First, a treat. Please enjoy this lovely holiday tale describing the joys of
Shopping While Black at Wal-mart. Let it warm your heart and fill your mind with goodwill towards the "Always low prices. Always" megastore:
Wal-Mart... last week called sheriff's deputies to apprehend a GAF manager on a bogus bad check rap while he was trying to buy this year's gift card supply. "I keep going over and over the incident in my mind," said Reginald Pitts, the 34-year-old human resources manager for the roof material manufacturer's Tampa distribution center. "I cannot come up with any possible reason why I was treated like this except that I am black." [snip]
[Pitt's company, GAF] has been spending about $50,000 a year on gift cards at the Wal-Mart Supercenter at 11110 Causeway Blvd. in Brandon. For years GAF sent a white, female administrator to buy them without incident. This time, when she was on vacation the day before Thanksgiving, Pitts did the job himself. He phoned in the order for 520 cards, got the accounting department to issue Wal-Mart a $13,600 check and then encountered a royal hassle trying to exchange it for gift cards at the store. [snip]
For about two hours, store managers stalled on accepting the check for the already-printed gift cards, while Pitts stood waiting by the customer service desk. [snip] Two African-American Wal-Mart clerks watching all this from nearby told Pitts that several similarly sized transactions were made for other companies that day without delay, Pitts said. They suggested to Pitts that he was subjected to all the extra scrutiny by their bosses because he is black.
Perhaps Wal-Mart should take Jesus General's
advice:
Just this week, a brown man violated [Wal-Mart's] management's sense of order by trying to purchase holiday Christmas gift cards for his company's employees...Wal-Mart needs to do something different. Perhaps their management could wear their Klan robes at work in addition to wearing them while recreating.
New rule: if you are Shopping While BlackTM at Wal-Mart, please confine your purchases to small-budget items. Pay cash. And never, ever presume that your job as a human resources manager entitles you to purchase over ten thousand dollars' worth of gift cards for company employees (OT, but, what kind of fucking holiday bonus is that? Just sayin...). Don't make any trouble, and if at the end of your shopping expedition, you just happen to end up in handcuffs and surrounded by goons, please rest assured that this tiny mistake at the hands of "loss control" thugs management ultimately ensures that we can all continue to enjoy Wal-Mart's wonderful "low prices" and plastic trinkets. Can't we all just along?
I thought this story would make a nice introduction to results of new Zogby polling examining American attitudes towards Wal-Mart. While a majority of Americans continue to view Wal-Mart favorably, a growing number have had it with this chain:
A national survey of American adults, conducted by Zogby International, indicates that 38 percent of American adults now hold an unfavorable opinion of Wal-Mart [compared to Target's mere 13% unfavorability rating]. The results of the poll also found that a clear majority of the American public (55 %) have a less favorable opinion of Wal-Mart based on what they have recently seen, heard, or read.
In addition, a solid majority believes that Wal-Mart's controversial (yeah, understatement of the year) business model is bad for the country:
In a comparison of two statements, just over 39 percent of Americans agreed that Wal-Mart is "good for America" (statement A) while 56 percent agreed that "Wal-Mart is bad for America" (statement B).
Bad for America. Hopefully, Mr. Pitts will sue the living hell out of Wal-Mart and take another chunk out of this company's PR hide. Happy holidays.