From: dowdy@tochtli.biochem.nwu.edu (Dowdy Jackson)
Subject: Re: Waldenbooks fires staff for refusing to sell racist book!
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 00:32:00 GMT

In article <oneil.716184134@cwis> oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu (Sharon O'Neil) writes:
>jsdph@acad3.alaska.edu (Dennis P. Harris) writes:
>
>>According to a story on today's NPR Morning Edition, Waldenbooks has fired the
>>staff of its Georgetown store in Washington, DC for refusing to sell the
>>"Joke-A-Date" appointment calendar, which contains racist and demeaning "jokes"
>>for each day of 1993.  After hearing some examples in the story of some of the
>>"jokes", I agree with the former WB employees that the publication (from St.
>>Martins Press, which should know better) would offend a large number of
>>bookstore customers.
>
>First of all, let me say that I don't like the idea of this "Joke-A-Date'
>calendar, but I think that to refuse to sell it is censorship.  Just because
>I don't like something doesn't mean that I can refuse to sell it.  If they
>don't buy it from me, they'll buy it from someone else.  And I'm sure that
>there's plenty of stuff in a bookstore that might offend me, other than that.
>I don't like Pat Robertson or Dinesh D'Souza or the National Enquirer but
>if I don't sell those books, I'm censoring them, if they are available.
>
Isn't it OK to sell what YOU want to sell? Bookstores don't sell all types
of books. In many bookstores, especially those in white areas, there isn't
a section for books on black history or interests. Is that censorship ? I know
many will say that books on black history/interests won't sell well in white
areas but how do you know when they aren't even offered for sale there in the
first place ? The point is this. You can choose to sell whatever you want to
and that by not selling a certain thing isn't censorship. Besides they can
go elsewhere and get that offensive book. Look at pornographic book stores.
If you want to purchase pornographic material tehn go to a porno book store.
 
>>I have already informed WB that I intend to boycott them until they stop
>>selling the book and reinstate the fired employees by posting a message to
>>their user services folks in their Walden Computerbooks on-line store in the
>>Compu$erve Mall (GO WB), and I urge others to join me.  I also intend to write
>>St. Martins Press and tell them I'm boycotting them, too.  The book's author is
>>apparently afraid to use his/her real name, since it's listed as "Blanche
>>Knott" (ooh, bad pun!).
>
>Oh please!  Get a life.  I could see you being upset if these people 
>were fired for being black or gay or whatever else, but that apparently
>isn't the case.  They were fired because they refused to sell a book/
>calendar.  That equals censorship.  And since Waldenbooks is a seller of
>books, and hence ideas, I think that you're really overreacting.
>
Maybe he/she is but maybe not. If you were very offended how would you react.
If a store has the right to sell whatever books it wants to then does it have
the right to sell to whomever they please ?
  
>>There is no Waldenbooks store in my area, or I would have dropped in and told
>>the local staff that I'm boycotting them, but you can drop by your local mall
>>and let the local manager know how you feel.
>
>I would be happy that the local manager isn't attempting to control my
>access to whatever materials I want to read that are sold in her store.
>
That's not really true. They DO control what you have access to.

>I would be happy that the local manager isn't bowing into the conservatives
>who would have Ms. Magazine and Utne reader banned fromthe store.
>
>sharon o'neil
>oneil@cwis.unomaha.edu
>


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