I found this article today about someone announcing over the intercom for all Black people to leave a Wal-Mart. They're unsure if it was an employee a customer, but it hasn't been the first time I've heard a story about an act of discrimination occurring at Wal-Mart.
Do you think this was a joke or a real bigot? Have you heard of anything else like this happening at Wal-Mart or other department stores?
Walmart has had issues in the past with this type of thing. I don't really have anything to comment that would be specific, but I know that they have had really bad problems within the company dealing with women. There has been some lawsuits dealing with how managers and other employees have treated other women that work in a Walmart. I know they have made real strides to eliminate this discrimination, but I think this sort of thing still exists within the Walmart branch.
As far as if it was a joke or not, it is hard to say. This isn't really something that I would consider funny, or something that I see a lot of people considering funny within this type of setting either. There is no real way to tell if it was an employee or just someone goofing off, but I would like to say that at least they did something to handle it. They could have gone along with their business in the store and just completely ignored the incident, but they actually appologized to the customers there. I wonder what action would have been taken if someone had complained directly to the company or someone in a higher up position. This could have been comparable to the teacher who was fired for saying "nigger". If they had someone complain do you think they would try to find the person who did it, and fire them or take legal action against them?
I think this has to be a "rogue patron" and a horrible joke. I would not be honest with myself if I didn't admit that there are probably employees of just about any large chain store that would love be free to announce "all black customers leave the store now" but I think there is a reason why we don't hear about this more often. Good business is good business. In no modern American business would it really boost sales to discriminate against any one and to this I believe there has got to be a different explanation than an employee made a poor choice.
We've learned through some of the articles read so far that when there is a threat of stereotyping or discrimination it causes stress onto that person and I can tell you from personal experience, I hate to shop when I am in a stressful situation. I don't think any of us would still pack a cart full of groceries if we knew there was an angry bear roaming the store. Similarly, non-white patrons of any store would probably not continue to purchase goods from that location if they knew there was constant and blatant discriminatory actions.
I believe that if this had been a Wal-Mart employee that had made this mistake we would have found out immediately and would been made aware of a HUGE Wal-Mart apology. Since this has not happened, I would be that some rogue patron knew that by reaching over to the phone and hitting intercom, they could announce anything they wanted. By starting the announcement with "Attention Wal-Mart customers"... well that was just good business on their part.
I beleive that it was more likely a customer who had got ahold on the microphone, not to say that that is acceptable and Wal-Mart shouldn't be taking some responsiblity for the action, even though sometimes these things happen when someone elses back is turned.
The fact that things like this have happened previously in wal-mart stores, shows that the chain might be having some issues in dealing with race. Which I think is a shock, because it is a huge chain store that is in many different places many of the stores vary in SES locations.
I think that in this class we have learned a lot about discrimination when it comes to looking down on people, especially racial minorities. I think that Wal-Mart would prolly pride themselves in having a variety people working for them. But I hope that things improve with these incidents coming into the public eye.