I feel fairly certain you have no idea what the Park Slope Food Coop is or where it is. There is no reason for you to unless you live a certain kind of life in New York City. The Park Slope Food Coop is, quite possibly, the most ridiculous supermarket in the whole world. Not because it is for the uber-rich, but because it is a supermarket for the uber-PC. The most self-righteous people shop here–making mountains out of mole hills meer blocks away from one of the poorest, and asthma-affected Latino neighborhoods in New York.
In theory, the Food Coop is a great idea. You work three hours a month at the coop for access to healthy and good produce and dry goods at a significantly reduced price. But over the years the coop has grown so big–1,600 members–that people I know who belong can't even work their mandatory 3 hours because the coop is over-staffed. They do, however, get to spend their time getting into fights.
The latest is over Israel. Some members of the coop want to ban products from the middle eastern country because they don't want to contribute to the Israeli economy while they are still in conflict with Palestinians. It turns out that the rest of the coop didn't agree.
Now, I think that people have the right to live by their principles and Lord knows, I know plenty of Latinos who do and don't do things based on how they may be connected to Chavez or Castro, so I have no problem with a food coop making these decisions. I do, however, take issue with the fact that because the coop people are so militant, and try to dominate the politics and rules of the whole of Park Slope not just the coop, that this became a HUGE news story, getting covered in the New York Times and national media–including the ultimate in news coverage, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Embedded content: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-27-2012/co-occupation?xrs=share_copy
Here is a a brief history of the things the food coop has taken a stand against according to Wikipedia:
During the apartheid regime, goods from South Africa were banned; during the Pinochet regime, Chilean grapes were removed; Nestlé products were banned because of the company's campaign to promote infant formula instead of breastfeeding.[5]
The coop would boycott Coca-Cola products (including Minute Maid and Odwalla)[6] and has renewed that boycott annually, most recently in November 2011.[7]
In 2010, in response to an announcement by the menswear retailer Barney's New York that they would be opening a location in Brooklyn called Barney's Coop, the PSFC General Meeting considered taking action in light of the company's apparent violation of New York's Cooperative Corporations Law, which restricts the use of the term "coop" to cooperative corporations.[24] The general coordinators informed the state attorney general of the violation and presented a plan for a lawsuit to the July 2010 General Meeting, which rejected the proposal for anticipated costs. A more limited proposal was approved by the August 2010 General Meeting but later overturned on procedural grounds.[25]
See, this is what my issue is: It's fine to have a conscious about social injustice but against a retail store for using the word 'coop"–are they serious? What particularly annoys me about this is my abuelo, who came here from Puerto Rico, owned a bodega less than 5 blocks from where the coop is located. Now, due to all these socially minded folks, he could NEVER own a business in the Slope, because while they are very busy worrying about Israel and South Africa and how you feed your kids, they are ignoring what is happening in the blocks immediately surrounding them.
Remember people, the coop sells goods, which families living only a few blocks further south can't afford to buy. If the coop-ers want to make a difference in the world they should start at home and let the kids of Sunset Park in to buy groceries since the prices are so discounted and they have plenty of over-wraught PC Park Slopers to lend a hand.
Image via wallyg/flickr
