West Bank Grocery Observation

Spaces are often coded towards a target market based off of where they are located, what they provide, and the type of atmosphere. This can be shown through my observation of The West Bank Grocery and the observations that Julie Goodman made when she wrote her article titled “If Only They Knew”. While at The West Bank Grocery, I was able to observe a myriad of things, including: the layout, the products, who shopped there, who worked there, and what the relationship was like between the customer and the workers. Outside the store, it has a big blue awning with the name of the store. It also had glass windows for a store front, but each was blocked off by either cardboard or posters. When walking into the store, one could see that it was not

In “If They Only Knew”, Julie Goodman specifically focuses on farmer’s markets. In this article, she discusses how these markets are typically in wealthier neighborhoods, their high focus on freshness, and how it is a coded space for white. The grocery store that I visited, I would say is coded towards people of color. It is located in a poorer area, focuses on convenience, and is frequented by people of color. The food within the store was almost entirely prepackaged food. Also, there were many foods that focused on non-white cultures and there were many food brands that had all their information in different languages. Thus, by comparison, one can infer that just as farmer’s markets are coded towards white people, this store was coded towards people of color. This can be shown further by the fact that I was the only white person in the store during the entire time I was there and that the workers took special notice of me. They often looked at me as though I did not belong. Overall, what I observed correlated with the same general idea of the race coded spaces that Julie Goodman referred