Claim: Photograph shows a store's display window presenting books about Barack Obama with a book about monkeys.
Examples: [Collected via e-mail, February 2009]
Racism still exists obviously.
Let us not be lulled into a sense of complacency, due to the recent political success of President Obama. Racism still exists in this country. Like all things, nothing is perfect on this planet, in this world. We have an obligation to be active on issues that simply cannot be ignored. Along these lines we should all actively spread the word of how Barnes and Noble apparently feels about black people or at least our President. Please forward this to as many people you think should be aware of this and would be offended by this. Boycotting Barnes and N! oble wil l show the economic effect of people who will not tolerate racism.
Barnes and Noble had this as their store front display in Coral Gables , FL in the Miracle Mile Mall. I am totally disgusted and I think it is important that we all find a different place to buy our books. Obviously this is a place of extreme ignorance. How far have we really come? God bless.
HERE WE GO!
I am a confirmed bibliophile and have spent hundreds (or probably thousands) of dollars at your stores and their affiliates over the past two decades. I just received this link from my sister in
Origins: Given the recent political controversy over perceived racist
connotations in a New York Post political cartoon that used the imagery of a violent chimpanzee shot dead by police to comment on the debate over President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, any connection (intentional or otherwise) between the presidential image and that of monkeys or apes is bound to come under particularly strong scrutiny right now.
It was therefore not surprising that this purported image of the window of a
Barnes & Noble would like to publicly apologize for an incident in our Coral Gables, Florida store. We believe that a customer played a cruel joke and placed an inappropriate title ("Monkeys") in the front window of our store, where we were featuring books written by or about President Obama. We want to assure our customers that the book placed by someone other than any of our booksellers was never intended to be included in our display and was removed as soon as we became aware of the situation. We are looking into it and taking the steps necessary so that it does not happen again. From time to time customers will move titles from one area of the store to another. In this particular case, we do not condone whatever message may have been intended with the placement of this title in our Presidential display. It certainly was not part of our merchandising and we regret that we didn't see the placement of this title immediately.
Last updated: 2 March 2009
 | Sources: |
Thompson, Krissah. "Offensive Bookstore Display Leads to Viral Outcry." voices.washingtonpost.com. 2 March 2009.