Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) – A member of the infamous Congressional “Squad” of radical AOC-led leftists has weighed in on the closings of Boston Walgreens stores that have occurred over the past year. The race card is prominently featured in the rant.
Here’s her speech from Tuesday for those who didn’t hear it:
.@Walgreens‘ closures of pharmacies in Roxbury, Mattapan & Hyde Park are not arbitrary or innocent.
They are disruptive, life-threatening acts of racial & economic discrimination.
As a multi-billion-dollar corporation, they must stop divesting from Black & brown communities. pic.twitter.com/iSvhFWw8Bl
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) January 31, 2024
Pressley used emotionally charged words such as “abandoning”, without providing any evidence. She also stated, “This closing is part of a bigger trend of abandoning communities with low income, like the closures of Mattapan, and Hyde Park, both in Massachusetts 7th.”
As my colleague pointed out, the problem with these claims is that they leave one important fact out: These closures occur in areas of Beantown where retail thefts are rampant, and stores are forced to make tough decisions, such as locking up items behind glass, limiting the aisles available for shopping or closing down completely.
If members of the local community hadn’t robbed those Walgreens locations blindly — likely including some of the items you mentioned — they wouldn’t be closed. Having said that, it is important to show compassion for those law-abiding citizens who suffer from unchecked criminal activity.
Ayanna Pressley and other Democrats in Massachusetts (deep blue) who are woke and soft on crime were elected as “leaders”, like Senators. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have both expressed similar feelings about the closures.
A former regional loss prevention manager for Walgreens, in the Pittsburgh region, responded on Twitter to Pressley’s baseless claims about Walgreens “abandoning certain locations” due to race.
Nope! I spent eight years as a loss prevention supervisor for many Walgreens stores. You don’t get to blame it on race. If a store was closed, it’s quite simply, because whoever lived in the area stole too damn much merchandise. And now they can live without a Walgreens. https://t.co/ovefW5smap
— Even More Pissed Off Patriot (@POdPatriot) February 1, 2024
It’s the innocent, the sick, and the disabled, who suffer when lawlessness prevails in retail establishments and on the streets. We’ve seen this in countless Democrat cities across the nation, like San Francisco and Detroit, where small and large businesses are leaving for better pastures.
In a similar vein to what I have said before, Democrat politicians are also manipulating their base constituency by using Walgreens’ decision to close stores that are not profitable to make them believe they are being trampled on by white rich CEOs who put people above profit.
Residents and community leaders shouldn’t blame Walgreens, but instead, they should confront the elected officials they put in office and tell them they won’t accept their city’s and state’s woke approach (not) to combating crime.
Then they should turn around and elect people who will have the courage to take action to combat crime, rather than coddling the criminals.
People can expect that iconic American cities such as Boston and San Francisco will continue to deteriorate until they act. Many people in Massachusetts have bad intentions, but those who continue to put them in power must eventually accept the damage that they’ve caused by electing them.
If you live in the Bay State, and you continue to vote for Democrats and expect a different outcome, you are part of the problem. Not businesses that sometimes are forced to close their doors and move on.
