Originally published 3.3.09
Written by Jesse Muhammad
Ok, I couldn’t even get settled in good from Chicago before receiving yet another “Monkey Moment” in my inbox.
First the New York Post now this “Monkey Moment” comes courtesy of a Barnes & Nobles Bookstore in Coral Gables, Florida in Miracle Miles Mall.
This photo, emailed to Snopes.com, was taken by a shopper of this window display at the store showing a book about monkeys in the middle of an assortment of books about President Obama and his family.
But wait…a spokesman from the bookstore says it wasn’t their doing. Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for B&N, stated that the display layout was more likely the work of a prank customer and not an employee.
“Barnes and Nobles 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 by or about President Obama”, she said.
Ms. Keating further stated that, “We want to assure our customers that the book placed by someone other than any of out 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 step necessary so that it doesn’t happen again. It certainly was not a part of our merchandising and we regret that we didn’t see the placement of this title immediately.â€
Of course once the word got out about this people started requesting that the display be removed immediately and many B&N customers there are vowing to stop supporting the store….if some of them are Black maybe this is a good opportunity to support a Black-owned one if there is one in Coral Gables.
Let’s take heed to the instructions of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. Have a shared attitude and accept responsibility to build our communities.