Customer service and faith clash at registers– When did the emergence of creepy self-rightousness appear in the USA? People who do this also think you are an infidel to be killed.
Beryl Dsouza was late and in no mood for delays when she stopped at a Target store after work two weeks ago for milk, bread and bacon.
So Dsouza was taken aback when the cashier — who had on the traditional headscarf, or hijab, worn by many Muslim women — refused to swipe the bacon through the checkout scanner.
“She made me scan the bacon. Then she opened the bag and made me put it in the bag,” said Dsouza, 53, of Minneapolis. “It made me wonder why this person took a job as a cashier.”
found by Julie B
Um, she didn’t prevent the person in question from purchasing it, Mr. Fusion, read it again. She merely didn’t touch it herself. I have to scan alcohol for 19 year olds here is Ohio, is scanning a slab of bacon really so much to ask? This isn’t some sort of hatred, it’s their belief, and it’s worth respecting it as much as she respects our right to eat bacon, and it seems she does. I don’t think the problem here is so much the muslim woman as the person so willing to be outraged. The flipside of acceptance is accepting others; freedom, letting others make their decisions freely. Taxi drivers and seeing eye dogs aside, this does not seem to keep this woman from performing her job at all, and only requires milliseconds of respect for another human being. At times there are awful things that occur, and we should be outraged, but and occasionally outraged people are themselves outrageous.
I’m curious, is Beryl Dsouza related to Dinesh D’Souza? I wouldn’t be surprised. . .
this is exactly why I use & why self checkout will become more popular. I use it everytime I go get some items at my local grocery store.
no more having to deal with retarded cashiers.
When societies become too diverse they fall apart.
Yup and that is why immigrants of today are so frowned upon while the large influx of the late 1800 and early 1900 wasn’t. Those who immigrated then, melding into the culture of this country, speaking the language, wanting to belong all the while keeping parts of their unique culture, making this country great. Immigrants today don’t think that way. They refuse to learn the language and expect us to accommodate them. They expect that we should all change our ways now that they are here. They are not citizens or welcomed guests, but instead a deadly virus looking to re-write the DNA of this great country.
Li, the difference in your alcohol situation is law vs. beliefs.
I respect her beliefs, but she’s put herself in a situation where that’s impossible, where she expects respect but can’t do the job as a result. Not our problem.
If I were buying the bacon, what I’d do is intentionally fail to scan the item and put it in the bag. Gee, it didn’t scan the cost. What’s the cashier going to do now? I’m just too dumb to do it…I might even drop it on her foot…..which is why she’s there in the first place, eh? She’s gonna call the manager to scan a pound of bacon? Some employee.
And if she can’t touch the package, how many degrees of “can’t touch this” is she required to observe? It gets ridiculous very quickly. Can she touch the other products that touched the bacon? The conveyor? The cart? The hand truck that carried the boxes containing the bacon? Where’s the line?
Could 9/11 have been prevented by simply requiring all non-US citizens to touch a piece of bacon before going through the metal detector? (They dont have to eat it, just touch it.)
Could we prevent all future terrorist attacks by requiring non-US citizens to eat some delicious pork rinds before boarding the plane? (Or would this simply increase the number of terrorist attacks by PETA activists?)
She should have pretended she was jewish and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine and whine until the muslim got fired.
This could have been prevented by getting rid of the equal opportunity clause… and if the lady who was making the purchases had more sense, she would have taken a pic of that idiot muslim cashier with her camera_enabled_cellphone & then posted a pic somewhere to generate a lot of anti-muslim sentiment.
thats what I’d have done anyway.
And #13 – Did you intentionally spell stake wrong? (steak) Or are you just a complete moron?
Muslims are not merely forbidden to eat pigs. Pigs (and dogs) are considered dirty. Even after touching one, we have to go through a retardedly tedious cleansing ceremony involving muddy water.
I live in Minneapolis, probably have shopped at that Target, and maybe even have been helped by that same cashier.
My son also goes to a school in which there are quite a number of Somali students due to the English language program available at the school.
Last week after school there was a community meeting of sorts at the school and one of the sessions was with several Somali parents who shared some of their beliefs, experiences, etc.
The subject of pork came up briefly and so did the topic of dogs. One of the young Somali women there said simply. “We believe that the saliva of a dog is unclean. If a dog licks us we have to wash 7 times. Frankly it’s just not worth the process.”
But there was some disagreement among the Somalis about the extent to which they really needed to avoid dogs. One, who seemed to be more of a religious expert, said touching dogs is fine as long as they are dry and you avoid the saliva. in practice, dogs in Somalia were typically used for hunting or as guard dogs and not as pets. Many Somalis avoid them out of fear because a strange dog was not likely to be friendly.
One of the things I took away from that evening is that in general the Somalis have no interest in pushing Islam on anyone. In fact they’d rather avoid the topic of Islam if they can because they live in fear of aniti-Muslim backlash.
The other thing I away I learned, which should have been obvious, is that there is a tremendous amount of variability in which they observe and interpret Muslim practices. I believe that incidents like the one that occurred at Target could probably be minimized in a number of different ways.
One very important thing to know is that these people aren’t radicals bent on the Islamification of America. They came here to escape civil war and would gladly go back home if they felt it were safe to raise their kids there.
As far as Taxi drivers and transporting alcohol are concerned; I think that it’s ironic that this is such a hot topic today. My grandfather (son of immigrants) spent time in jail for doing just that in the 20′s (good thing they didn’t find out about the still). Those same Somalis that we complain about today would have been seen as upstanding citizens not all that long ago.
I live near Minneapolis and a great mystery for me is why this area has become the hotbed for Muslim Issues. Taxi Drivers refusing to carry passengers with seeing eye dogs and passengers with alcohol(unopened, it a box, in the trunk mind you), the six flying Imams acting suspiciously, being forced off of the plane before takeoff and filing suit against the airline and airport, and now this.
Minnesota is a pretty liberal, diverse, and tolerant state, could this be why it has become the nexus of Muslim/traditional American issues?
#29
If it weren’t for 911 and the Iraq war, the relatively minor culture clashes that Somali Taxi drivers and Target cashiers have had would barely make the local news. The flying Imam incident would have never happened.
As far as why so many Somalis have come here, there’s no single reason. The availability of jobs that require little English literacy is one factor.
Another factor is that once you get a critical mass of a certain group of people in an area, you naturally attract more of that same group. That’s the same reason why a century or so ago so many Germans, Scandinavians, and Irish came here and settled in clusters of people of the same “nationality”.
In 1900 there was actually a higher percentage of the population in Minnesota didn’t speak English than there is today.
23 & 30 – Tom, thanks for the insights.
13 – That’s hilarious. It was meant as a joke, right?
23 – Right. That’s why so many Norwegians settled in Connecticut and Seattle. That’s why Chinatowns exist in cities. It’s because the immigrants were so eager to join the majority culture. Sorry, dude – it’s the second generation, not the first, that traditionally is ashamed of parents who don’t speak English or share the ideas of the surrounding culture. And not always even then – the Chinese, for example, famously congregate as small islands of people who are only marginally integrated into the surrounding local culture. You can find insular Chinese communities in just about any country.
When did the emergence of creepy self-rightousness appear in the USA?
I think it came across the Pacific at the Bering land bridge and the Atlantic with the Norse.
Its continued to infest the place with each new migration.
HHHHH EEEEE LLLLL LLLLL OOOOO!
@13.
I am proudly narcissistic. I have embraced narcissism and am much happier for it. I am, however, not an ass. I don’t expect everyone else to believe what I believe. I also understand that not only is my way not the only way – but very well may, or may not, be the best way.
This cashier needs to get the hell over it. No one is forcing the cashier to eat or buy the pork. Furthermore, if it is so offensive to scan the pork, then why isn’t it offensive to work at the store that sells the pork? People just need to relax.
Also, I do not respect everyone, nor do I respect everyone’s beliefs. I do, however, do my best to be reasonably polite. I would not, for instance, offer a sampling of my bag of tasty pork rinds to the Muslim cashier. That would be rude. I would, however, expect the cashier, regardless of that cashier’s beliefs, to scan the damn pork. I don’t have all day to screw around worrying about other people’s beliefs and accommodating them to the point of making my own life a living hell. No one gives a crap about my beliefs. If I were to let it, it would be very irritating when people shove the baby Jesus crap down my throat. But I don’t whine about it, I just ignore it and move on.
#10 do they sell kosher food too?
#13 you need to stand on the ground. You’re starting to show the effects of floating in the air too much
#21 no, it doesn;t deserve to be respected. If she respected her belief so much, why did she took a work that exposed her to things completely against her beliefs? to see if she could pass the test of temptation? gimme a break!
#26 it seems that the cashier whined more.
#29 you got it! that’s the reason why.
There is an astonsishing degree of anger here because one woman with an extreme superstition didn’t want to touch a package of bacon. My question is, what white suburban bitch is so goddamn uppity that she has to turn an insignificant inconvenience into a media event?
Who cares? It’s freakin’ bacon.
#9 – Same goes for the MN cabbies…fark them, they are not allowed to choose their fares, period. We screamed and got all excited when cabbies chose fares on racial lines, and this is exactly the same concept. It cannot be tolerated!
Says you…
Honestly, it’s amazing the degree to which you’ll presume to tell people how to do jobs that most of you will not do yourselves.
As the guy here that drove a cab for three years, let me say yet again… I paid to drive. I gave money to the cab company to lease that vehical, and no matter what you might think the rules are, it’s my cab and I am in charge and you’ll respect my rules and if you don’t I’ll put you out, by force if need be.
And I’ve done it. And no cop has ever sided with the passenger in any of the many incidents.
Cab driver is one of the 5 most dangerous jobs in America. Now I wouldn’t turn away a seeing eye dog, though I did turn away some dogs because they were to damn dirty to be in my cab… and I’ve turned down fares who were too drunk. Your drama stays with you. It does not get into my cab.
I agree the cabbie in the story you reference is beyond the pale, but it is important that folks understand that they are not in charge of the cabs they hire.
#19 – And this is a reflection of the larger picture, where Muslims voluntarily enter another culture and then, arrogantly and ethnocentrically, insist that the culture change to accomodate them.
That doesn’t sound anything like how some Americans act overseas… No wait, it sounds exactly like how Americans act… Maybe it isn’t that the average Muslim is an ass. Maybe the average person is an ass. What do ya say?
#28 – I believe that incidents like the one that occurred at Target could probably be minimized in a number of different ways.
For example, maybe no one ever should have said boo about it. That would have minimized it. I prefer to save my wrath for those who try to legislate thier narrow idea of morality on my life. At Target (or anywhere) I’m willing to accomadate someone else’s irrational belief, so long as it doesn’t have an effect on my personal life.
Life is just too short for this kind of crap.
#19
I don’t see this as evidence that Somalis are insisting that the larger culture change to accomodate them.
The cashier asked the customer to scan her own pork. She didn’t refuse to sell the customer the pork.
The Somali taxi drivers who refuse to knowingly transport alcohol are not insisting that the larger culture stop drinking or transporting alcohol.
I don’t know what expectation or understanding regarding the handling of pork that Target had with respect to this employee. It could be that the employee handled the situation exactly as they were told to do. It could be that the subject never came up when the employee was hired. It could be that the employee didn’t realize that that Target sold pork products since many (maybe most ?) don’t.
My guess is that this was not a “Super Target”. In fact, I don’t know that there is a Super Target in Minneapolis proper. In Minneapolis many normal Targets are starting to carry more grocery items because there are fewer grocery stores in the area.
Hopefully as a result of this incident Target will either make clear what’s expected of their employees in that situation and either the employees can live with it or they can’t. #35 is right though. This really shouldn’t be a big deal.
#27. It could have just been a typo, tallwoosie.
#34: “No one gives a crap about my beliefs.” – Satan
This is a direct projection of you disrespecting yourself. How CAN you respect others if you don’t even respect Satan.
“I don’t see this as evidence that Somalis are insisting that the larger culture change to accomodate them.”
One thing people HAVE to do when they move to a multicultiral nation, is realize that THEY HAVE TO SUCK IT UP, otherwise they might as well return back to Somalia.