A “Black Friday” sale in Guyana that opened my eyes

Dec 06, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Last Tuesday, one of the most patronized supermarkets had a ten percent discount. I have to pass this store daily, because it is on the route I take. What I saw on that day opened my eyes about Guyana.
We can classify the masses into three strata – lower working class, the working class itself and upper working class. The lowest on the proletarian ladder would be substantial. These are poor people who earn very little in wages and are an economically depressed class.
This stratum always shop at the municipal markets. That is where they buy their food. You go to the outer perimeters of both Bourda and Stabroek Markets and they are there in their combined thousands. They buy their meat from the butcher stands in those markets.
One of the reasons why the lower proletarian rung does not patronize the supermarkets has to do with class and status. They are simply intimidated by the “middle class” ambience of the Georgetown supermarkets. They believe they do not belong to that type of environment; that they will be the focus of store security and the surveillance camera. The fact is they are right. It is called profiling.
A store that is shamelessly guilty of profiling is National Hardware. I stood outside and watched how the exit security behaves when shoppers have to show their bill. They peep into the bags of certain types of shoppers only. So last Sunday, I objected to them doing that to a poor gentleman.
This was a big, big fight and my wife was so scared, she walked away and went to the car. All the supervisors and managers came out and were watching as I demanded that they stop that practice. The only person I didn’t see staring at me was the owner himself, Eddie Boyer. I apologized to the guards three times, because it wasn’t their policy.
Security personnel stereotype shoppers. They look at the dress style of lower working class folks and they glue their eyes on them when they walk in. A very potent factor in the municipal market choice of lower working people is the prices. There can be no dispute – all tinned stuff, cheese, pasta etc., cost less at the stands in and around the municipal markets than the shopping centres. Finally, they are happy in that environment because they mingle with their own.
A substantial number of the essential working class shop at the municipal markets. But I would admit that there is a percentage of that stratum that goes into the supermarkets. The section of the proletariat that buys goods at the Georgetown supermarkets would be the upper working class. These are people who are employees but their salaries are not meagre. But it would be an academic mistake to say that the upper tier of the proletariat do not buy at the municipal markets; they do, very much so.
We can divide the middle class into lower middle class, upper middle class and the middle class itself. This is the part of Guyanese society that keeps the Georgetown supermarkets going. This is what modern life is about. Such people do not go into the municipal markets. They prefer self-service.
So this store had a ten percent discount for Tuesday only. When you saw what happened at that supermarket, you wouldn’t have believed it. This was not your British and American ‘Black Friday’ sale, where working people get miraculous bargains and so there is the usual mad rush.
By now everyone in the world knows that at Black Friday sales, you get more than seventy percent off any conceivable item, including expensive electronic goods and all types of designer stuff from Victoria’s Secret panties to running shoes to tiaras. Working class people use Black Friday to get what they cannot purchase in years to come.
What I saw at that supermarket wasn’t a Black Friday sale at all. It was a mere ten percent off. The place was overflowing with middle class folks, trying to get a mere ten percent discount. And it was not at the end of the month when folks do bulk buying for their homes. They do so between the 25th to the 29th of the month.
The street where this supermarket is located was literally overflowing with cars. There were constant traffic jams. Inside the store, there was nowhere to walk. I looked at these people and I knew what I was seeing was the exposure of the truth of the Guyanese society – it is a dirt poor country. If the middle classes could hunt bargains that are not really bargains, then this society is indeed impoverished.

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A “Black Friday” sale in Guyana that opened my eyes

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