(Not So Cont-)Rite Aid

"Animus in the Aisles"

The link goes to an article from the D.C. based Metro Weekly. They report an incident where two men were kicked out of a Rite Aid Pharmacy after displaying some affection and receiving a look from the store manager. The corporate offices (which are near my hometown in central Pennsylvania) declined to comment, and there has not been any further comment from the Rite Aid employees involved.

Clearly the motive for the security guard asking the couple to leave cannot be one hundred percent ascertained from the article, but it seems safe to say that he and/or the manager acted out of some discomfort over the couple’s public affection. Additionally, the couple’s friend was in the store and he was not asked to leave with them, so it’s not like the store was closing or anything. It seems like this is an instance of overt, individual level homophobia. I think that the public reaction would be limited, and I certainly have not heard a lot of press about this story. The couple is black, too, but there is no mention of possible racist motives in their ejection from the store. There is no doubt in my mind that if the couple was white and wealthy and lived somewhere other than Silver Spring, Maryland that there would be (slightly) more press on the subject. Even with these acts of seemingly explicit homophobia, race is a huge factor in how widely the story is promulgated. I think of the differences in reactions following the hate-motivated murder of Matthew Shepard, who was white and from Wyoming, than the more recent hate-motivated murder of Michael Sandy, who was black and from Brooklyn. Not that this particular instance of homophobia is comparable to either of these examples, but it seems that the significance attached to certain hate crimes is inexorably linked to race.

With all of that said, to be completely honest, I don’t have a strong reaction to the posted article. I’m not surprised that it happened mostly because I think it could happen (and does happen) anywhere. I typically feel myself more incensed by stories of either more harmful acts of individual homophobia or by instances of institutional homophobia that operate through more discursive means. Getting kicked out of a Rite Aid is, I can’t help but feel, par for the course. Until positive change is made on a cultural level, these instances of homophobia will keep happening and it's difficult to get outraged over each one. If the victims were more similar to me in terms of location or race, I might have a stronger identification and a stronger reaction to it. I suppose I'm only implicating myself in bemoaning the lack of outrage over acts like this. I think, though, that there is room for dialogue on the role of race and class in homophobic actions and how these social identities interact with community and cultural (non)reactions to discrimination.