“I'd Rather Starve”
Why Food Stamp Discrimination Needs to be Stopped
By Anonymous
November 15, 2007

“Ding, ding,” as the doorbell rings I walk into Seven-Eleven around 5:30 PM I head to the usual microwavable food section. I reach for the special Seven-Eleven chicken ranch topped with bacon sandwich. The tip of my finger is no further than about half a millimeter away from my choice selection when the store clerk starts screaming at me, “EBT food stamp no working!” Now, usually I purchase food with my California EBT food stamp card, but I'm doing a whole lot better now. I'm working two jobs, going to school and living my life better than I was before.

“Don't trip I got cash,” I tell the store clerk. I step into the long 5 o'clock traffic jam line. Everyone has their items, ranging from their evening beer to the after school kids with their bags of chips and soda.

Although food stamps are a needed way many supplement their meals, users get discriminated all the time. It applies to all races, genders, ages -- store clerks somehow feel ok being rude and inconsiderate to people who use food stamps. Food stamps are only used to purchase cold items such as cold cuts, beverages, and pretty much anything you can use to make home cooked meals.

As I wait in line a homeless woman at the front of the line is arguing with the cashier as he scolds her for not wanting to go back to the end of the line, supposedly because her food stamp card takes too long to pay for the purchase, and she's holding up the customers who actually matter, meaning the ones who are paying with cash. As he tries to get in her face he smacks her items out of her hand to the floor then orders her to pick them up from the floor. She picks up her items in a submissive way and places them back onto the counter. He then scans her items in the register, complaining about how she always comes into the store then holds up the line with the food stamps.

Now whether if this man is prejudice towards women, or just hating seriously on food stamps, I'm not sure, but I can recall a time when I paid with food stamps and he handed me a plastic bag and told me to bag my items. Now, what I told him I can't write in this article, but I am now banned from Seven-eleven in downtown San Jose.

Food stamp discrimination is all over the country, I'm sure of it. Some people believe food stamp recipients are all lazy and just want a free ride for life surviving off of tax-payers money. Now that may be true for some people, but not most of us, and that still does not give others to right to judge or even talk down to others for the matter of someone else's situation we're all still human beings just in different financial backgrounds.

The impact of food stamp discrimination is different depending on the person, but for the most part as a child I can remember feeling embarrassed about the fact the my family even needed food stamps, having to go into the liquor store waiting for everyone to leave before I even walked up with my items for purchase. But other than embarrassment it can also be a sense of swallowing your pride knowing that you would rather starve than go and pay with your food stamps. Just the dirty looks from other customers in line to begin with, than having the store clerk tell you he doesn't have enough change in food stamps so to go and put your items back on the shelf, is adding insult to injury.

Rude store clerks should not be tolerated. There should be somewhere we can go if we ever face discrimination from customer service clerks or anyone from a business, The food stamp program should have store ratings that program participants can use to see how respectable or disrespectful they are to the clients. Because this isn't a black or brown issue its a national problem with poverty.