From: kadie@herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: [misc.consumers, et al.]  Re: Waldenbooks fires staff for refusing to sell racist book!
Followup-To: alt.censorship,misc.consumers,alt.discrimination
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 14:08:34 GMT

[A repost - Carl]

From: jsdph@acad3.alaska.edu (Dennis P. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,alt.discrimination
Subject:  Re: Waldenbooks fires staff for refusing to sell racist book!
Date: 10 Sep 92 08:02:00 GMT

In article <18gck9INN6gi@agate.berkeley.edu>, konstan@cs.berkeley.edu (Joe Konstan) writes...
>Now wait a minute here.  Isn't this the same Waldenbooks, owned by K-mart, 
>that so freely censors sexually explicit magazines?  It wasn't that long
>ago that K-mart caved in to some right-wing activists and removed even 
>Playboy from their K-mart shelves.  I believe that Waldenbooks carries
>Playboy, but none of the more explicit magazines.
> 
>So what is their message here:
> 
>	We can censor sex at headquarters, but we don't want other
>	offensive materials censored at the stores!?!
> 
>Maybe if the right and left wings refuse to patronize Waldenbooks we'll 
>have more good local bookstores around.
> 
>Joe Konstan
>konstan@cs.berkeley.edu

thank you, joe!  as the originator of this thread my mailbox has been stuffed
with flames from well-meaning people who believe that i'm advocatin censorship,
which i am *not*.  perhaps i didn't express myself very well, or politely
enough.  my message should have been:  if you find this type of book offensive,
fo course you don't have to buy it.  but the store is much less likely to carry
it if you politley let them know that it doesn't enduce you to enter the store
and browse.  the kmart ownership/censorship issue is one reason why i wrote my
message (thanks for the reminder, joe).  fortunately, i live in a small town
with 5 excellent bookstores run by people who believe in selling quality books
instead of the kind of limited-inventory mass-market best-seller chain
exemplified by wb.  when i travel, i avoid the chains and head for the stores
where the owner and staff are in business because they love books, not because
they want to move inventory.

but it seems h. l. mencken was right about american public taste :-)

i also got dumped on about defending employees who refuse to sell trash.  if
more people refused employer requests to do things that promote racism, are in
bad taste, or are dishonest and made a big stink about it when they got fired,
emplouyers might straighten up.  employers do have the right to fire people for
refusing stupid orders.  but employers who do should be willing to lose the
business from those who disagree with how they run their business.

no, i don't believe in censorship.  but when someone publishes something
obnoxious, i think that it *should* generate some discussion.  and i would urge
the publisher to publish something else instead.
================================================================================
dennis p. harris					bitnet: jsdph@alaska.edu

  "The nation that controls magnetism controls the Universe." --- Diet Smith
================================================================================
--
Carl Kadie -- kadie@cs.uiuc.edu -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: alt.censorship