Three Holy Women in
North Central Milwaukee

Last week Brian and I took the Hosanna Catholic Worker truck to pick up a woman, Yolanda, Pat and I had just visited. She and her two children are new to town so she had no way to pick up the beds and kitchen chairs we gave her at our home visit.

When we got to the SVDP thrift store, Brian went wandering around the store while Yolanda and I went back to voucher pick up area. A very nice woman helped us out. There was some confusion about the voucher so the woman helping us called over a young man she said was the manager. He was not quite sure what to do, since he had only been at thrift store for a few months but the problem was easily solved when he realized I was the Vincentian that made the home visit and I had my voucher pad with me. He asked me to rewrite the voucher to clarify the confusion. I did and all was well.

While Yolanda was doing paper work with the store woman I wandered into men’s clothes area. I feel a little guilty about shopping for clothes at the Goodwill store off Hwy 100 but, not liking to shop, have always found much more selection at Goodwill. The men’s section of the store had been moved to a little cove that used to house home ware like cups and glasses. There were only a few racks of men’s clothing and nothing in my size. I feel guilty no longer for shopping at Goodwill. I thought what will happen if they do build the five million dollar thrift store in Greenfield. Where will they get men’s clothing from?

When Yolanda was done I went with her to the front cashier to check out. I noticed a sign on the counter saying who the “Manager of the Day” was. The name was not that of the manager that had helped us out. I saw a more a middle age man with that name on his shirt. I asked him if he was the “manager of the day” and he said yes. I than asked him about the woman who I thought was the store manager. He said she was at the “corporate office” which I took to mean SVDP central office. I than asked him about the man who had been the long time assistant manager. He said this person was still a manger but it was his ‘day off’. By now I realized there were four white Caucasian managers at a St. Vincent de Paul Thrift store that serves mainly Hispanic and African American people.

When we got to the loading dock the same woman who helped us in the voucher section was there to help us load stuff on the truck. I asked her if she was a “manager”. She just smiled back at me and said she was not a manager but could do most of the jobs at the store. She was African-American as was the other workers, except perhaps for a few Hispanics.

This story reflects on the Board of Directors at St. Vincent de Paul. Except for one person, who is President of two conferences in North Central Milwaukee the board is all Caucasians, and all but one, I believe, do not live in the city of Milwaukee. The one African American on the Board is opposed to suburban five million dollar store but cannot even get his motion to ‘discuss’ calling a President’s meeting seconded by his colleagues.

If you see a pattern here of white middle class persons dominating over low income Hispanic and African Americans that is the story of Milwaukee and why it is the most racially segregated city in the USA. This is why 300 persons, many African Americans and many Vincentians, signing a petition to build the thrift store, at low or no cost, in North Central Milwaukee rather than at high cost in suburb of Greenfield, is drowned out by the few white suburban people who want to invest five million dollars of money belonging to the poor into a thrift store in the suburbs that will serve the white middle classes. Of course they say money will trickle down to people in need in North Central money but how many of us still believe in the trickle down theory. So this is my story about four white managers and no men’s clothes that could fit me.

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