Racist Barnes and Noble Display
 

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/...0News/2212274/


Perhaps I overlooked it, but I did not see a thread about this, and I felt it was worth discussing.

I will no longer be shopping there, and I think other people should do the same. The spokesperson or owner of the chain was on the Tom Joyner show recently with major attitude, which showed that he really doesn't care. However, the most insulting aspect of it was the lie that they are trying to use to excuse it. They are saying that a customer did it. From what I know of that store, that display is in a section that is not accessible to customers.

It was a hoax and a set up...that's why you didn't get too much news on it.

and yes...it is quite possible a customer did it.

I have to side with B&N on this one as it's too much of a random individual act act to say that the store did it or that is the chain's mindset.

How is it a hoax and a set up?

Someone would have seen a customer going into that area. They don't make a habit of allowing customers into that area. Besides, as I said, the owner's obvious attitude the other day says it all.

Co-sign.

I saw this display right around the time the watermelon lawn pictures surfaced. Thank goodness, they didn't receive the attention that the messenger(s) intended.

That's nothing compared to Lafayette Bakery's racist "Drunken Negro Cookies" that were sold on inauguration day in Greenwich Village. http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/arch...tte_baker.html

I'm not sure I understand why some people are feeling the need to boycott B&N.

It wasn't someone from B&N who put it there, and it certainly was not part of their display/floor plan.

That happened because some idiot customer thought it would be funny put the book there, and started circulating it around the internet.

B&N had nothing to do that with that.

It could have happened if that person walked into a Borders store or any other store instead of B&N.

Apparently you and many other people keep missing the part about that display not being in an area accessible to customers.

This is why racism still exists..people always find a way to dance around it or excuse it.

Apparently you don't know how to read the article you posted:

I have stood in the window at one of my B&N, it isn't hard for a customer to place a book there without a lot of people noticing.

Those Drunken Negro Cookies were just ugly. They probably tasted great.

The person who did that wanted 15 minutes of infamy(sp). I'm sure the sales for that place have increased since then.

Actually I did read, which is why I said he was lying. He's going on the assumption that people aren't familiar with the store enough to know the difference.

No. No. No.

Racism isn't contingent upon any of this. LOL.

How do you know he was lying? Are you the manager of the B&N, or someone who actually saw this display?

You keep telling people here that they don't know what they are talking about, but it seems like you are the clueless one.

Prove it.

I don't know how B&N is staffed in your area, but at every single B&N store I've been to here in the metroplex (and there are a ton), B&N tends to be pretty lean when it comes to staff on the floor.

There is one... MAYBE two cashiers, but they usually have to call up the second person via their intercom if the line gets long, and their employees are VERY scarce around the store. I'm lucky to find one person working there who is randomly walking around to get help finding a specific title.

Even if there are 4 or 5 people on the floor during every shift, it's not like they have the kind of bandwidth to stand guard at every display or every shelf to make sure customers don't move books around - intentionally or otherwise... there is product to put on the shelves, people to check out, etc. They can't control the actions of every single customer at every moment. The best they can do is fix things that they see are amiss - titles that were moved to the wrong section being one of them.

Actually it is. I don't know if you were being sarcastic or not, and at this point I don't care. One of the main reasons racism is continuing to linger is that nothing is being done about it. When things like this happen, everyone wants to find excuses for it and brush it under the rug. It was the same thing with that cartoon in the NY post. Excuses were made for that. The powers that be told everyone it wasn't racist, people bought it. The end.

Not to mention the fact that there is something inherently wrong when these entities think it is okay to blatantly disrespect the President of the United States in this manner.

This isn't anything to be danced around...it's really a non news item...

and FWIW...it also could have easily been an employee...this isn't something that we can hang over all of B&N.

For the time it took for someone to take the picture, they could have easily walked into the store, talked to the floor manager, see what feedback the floor manager gave AND IF they got back less than satisfactory explanation, made something out of it.

Let's ask, why in this whole chain of events, that didn't happen?

If a display is in an area that is not accessible by customers, then there is no excuse. If I recall, this is one of the display cases that is directly behind the cash registers. Customers don't go back there.

The NY Post was different in that the management KNEW what they were doing...you cannot compare what they were doing to this.

So your first argument was that the area was not accessible to customers, so when that what proved wrong, now you're saying it's b/c the manager said it's because ppl aren't familiar with the store layout?

Like epchick said, it's not hard to do what this random customer did.

That doesn't seem suspicious to me at all. FWIW someone could have, but they chose to ignore it and they certainly wouldn't reveal that.


And I disagree about it being a non news item. It's a big issue. I'm glad someone decided to make people aware.

I doubt it, only because I've been there....that place is GROSS!

And again I say, the article states that customers did have access to that area. So a customer could have gone to put the book there.

You really like to ignore facts, don't you?

What are you talking about?

It said the area WAS ACCESSIBLE to customers.

No.

Racism lingers because people (in general) are looking for, and are outraged over, displays at B&N and email forwards of watermelon patches.

If all of that stuff ends and prejudiced people keep their opinions to themselves because they don't want to offend black folks and spark an NAACP march...racism still will not end.

I'm not the one ignoring facts.

I got an e mail about it last week and KIM...there are a few things worth not raising an alarm over and this was one...

I disagree...if someone felt that the window was a problem, they should have gone into the store rather than try to pin the entirety of B&N.

If it was a bunch of B&Ns that did that display under auspicies of management that would ahve been one thing...but one randam store???


NNNnaaaaaaaahhhh.....

Sweetie....you gotta back off of this one....come in off tha' ledge.



ETA There is a reason why this DIDN'T make news...google it and see what you find.

**Must be sad when you quantify news by how many hits you get from google!**

There's no way B&N would have done that. That totally was a customer prank.

Sure thing.

Darnit!!!

So they REALLY needed that publicity. They dropped the ball.

Really though?

FACT: The area was accessible to customers
---yet you claimed that the article LIED.

FACT: The manager quickly took the book off the shelf, and blocked the area
--yet you claimed that he had an "obvious attitude" about it

It's such a big issue that (THANK GOD) it hasn't received much attention. :)

Some things truly are a matter of sweating the small stuff.

Welp, this was a fun and informative thread.

I like your signature! lol. It reminds me of the episodes I see of Judge Hatchett lol.

This Obama thing has gone way overboard. I knew this would be a problem once he got elected. As soon as someone says one thing about the guy, the race card is used. Give it a fking break. He's black, and he's president so there are going to be race issues involved. This is clearly a race issue, but it has nothing to do with barnes and noble. Think people, think!

There are racists who make your Coca-Cola. Stop drinking it.

There are open racists who run some of the largest banks in the world. Stop using organized banking - after all, your mattress never dropped an N-bomb.

Higher education is generally slanted toward whites - drop out.

There are racists who purify the air you breathe . . .

I think wearing shirts and using slogans such as "Do you smell what Barrack is cooking" and "Barrack the Vote" are blatant disrespect of the Presidency. Do you agree with that?

It was some stupid customer. Do you really think an employee would risk their job pulling a prank like this? Especially when jobs are hard to come by these days. And if it had been an employee, I'm sure someone would have found out and they would have gotten fired. That still does not make B&N as a national the bad guy.

Think of it this way. I'm assuming you're a member of a Greek organization. How would you feel if there was some random person, who hung out with members of your organization, did something horribly wrong... and other unknowing people thought this person was a member of your org, started boycotting it and spreading around how bad this org was?

One bad apple doesn't make a whole entity guilty... and this bad apple wasn't even a member of their team.

deepimpact, we get that you're upset. Someone obviously did this intentionally, and it was wrong. I'm upset (probably in a minor way compared to you), but yes, it's still sad and it shouldn't be done.

However... no one knows who did this. If an employee was caught, whether it was a stupid 16-year-old high school kid or the owner of all of B&N, I would hope they would be reprimanded for it in some way. But the fact remains... it could have been a customer, it could have been one employee who was just stupid and ignorant, it could have been your mom, but you can't punish one of the largest national book stores for something that can't be directly linked to B&N, or anyone working for them.

Therefore, a discussion about whether B&N should do something about this is moot. It is still your right to be upset (in general), but you can't direct your anger toward anyone when you don't know who did it.

I used to work in a bookstore (another national chain, not B&N). EVERY DAY, we moved porn from the kids section (and the bathroom, but let's not even go there ...). We were constantly moving the books on evolution out of the fiction section and back into science. Copies of conservative religious books would always "mysteriously" wind up in the gay and lesbian interest section.

The brick-and-mortar bookstore is a dying business, and they are all understaffed. Trust me, the employees try their hardest to keep the books where they belong and looking neat, at the same time as trying to help the customers (who are often completely insane). But it's essentially a losing game - you are talking about thousands of books in these stores, which all have a very precise correct placement. They can't all be right all the time.

Are you living in the United States? You can't be serious with a statement like that. Do you know how many employees do stupid things of this nature?