One uncomfortable truth that few of us openly talk about is that to be "liberal" usually means to be socially conscious... AND generally (not always) of a higher socio-economic class than those we seek to help.
When people are suffering and we can help, we must help. That is undeniable. But in the helping, it is all too easy to start thinking that we are in some way superior instead of remembering our privilege. Too easy to become elitists.
And it's also too easy to relate to the issues in which we engage with the same bourgeois mindset in which we were affluently raised. I'm talking about thinking that we can solve problems by buying things.
In my liberal circles, we buy "organic," "fair-trade," "recycled," and "cruelty-free." Don't get me wrong. I believe in supporting the environment, a living-wage, and animal welfare. It's just that these shopping patterns can become a merit badge or, worse yet, a status symbol. A market brand. In my liberal circles, some people scoff when you don't buy the right "brand."
Which brings me to "Hooplas," marketed as an eco-friendly boutique in Adams Morgan. They sell things like purses made out of "recycled" aluminum can-tabs and wine bottles what have been artistically cut into vases. As if these things are going to solve our landfill problems.
I'll be the first one to admit that the items are covetable, so it isn't the selling of these things bought from "third-world" artisans at a healthy mark-up that has drawn my ire. It's the attitude of the people selling them.
I was in Hooplas earlier tonight, looking at the pretty merchandise, pondering thoughts similar to those expounded above, and vaguely aware of the gossip between two shop-keeps in the back. Dolly Parton came on over the speaker system and I thought to myself, "Well they can't be all bad if they like Dolly." At which point the guy interrupted their conversation saying that he just had to change the music. To which the woman responded, "I was going to say, that didn't seem very 'Hooplas'."
If Dolly "isn't very Hooplas" then Hooplas can have one fewer customer. I would have left then and there but was meeting a friend, and so was subjected to the rest of the conversation where they discussed getting rid of the more affordable items in the store because it was driving down their image, making them look "cheap." It was appalling.
I have no doubt that they view themselves as "good liberals." I'm sure they vote Dem or Green, and buy all the right things... and scoff at those who don't. One of the things that we as liberals must ask ourselves, if we oppose racism and sexism, then why are classism and elitism ok?
