  Warriorfan Member Username: Warriorfan Post Number: 823 Registered: 08-2005 |
http://www.freep.com/article/2 0090308/COL10/90308034/?imw=Y I don't understand why she is placing some of the blame on Barnes & Noble. What did they do? Here's the parts I take umbrage with: quote: Earlier in the article, Rochelle says this: quote: Why would "option 2" even BE an option? What the fuck? What does Rochelle expect, that Barnes & Noble should post armed guards at all of their end-aisle displays? That all customer activity should be monitored at all times to prevent things like this? Maybe each customer could be assigned a store "handler" to follow you around and make sure you don't do anything stupid or offensive, lest the store be liable for your stupidity. To add a book to a display, step back 3 feet and take a picture would probably take all of 90 seconds, and yet Rochelle seems to imply that store employees INTENTIONALLY "looked the other way" while this was going on. That's a bullshit insinuation in my opinion. Anyone who has worked retail would know that a customer looking at a book display, picking up a book from it and putting a book back PROBABLY wouldn't attract undue attention from store employees who probably have other tasks that they are focusing on that don't include spying on customers' activities and analyzing them for malicious intent. Rochelle seems to have some unrealistic expectations here. Why should Barnes & Noble apologize for something they didn't do? If I walk into McDonalds and punch another customer in the face, does McDonalds owe that person an apology? Or, worse off, should someone insinuate that McDonalds employees were somehow complicit in the act by "looking the other way?" And quite frankly, by getting so upset over this picture that she felt the need to write an entire article on racism and attack a company that did nothing wrong as a result, isn't she just giving the racist prankster the exact attention that she said she shouldn't give in situations like this? | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 9573 Registered: 10-2003 |
Is this Iran? Free speech unless a certain group of people doesn't like it? | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 2258 Registered: 12-2005 |
From the article: quote: I can't seem to find the column Rochelle Riley wrote denouncing all of those Bush-chimp e-mails and photoshopped pictures. | ||
Benfield Member Username: Benfield Post Number: 115 Registered: 06-2008 |
Rochelle Riley probably saw that picture and cried. Then again, warm weather makes that fool cry. quote: Spot-on. Anyone who has ever worked in a bookstore knows stupid crap like this happens all the time. There is a subculture of crazy people who hang around in bookstores. They are annoying and strange people. Re-arranging the merchandise is one of their favorite habits. B&N & Borders employees, who usually make $7 an hour, learn very quickly that it’s best to avoid direct contact with these people except or unless they are purchasing something or need help finding a specific book. The crazies are lonely (for good reason) and want someone to pay attention to them. Usually they just talk endlessly to anyone who pauses to listen. Back in my B&N days, we had a code so if someone was stuck with one of the crazies, another employee would page them. So one asshole decided to create an internet meme, yawn. Harvey Milk was fond of saying that if he turned around every time someone called him a faggot, he would have to walk backwards. Barack Obama is the President of the United States, a fact that trumps some Neanderthal racist thinking that Obama=monkey is a clever or compelling narrative. The thing about the ash heap of history is that every piece of garbage on it is irrelevant. Why waste time fretting about this third-rate fucktard and his camera phone picture. | ||
Oldredfordette Member Username: Oldredfordette Post Number: 5958 Registered: 02-2004 |
1. Rochelle Riley is an idiot 2. There is a difference between calling George Bush a chimp (he actually looks like a monkey, though there is no good reason to insult chimps that way) and using a proven racial slur against the black President of the United States. Carry on. | ||
Warriorfan Member Username: Warriorfan Post Number: 824 Registered: 08-2005 |
quote: Whoever rearranged that display is a racist douchebag who needs their face rearranged, but it's hardly Barnes & Noble's fault. Also, after starting off the article with an anecdote about "not giving attention or recognition" to people who wish to insult her, she then proceeds to write an entire article about this picture, and even includes a copy of the picture, thus giving more attention and recognition to the perpetrator than that person could have ever hoped for when they took that picture. I just don't get it at all. Rochelle seems to be off in WTF land with this one. Her comparison to the NY Post apology is also ridiculous because they published the monkey cartoon and thus were directly responsible for it. Barnes & Noble did not create this display, did not condone it, corrected it as soon as it was noticed, and yet Rochelle seems to not only think that B&N's response wasn't good enough, but that their employees looked the other way while it was going on. I guess some people are going to be unhappy no matter what the circumstances. | ||
Mashugruskie Member Username: Mashugruskie Post Number: 465 Registered: 09-2006 |
I must be retarded because when I saw the cartoon I didn't understand how a monkey related to the Stimulus package until the News put something on about a monkey ripping a woman's face off. I'm slow. | ||
Rb336 Member Username: Rb336 Post Number: 8638 Registered: 02-2007 |
we forget that the cartoon didn't just portray Obama as a chimp, but seemed to promote shooting him | ||
Mashugruskie Member Username: Mashugruskie Post Number: 466 Registered: 09-2006 |
Where did it say that the monkey was Obama? I didn't see that. | ||
Mashugruskie Member Username: Mashugruskie Post Number: 467 Registered: 09-2006 |
Now that I think about it, didn't the monkey that attacked the woman get shot? I saw the cartoon as that crazed monkey symbolizing an out of control and unplanned stimulus package. I didn't see Obama as the monkey at all. | ||
Noodles Member Username: Noodles Post Number: 14 Registered: 02-2009 |
quote: Insults are insults, unless they can be used to further your agenda (which has been proven), then some insults are more insulting than others. | ||
20043_stotter Member Username: 20043_stotter Post Number: 826 Registered: 03-2007 |
My mother-in-law looks like monkey. It's not an insult. It's the truth. Her daughter's starting to look like her now. | ||
Newport1128 Member Username: Newport1128 Post Number: 273 Registered: 05-2007 |
What's next, remove all simian displays from zoos so that blacks aren't offended? Change the words of "Deck The Halls" to eliminate the phrase "Don we now our gay apparel" so homosexuals aren't made to feel uncomfortable? It's OK to make fun of males (especially middle-aged white males) but God help you (oops, religious reference...don't want to make the atheists mad!) if you criticize or make fun of blacks, women, Jews, Muslims, gays or Democrats. Why can't we all just lighten up and stop taking ourselves so seriously? Only the Rednecks seem able to take a joke. Tell all the Irish Catholic jokes you want, I'll just laugh along with you! | ||
Alan55 Member Username: Alan55 Post Number: 2610 Registered: 09-2005 |
You're forgetting, Newport, how outrageously offended right-wing Christians were over the "Happy Holidays" versus "Merry Christmas" flap. You're throwing stones while living in a glass house. | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 3978 Registered: 01-2005 |
Stotter, I have coffee all over my monitor. Please preface comments like the one you posted with a 'warning' label so I know a splitter is coming! Absolutely LOL!  | ||
Ravine Member Username: Ravine Post Number: 3116 Registered: 01-2006 |
A classic example of how the degree to which a stunt like this one is amusing and/or acceptable is too often determined by how the witness to the stunt feels about the victim of the stunt. It will be a long four years, for everybody, if stupid little stuff like this stunt is going to send enormous tidal waves of outrage crashing to the shore all of the fuckin' time. Riley should Get A Grip, here. George W. Bush didn't let little stuff like that get under his skin, and for all of the obvious reasons, Obama will need to be even more impervious, which I'm sure he will be. Much ado about nothing, as the saying goes, and placing even a shred of blame, or responsibility, on the bookstore is absurd. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19301 Registered: 11-2006 |
Freedom of expression does not mean freedom from the consequences of that speech. Try this to better understand it: If you walk up to your boss, on whom you depend to keep your job, and tell him that he is an ugly, fat slob, you are free to do just that, but you may well lose your job. | ||
Ravine Member Username: Ravine Post Number: 3117 Registered: 01-2006 |
Cc, that's a good poi-- hey, waitaminute. What thread are you on? | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 1300 Registered: 05-2006 |
The racist a$$hole who put the book on the display is probably giggling with glee over all the attention they have recieved over the internet now. Hell, they could have been the one who started the chain email. I've found that its best not to give any thought to scumbags like them. I like to think most Americans are inteligent enough to not think as they do. | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 19307 Registered: 11-2006 |
The thread regarding freedom of expression in the form of a book store displaying a comic perceived as racist Ravine. | ||
Ravine Member Username: Ravine Post Number: 3118 Registered: 01-2006 |
That sounds like an interesting thread, too. Maybe I'll go over there when I'm done here. | ||
Oldredfordette Member Username: Oldredfordette Post Number: 5960 Registered: 02-2004 |
When did Cc meet my boss? | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 9585 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Cross post to "Words and Phrases to Eliminate". |
