrant and refugee health and workplace stress in urban corner stores.
