I think you need to drop a Fine and pick up a Howard.
Wait, I’m confused. At the beginning of the thread I was agreeing that it probably wasn’t a Walmart employee who made the announcement and that the issue might have been slanted the wrong way. But I don’t see why this means African Americans who wish to shop there (for whatever reason) are overreacting when they are extremely bothered by the incident. Look. I’m Jewish, and if I were in a country with a history of anti-Semitic violence (including fairly recent), and I were in a store and heard “all Jewish people must leave the store immediately,” I certainly would not feel comfortable going back there. That’s just me. No, it’s not a huuuuge thing but it would definitely affect my shopping habits.
Pain and suffering from what? Some jackass making a stupid comment on the PA? Anyone who would even think of making a big stink out of something like that when it obviously was not officially sanctioned by the management is just looking for a payout and/or his/her name in the paper. It is as transparent as can be.
I’m glad it was a teenager and not an employee. At least the teen can feign ignorance over the comment.
And, frankly, I’d call you silly for that too. The perp has been arrested. They were a 16 year old boy
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/20/business/AP-US-Wal-Mart-Racial-Comment.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
Hardly Walmart’s fault that stupid/immature/racist (take your pick) teenagers shop there. The manager came on quickly afterwords to apologize/reassure and, judging by the arrest, they presumably made their cc tv footage readily available to the police. What more could they do?
Last night while at Walmart this happened.
One clerk was saying the PA is broken. Nothing happens.
The other clerk says that’s because a customer used the PA in another store.
They broke our PA ? How did they break our PA in another store?
No you have to punch in a code.
We have to punch in a code. That’s stupid!
No someone whisper whisper whisper.
I was laughing to myself.
I don’t get it.
What bothers me most about this story is it made national news. It was an immature stupid incident. It is not clear who made the announcement and for what reason. Anyone could easily walk into just about any big box store and do the same thing. No one was horrible inconvenienced.
What news value did reporting this have?
According to the NY Times article, the boy could face up to a year in juvenile detention if convicted of the “bias and intimidation and harassment” he’s been charged with. Anyone else find that disturbing? It was a prank, and a particularly hurtful and juvenile one, and the kid is probably a punk. But still - a prank. How about, say, ban him from Wal-Mart and make him do volunteer work mowing lawns and cleaning floors at the local NAACP?
Well this incident has made the front page of the New York Times online - if that’s not nearly a “federal case”, I’m not sure what is.
All I can say is, if this incident were enough to be so outraged as to never return to Wal-Mart, then racial relations sure have improved immensely in the last 40 years. Having a random teenager ask you to leave a store over a loudspeaker sure beats the hell out of having a fire hose turned on you and your family.
It is too bad that so many people insist on playing the victim, pretending they have to deal with even a tenth of the hardships their great grandparents had to deal with. That, in itself, is more insulting than anything you could say over a department store PA system.
Can you imagine if instead of “black people” he said “niggers”? They’d have to nuke him from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
Does that mean we have to forget, though? Should we shrug off slurs and discrimination and risk having society creep back to the way it once was?
You are aware there are no Wal-Marts in NZ, right? 
I was wondering that too. To me, this isn’t even a “Slow News Day” story. There’s nothing even remotely newsworthy about it and it shouldn’t be getting reported at all.
It’s not any bigger deal than other stuff we blow off everyday, with a comment of idiot and we move on with life.
You can depend on a clerk having been verbally abused much worse by a customer that day at a checkout or the service desk.
Oh boy. You’re in for it now.
So as long as things can be worse, no one should be upset? Okay then.
Just so we’re clear, I share Gyrate’s incredulity that this was part of WalMart’s (can’t forget the star in the middle!) Master Evil Plan™ to be nasty to black people then try to cover it up, and go, “lol wut – we didn’t do anything.” Some d-bag got access to the PA and said something stupid, WalMart apologized, the end. If, however, this were some WalMart-sanctioned malfeasance, I’d say people would be right to be angry enough to not return to any of their stores, even though WalMart officially asking black people to leave is a far lighter offense than, say, siccing dogs on them.
Am I the only who doesn’t understand the outrage over either ends of the spectrum here?
Dumb kid said something stupid over the PA. Okay, these things happen. Time for the world to turn.
Dumb person says something stupid when asked about the incident. Okay, these things happen. Time for the world to turn.
I think the dumbassity from both ends have sufficiently canceled each other out, and there’s nothing there to see at all.
Clearly.
I didn’t know the people you quoted constitutes everyone, but thanks for the run down.
Well after going through less than one third of the first page, I concluded that you are, indeed, the only one who fails to understand the outrage.
At your service,
Mol