Trendy new store displays graphic image of a man being murdered
There’s a cool new grocery store in downtown St. Louis. Until the new Schnucks Culinaria opened up last month, there hadn’t been a full service grocery in downtown St. Louis for decades. It is an inviting and well-designed store. More than just a store too. It’s becoming a community gathering spot, where one can often hear live music and attend wine tastings. 
Into the middle of the fray comes this: The manager, who by all accounts is a terrific store manager, decided to display a one-foot-tall crucifix with a graphic image of a bloody Jesus high up on the wall behind the service counter. It is can be easily viewed by customers who are in the process of checking out.
This has brought some controversy, as reported by the local newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. For those of us who have worked downtown for many years, this new store had instantly become “our” store, no matter who we were. But now it’s not quite “our” store unless we believe in the divinity of the dying Jesus.
As indicated by a Jewish customer:
“It would have been equally startling if it had been a Star of David or an emblem of another religion,” Weinstock said. “It’s grocery shopping, and it should be welcoming to all and exclude none.”
The manager, Tom Collora, is quoted as follows:
Collora says exclusion is not what he had in mind. The crucifix, he said, “is not meant to promote one faith over another. It’s just an opportunity to share a part of myself and my life with people I work hard to serve every day.”
This controversy reminds me why the First Amendment is generally a good idea. Not that the First Amendment applies to a private grocery store (it clearly doesn’t), but exclusion of out-groups usually starts in subtle ways. Not that the manager is trying to exclude customers. That does not appear to be his conscious intention. But the effect of displaying any badges of in-group membership announces: this is a place for people like the people who are displaying the image. It draws a distinction between those who are Catholic and all of those (including many types of Christians) who don’t believe it’s proper to display a graphically depicted murder in an otherwise non-threatening public place. From the viewpoint of many people, the prominently displayed crucifix says: “This is not really and truly a place for people like you, though you may enter here and shop.” In this way, it functions much like graffiti, suggesting group ownership of a location.
Image by Erich Vieth
Though I don’t doubt that he is a competent store manager, I found the manager’s explanation disingenuous. If he were really simply trying to “share” a faith, he might want to open up that big wall for religious icons preferred by his other employees too. Maybe some of the employees are Scientologists, Buddhists and Muslims. Maybe the entire wall should be covered to accommodate all of the major faiths practiced by the customers who all simply want to “share.” But he is also disingenuous in another way: Certainly, the image of a bloody dying Jesus is meant to promote one faith over others.
Here’s another potential source of the disconnect between the manager and some of his customers: Over the years, Mr. Collora has probably become desensitized to the horrors of the
Image: Public Domain
bloody image that he is displaying. That happens to all Catholics (including me, when I was forced to go to church as a boy). We lose the ability to be repulsed by the torture displayed the churches we regularly attend unless we consciously work hard to see the images of the bloody Jesus anew. Consider this: What would the store manager think if the Assistant Manager (assume that he felt really strongly that the United States shouldn’t torture its prisoners) displayed one of the Abu Ghraib images next to the crucifix? I imagine that Mr. Collora would have a fit. “We can’t display graphic images of torture in our store! What are you thinking, man?”
Not that the store should be under any legal obligation to make any changes. It is a private store and it can do whatever it wants. And consider this: Many owner operated small businesses display all KINDS of icons of belief–think of small auto repair shops with risque calendars and ribald quotes on posters, in addition to various religious imagery. When we visit such small shops, we don’t usually think it’s any of our business to concern ourselves with what the owner wants to display. It’s his or her shop and they can do what they want.
I think that what makes the Schnucks case seem different is that it is a prominent store serving a large group of diverse people, who were in the process of celebrating that they now had a store to call their own, to which the entire downtown community would be drawn. The new Schnucks store filled such a big niche downtown, though, that it took on a quasi-public feel, triggering quasi-First Amendment types of thoughts.
I have no criticism with Schnucks or the manager. I will continue to patronize the store because it is a good store, despite the fact that the crucifix tells me that agnostics like me aren’t specially welcomed as are Catholics. The new store is not as special a place for those who find it strange to display a graphic image of a man being murdered in the middle of an otherwise happy market.
- Please don’t send me any store-bought greeting cards!
- Experiencing the paradox of choice at the local Schnucks grocery store.
- A brave yet curmudgeonly man visits The American Girl Store.
- Welcome to our store! . . . sort of . . .
- Manger scenes from around the world show that humans create God in their own image and likeness
Perhaps it would have gone over better had he displayed it behind the butcher’s counter.
That guy sounds like a real schnuck.
Mark-
That would probably get too confusing, you’d have people asking what the price per pound is for “host”. At least those who actually believe in transubstantiation.
Dave Barry reminds us that: “People who want to share their religious beliefs with you almost never want you to share your religious beliefs with them.”
The most charitable interpretation of the message here would be “Non-Catholics are welcome here — just not AS welcome.”
Now now. I’m trying to avoid the topic of the credibility of the religious beliefs, which is a separate, fascinating and deserving topic. I do find it this topic of the crucifix display to be compelling in its own right because it illustrate a real life step onto what could become a slippery slope leading to discriminatory treatment. Not that there is any hint that the store in question discriminates against non-Catholics.
I find this example interesting because all discriminatory systems have their genesis in subtle ways: symbols and gestures that serve to identify who is who. Not that all such efforts lead to discriminatory systems. Humans are highly social animals, though, and we do readily get groupish based upon subtle visual cues like haircut styles, clothing styles, and religious symbols (BTW, take a look at the photo of the crucifix in the newspaper article photo–it’s not actually subtle). There is no doubt in my mind that (whether or not he is conscious of it), the store manager’s decision to display a crucifix is an attempt to affect the social order; it is an attempt to sift who is who among those who enter the store.
I find it a real hoot that he put the crucifix above the monitor showing a surveillance camera view of the store—what is that, a “god is watching” message?
Crucifixes that are just crosses act, in my mind, as religious symbols. Crucifixes with bleeding Jesus cross over into a kind of fetishism.
I had a customer once, a nun who was a sculptor, who had made a life size “Jesus Scourged” statue for a hospital. This was the most hideous thing I’d ever seen that was supposed to be religious—more something one might expect from a cult of Kali ritual. The wounds looked as if the body had been dragged through razor-wire, it was so bad, and she’d gone for ultra realism. We kept making prints of this thing for her. The thing was, she kept “perfecting” it—adding little touches, adjustments, and almost always in the wounds. She was, it became clear, obsessed with the bleeding carcass. You could see it in her face, she was in rapture in her regard for this thing. No cross, mind you, just this poor, savaged man standing there with his flesh falling off.
This is supposed to be uplifting? This is supposed to give us hope? This is supposed to take us out of our mundane concerns to a higher plane?
Now I confess this was very unprofessional of me, but she’d gotten about a hundred copies of this thing done and we were all getting mightily sick of her, because she’d stand at the counter and practically worship these pictures. Other customers occasionally came in and saw them and had predictably negative reactions. So one day I said to her, conversationally, that it fascinated me about the similarities between christianity and other religions concerning this subject. She looked interested and asked “Like what?”
“Well,” I said, “the ancient Maya used to do that to their penises to prove their worthiness to approach their gods.”
The look on her face was priceless. Total revulsion and shock.
“Barbaric, I know,” I said. “But then all blood-letting as worship seems to me to be barbaric, so they really do share a lot.”
Needless to say, she did not return. To everyone’s relief.
This was actually the part I have a problem with:
Lori Willis, Schnucks communications director, said Collora was the only manager in the chain’s 106 stores to have requested to display an article of personal faith.
“Company leaders made a decision to honor that request out of respect for Tom and his faith,” Willis said. “In fact, that’s part of the reason they put him in charge of Culinaria. He’s a man of such strong faith — who better to put in a store where so many faiths come together?
What does the strength of his faith have to do with his ability to manage a grocery store? There is an unspoken assumption that the religious, especially the devoted religious, are somehow more honest, or more ethical, or more capable than others. Especially in a store where “so many faiths come together”, why didn’t company management interpret his unusual request as provocative or insulting to those other faiths? Instead, they appear to have thought of it as a sign of commonality with people of other faiths.
And Erich, if you really meant to avoid the topic of the “credibility of the religious beliefs”, you shouldn’t have titled the post as you did. Calling it a “graphic image of a man being murdered” rather than a “crucifix” is, I presume, meant to point out the absurdity in believing in such talismans. At least, that’s the way I interpreted it.
Good Lord! Chill out, folks. Stop having a holy cow over one person’s display of his faith in his workplace.
Goedeker’s, a locally owned electronics and appliance store (also flooring, too!), isn’t open on Sundays and their ads feature Mr. Goedeker and his faith as selling points, and have for years…no complaints yet from y’all!
Oh, and I buy at Goedeker’s because of his prices, service AND that, rather than the other place down the street based in the state immediately South of Missouri which I shall never, ever shop at, so help me God!
Schnuck’s is the only locally owned grocery store chain with any stores or new stores opening in the City. The other, Dierberg’s will not put any stores in the City. Yep, zero, kein, zip, nada!
Instead, Dierberg’s chooses to cherry pick up-end white areas to put its stores, not any in the City. That’s why I don’t shop at Dierberg’s and oppose Dierberg’s current efforts to locate a store in Des Peres at Manchester and Lindeman in Des Peres. According to local media reports, these policies recently allowed the Dierberg’s food folks to lend some $100 million to the First Banks Dierberg’s folks to help their liquidity.
When Dierberg’s shows a committment to serving ALL of St. Louis, then I’ll shop there, and I’ll welcome any new store they want ANYwhere they want.
So, rather than bust Schnuck’s chops, boycott Dierberg’s!
AMDG!
“despite the fact that the crucifix tells me that agnostics like me aren’t specially welcomed as are Catholics”
Really? Did the little crucifix develop lips and vocal chords and actually tell you that? Or, could you reword that a little more torturously (heh) accurately:
“despite the face that, when seeing the crucifix, I remember my own emotional reactions to Catholicism, and despite what the manager tells me (and he seems sincere, but I cannot really tell yet– Oh Hagel, where are you when I need you?), I decide to alter my sense of feeling welcome.”
Taking responsibility for one’s own actions and interpretations of the world around us is a central tenet of freedom, in my book.
/Shinto - Buddhist - Jack Mormon
//was raised to despise crucifixes as symbols of death
// slashies!
Said Mr. Collora about his bloody crucifix: it “is not meant to promote one faith over another.”
Huh? He wasn’t talking about the ubiquitous ‘holiday tree’ or blinking lights that retail stores install in December, he was talking about a crucifix. And not just a simple cross but, apparently, one with a bloody Jesus on it. “Not meant to promote one faith over another?” It is just that sort of lie that fuels my contempt for fanatical religious followers.
Personally, I’d boycott the store. I’d even consider picketing it on the sidewalk outside — because, you know, I’m not trying to promote one non-belief over another.
Okay– I just re-read my post, and it comes across a little harsh– sorry, that was not my intention.
I would agree that religious symbols in a customer-facing area, while legal, are probably not such a good idea: the very fact that they are ’symbols’ belies the whole point that they are meant to convey or invoke a meaning or emotion in the viewer. There’s the rub: the store manager reacts one way, you react another.
But thinking further on that, do we ‘tolerate’ some religious symbols more than others?
- almost every Chinese restaurant has Taoist and Confucian symbols all over the walls (especially the gaudy places)
- Every ‘Curry in a Hurry’-type place has the big gold-leaf “Allah Ahkbar….” prayer behind the counter. I cannot fully read Arabic yet, but I can read that, because I’ve seen it so many times.
Is it because, for westerners (midwestern americaners), these religions are ‘exotic enough’ that they do not invoke any imagery for the viewer, and thus the viewer can pass them off as simply interesting while patting themselves on the back for being so tolerant and multicultural?
Homer Simpson simply saw a big funny elephant with a lot of arms, but was reprimanded by Apu when he crossed the line: “Please do not give my god a peanut!”
So, is it that the Catholic Crucifix loads in some imagery for you, and you then affix that to your experience in the store? Would it have been as bad had it been the noodley appendages of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (jah pastafarai, ramen!)?
Dave: I’ve lived a long life in which hundreds of people, including one that raised me, have told me that I’m immoral and defective because I don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus and that I’m thus going to hell. I can’t deny, then, that seeing that crucifix (and I did notice it before I read the article AND I saw it all the time in the Schnucks where Mr. Collora used to work) triggers some strong emotions that have nothing to do with the Schnucks crucifix.
That said, I think Mr. Collora’s explanation does not ring honest. I suspect that he is proudly promoting his religion over others. Another thing that gets under my skin is that his crucifix is rather large (it wasn’t a few inches tall on the corner of his desk). It’s located up high on the wall and it includes the image of a man being tortured (rather than being a simple symbolic crucifix sans Jesus). His crucifix clearly strikes me as a statement rather than a decoration, and that statement is one that suggests that those who don’t agree with Mr. Collora’s religious beliefs are sorely mistaken. What does any of this have to do with running a first rate grocery store?
Like I suggested in the post, I love the new store and I’m glad Schnucks is part of downtown. May they sell a lot of groceries! Nonetheless, the crucifix seems oddly out of place..
Why can’t food just be about food? Everyone knows that you don’t discuss politics or religion at the table. Can’t the market be a safe, neutral territory where one enjoys the simple pleasure of planning meals for the family without being subjected to propaganda?
Dave, who really wants to see a sculpture of a dying man at the register when all they wanted was a bag of cheddar popcorn? Images of a funny elephant or a smiling rotund seated man are completely distinguishable because they’re not designed to inspire strong feelings. I’m not saying that they don’t. They’re just not meant to. The image of Jesus dying on the cross, on the other hand, is calculated to arouse empathy with the pain and suffering of Christ. This is a no brainer. I’m with Mark.
“Images of a funny elephant or a smiling rotund seated man are completely distinguishable because they’re not designed to inspire strong feelings. I’m not saying that they don’t. They’re just not meant to.”
Thanks. You just proved my point about your ability to minimize the impact of religious symbols because you don’t have sufficient context by which to judge them.
Erich, you are going to heaven, whether you (or they!) like it or not!
http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/04/28/catholic-di-author-weighs-in-on-salvation/