Most histories trace the first American corner store to 1927, when a Southland Ice Company outlet in Dallas, Texas, extended its hours and offered ready-to-go foods. Most of the 152,720 corner stores in the US are open 24 hours with emphasis on convenient “locations, extended hours of operation, one-stop shopping, grab-and-go foodservice, […] and fast transactions” […]. Typically on corners or intersections, convenience stores often stand on both sides of the road to capture traffic from multiple directions. […] By definition corner stores mark physical boundaries.
At least two incidents that incited protest – the murder of George Floyd and the assault on Iyanna Dior – have involved corner stores, and corner stores figure prominently in geographies of surveillance in the United States. […].Â
What especially draws me here is how the mapping of corner store locations, distances, and products alone, overlooks more intimate geographies. […] Floyd’s murder marks a long history of racializing surveillance in and around corner stores. […] When they are part of Black lives, research and news stories capture how people may stay a while. […] [S]taying counters how the industry markets itself: to sell “speed of service to time-starved consumers who want to get in and out of the store quickly” (NACS 2019). Such intentions promote surveillance: lingering becomes loitering, and seeking refuge … becomes “causing too much drama” (Fitzsimons 2020). […]Â
We are witnessing the unprecedented mass mobilization for Black trans lives now, amplified in part by the assault on 1 June on Iyanna Dior, a Black transgender woman, at a corner store in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dior sought refuge in a corner store after a crowd collected around her in the street […]. Store employees denied assistance, stating that she was “causing too much drama”. […] By denying refuge, employees surveilled store boundaries. The words “causing drama” are telling, indicative of Dior breaching not only physical but also social boundaries.
Given legacies of redlining, segregation, and disinvestment, corner store geographies are emblematic of Black urban geographies in the US. […] [C]orner stores are often the main or only source of food or other goods where low income, predominantly Black or other people of color communities reside […]. In urban gentrifying neighborhoods, stores may serve longstanding residents of color and incoming residents […]. [M]any factors influence the “boutique-ifying” of corner stores […]. I am also remembering Alton Sterling. Media reports increasingly compare […] Floyd’s murder with Sterling’s death, which also involved a corner store in 2016. Sterling sold CDs in front of the establishment in agreement with the owner, who considered him a friend (Lartley 2018). A passerby called the police on Sterling.
All text above by: Naya Jones, “Intervention – Corner Stores, Surveillance, and All Black Afterlives,” Antipode Online (17 July 2020). At: antipodeonline. org/2020/07/17/ corner-stores-and- racializing-surveillance/ [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]
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