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NEWS > U.S.A. > TEEN CHARGED IN WAL-MART RACISM CASE, BLACK PEOPLE RESUME SHOPPING
TEEN CHARGED IN WAL-MART RACISM CASE, BLACK PEOPLE RESUME SHOPPING
March 22 2010
Turnersville, NJ – The United States has certainly come a long way in shedding their tumultuous history of race relations. In the last few decades the country has moved from segregated water fountains to a black President, both of which few would ever 
have predicted. Racism is of course still embedded in the identity of the country, and the effects of the policies that separated the two principal races will likely be felt for decades to come, but the advances and changes are undeniable.
Because of that history, and because of the good hearted effort by many Americans to push away those largely shameful memories, the sensitivity over racial slurs and actions is perhaps higher than it has ever been. With few people wanting the perception of prejudice, and even more genuinely wanting such attitudes stricken from the record forever, incidents that remind them of the past understandably bring a harsh reaction. Such was the case in a New Jersey Wal-Mart last week where an address over the loudspeaker asked ‘all black people’ to leave the location. The incident brought outrage and media attention from across the country, putting pressure on the company and police to find the culprit. As it turns out the incident was prank perpetrated by a sixteen year old who has now been arrested, leaving black people free to shop at the location again.
“He said 'Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers. Will all the black people please leave the store. Thank you.' I couldn’t believe it and then it took at least five minutes before someone else came on the address system to say anything else,” said Victoria Arter who was in the store at the time. “We waited and waited. Some people just left their carts in disgust and said they couldn't believe it. In this day and age for something like this to happen is just ridiculous. What made it worse was that no one seemed interested in doing anything about it until they did. It’s ridiculous.”
Many Wal-Mart stores have phones connected to the address system accessible to the public, for some reason, which as it turned out was the cause of the incident.
“There are many, many failures all along the line here. Likely, the teen who made the
announcement was simply a prankster trying to get a rise out of people, which he certainly did, but Wal-Mart’s reaction was so soft that it exacerbated the situation. They’ve done a lot to make up for it since but it will be a long time before black people trust the company again, at least in New Jersey,” said Scrape TV Racism analyst Drake Douglas. “I’d imagine that some kind of payment, some kind of discount at least, would go a long way to assuaging the hurt feelings that many people feel over this incident. The company won’t be able to simply sweep this under the carpet. I imagine that black people will continue to shop at Wal-Mart but they will do it angrily, at least for the next little while.”
According to Wal-Mart officials black people continued to shop at the location immediately after the incident, though not the same ones.
“The best part about this story is that it wasn’t authorized by the company, which likely wouldn’t have been the case say twenty years ago. They endured this and then they continued to allow black people to shop, just like they do with every other kind of people. That really shows how far the country has come in the last little while,” continued Douglas. “I imagine those black people who were asked to leave will be back sooner rather than later. There aren’t a whole lot of places that cheap anywhere in the country and the reality is black people, as well as other kinds of people, like deals. Wal-Mart has long been the great equalizer for the races and likely will continue to be so for the next little while.”
Reportedly a nearby location in Deptford still does not allow Koreans on the premises.
Mike Michaels, American Correspondent
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