Walgreens didn’t abandon Chicago’s South Side. We let crime drive them out

Walgreens didn’t permission the South Side of Chicago due to the fact that they hatred Black people. They near due to the fact that we made it intolerable for them to stay.

Just recently, different Walgreens unopen down connected Cottage Grove, and erstwhile again the nationalist speech turned successful the incorrect direction. People started blaming the company, blaming firm greed, blaming everything but the conditions connected the crushed that made staying determination untenable. But businesses bash not support stores unfastened retired of charity. They enactment wherever radical shop, wherever customers consciousness safe, and wherever theft and upset bash not marque regular operations a losing proposition.

At that Cottage Grove Walgreens, the theft was disconnected the charts. By section reports, the store mislaid much than a cardinal dollars to theft successful a azygous year. Walgreens poured astir $400,000 into information guards astatine that 1 determination and inactive couldn’t halt the shoplifting, the brazen grab-and-runs and the threats to staff. All the while, honorable customers, particularly the elderly, came successful little due to the fact that they didn’t consciousness safe. When you harvester precocious theft, precocious information and security costs, and falling sales, the mathematics stops working. In a capitalist country, nary corp tin disregard that benignant of mathematics forever.

I cognize this symptom personally. Several years ago, the Walgreens conscionable feet from my religion connected King Drive successful Woodlawn closed its doors too. Across the street, the McDonald’s fled arsenic well. I didn’t blasted either of them then, and I don’t blasted Walgreens now. I blamed the unit successful the community, the rampant theft and the declining income that made it harder and harder for those businesses to survive.

AMERICAN SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS FIGHT TO SURVIVE CRIPPLING DINE-AND-DASH CRIME SPREES

What truly bothers maine are the radical talking astir everything but the existent issue. We had Ald. William Hall basal successful beforehand of cameras and accidental Walgreens should beryllium charged with "first-degree firm abandonment." He adjacent called it "pharmaceutical genocide" and said, "It should beryllium a crime, the mode they’re treating our elders ... it should beryllium a crime, the mode they’re treating our families."

Chicago Ald. William Hall decried a determination by Walgreens to adjacent a store successful the metropolis aft it cited theft and information concerns. Hall said the retail concatenation should beryllium charged with "first-degree firm abandonment." (WFLD; Getty Images)

But I person a question for him and each person nodding along: Where was that aforesaid outrage erstwhile criminals were robbing that store blind? Where was the outrage erstwhile our elders were watching radical locomotion retired with bags of stolen goods? Where was the outrage knowing those thefts were putting our ain pharmacy astatine risk? Why is it a transgression erstwhile Walgreens yet closes, but not a transgression erstwhile thieves did everything they could to marque staying impossible?

I’ve seen what happens aft the cameras leave. When we mislaid the Walgreens adjacent my church, we had to signifier carpools to different locations truthful our aged members could support getting their medications. People with diabetes, bosom conditions and different chronic illnesses abruptly had to fig retired however to question farther for basal prescriptions. Mothers had to scramble for look and over-the-counter medicine. The criminals who treated that store similar their idiosyncratic ATM didn’t deliberation astir immoderate of that. They didn’t care. They don’t attraction 2 cents astir their ain people.

HOW MAINSTREAM MEDIA BECAME 'PART OF THE RACE GRIEVANCE INDUSTRY' HARMING BLACK NEIGHBORHOODS

Yet cipher wants to accidental that portion retired loud. It’s easier to onslaught a corp than to face your ain community. It’s easier to impeach Walgreens of "abandoning" the South Side than to admit that we helped thrust them retired by tolerating theft and violence. It’s easier to obstruction against "corporate greed" than to look a young antheral successful the oculus and say, "You are wrong. You wounded your ain grandma erstwhile you stole from that store."

Project H.O.O.D. laminitis and Pastor Corey Brooks successful November 2025.

Part of this comes from our ingrained civilization of excuse-making. Any clip we speech astir crime, idiosyncratic rushes successful with "root causes." Yes, determination are basal causes — poverty, breached families, atrocious schools. I spot them each day. But basal causes bash not erase idiosyncratic responsibility. They bash not crook theft into justice. They bash not marque it OK to bargain medicine retired of the mouths of your ain community.

And let’s beryllium clear: When we thrust retired a Walgreens oregon a McDonald’s, we are not conscionable chasing retired a logo. We are choking disconnected jobs. The radical down those counters are our neighbors. They unrecorded here. They wage rent here. Those paychecks provender families connected our blocks. When capable radical dainty the store arsenic a spot to bargain alternatively of a spot to shop, those jobs evaporate.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

If we privation businesses to stay, we person to enactment similar a assemblage worthy investing in. Our grandparents marched to beryllium allowed into these once-segregated establishments. They fought and bled truthful they could locomotion done the beforehand door, beryllium astatine the antagonistic and beryllium treated similar customers alternatively of second-class citizens.

So I’m not going to articulation the chorus attacking Walgreens for closing a store that was losing wealth and drowning successful theft. I volition archer the truth: They near due to the fact that we, arsenic a community, did not support what we had.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

I privation businesses to travel backmost to Cottage Grove and to King Drive. I privation pharmacies, market stores and restaurants to unfastened and thrive here. But they volition not travel backmost due to the fact that we guilt them into it. They volition travel backmost erstwhile they spot a assemblage that respects them, patronizes them and stands up against the fewer who effort to teardrop them down.

Until then, each clip a store closes, we request to look successful the mirror. We request to halt asking, "Why did Walgreens wantonness us?" and commencement asking, "Why did we wantonness Walgreens?"

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM PASTOR COREY BROOKS