Another ‘Cruel Joke’ About President Obama (+ photo)

[Omaha Steve]

http://thedefendersonline.org/2009/02/27/another-%E2%80%98cruel-joke%E2%80%99-about-president-obama/

Posted By The Editors | February 27th, 2009 | Category: Main Story |

By Stacey Patton

“Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden . . .” so said Phaedrus, a first century Roman slave and writer of Greek tales.



In recent days, a photograph of a Barnes and Noble book display honoring the inauguration of President Barack Obama has gone viral over the Internet because it prominently includes a book about monkeys with the other titles. The circulation of this photo with calls to boycott the book chain comes in the wake of protests and editorials over a racist cartoon published by The New York Post that featured President Obama as an ape being gunned down by police officers.

But hold on to your wigs and britches folks. Before the NAACP, Rev. Al Sharpton and other concerned citizens pick up signs and start making demands to fire managers and employees or telling consumers to stop buying books from Barnes and Noble, there is another side to the story.

Yes the photo is authentic. And yes the incident did happen at the Coral Gables, Florida store. But it turns out that it was a cruel joke by a customer and not a decision made by the store.

“This was not a company driven decision,” Edgar Chang, the store manager, said in an interview with TheDefendersOnline. “We are not sure how the book got in the window, but we believe it was put there by a customer who didn’t like the fact that Obama won the election.”

The store is located in the Miracle Mile Mall on a busy stretch of highway. The display windows face that highway. While customers walking in or by can clearly see titles in the window, somehow the store’s manager and employees did not notice the monkey book for three or four days.

FULL story at link.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. The article contains a pointless attack on the NAACP and Sharpton.

[Robeysays]

2. awwwww

img link broken... :(

[TwilightZone]

3. The childishness of people never ceases to amaze me.

It's as though they never made it out of junior high.

No wonder W was their king.

[Donnachaidh]

4. Call bullshit on the *a customer did it* story

Look at the picture.

The monkeys book is in the center of the display. Do they actually think people are stupid enough to think a random customer could just walk in, flip an arm over the display, get the book in that slot and not have any employees spot them doing it?

It's either an employee or an ex-employee.

[Webster Green]

6. I think that is exactly what happened.

Just my opinion. :-)

[tanyev]

7. The only window displays at my Barnes and Noble are behind the people working the cash registers.

A customer would have to hop the counter to get to the window display. Maybe some other stores are arranged differently.

[Donnachaidh]

8. it's the same here

So would someone explain to me HOW a customer was supposed to have done this?

[Baikonour]

9. Yep, it's the same here too.

Seems like the B&N higher ups are trying to blame the customers to try to save some face.

I never shopped at B&N anyway because it's ridiculous how much they over-price their books, but now I'll definitely not being doing business with them in the future.

[Skittles]

5. ironic thing is-

chances are it was done by a supporter of a REAL monkey "president" - boosh

[jmowreader]

10. A customer could have done it at the Fayetteville B&N

The store in town here has displays that are away from the registers, so someone COULD have slipped back there, stuck the monkey book in the display, took a picture and passed it around the intertubes to his buddies...of course, NOTHING stays within the family on the intertubes.

The odds of that actually happening are very slim. More likely is they canned the person who set this then decided to refer to him as a customer instead of an ex-employee...but it would have been REAL nice if they would have reset the display to get the monkey book out of it after they terminated the guy.

[uppityperson]

11. AND that's not even a monkey.

any author stupid enough to put an ape on the front of a book about "monkeys" is not too bright.

[SmileyRose]

12. Snort

I caught that too.

We're surrounded by stupid........ (well, OK, even when I'm by myself sometimes I'm knee deep in stupid :) )