That didn't take long

After last week's storm over Muslim cashiers refusing to handle pork products, the predictable PC backlash to the backlash appeared:

Pork tale provides food for thought

...

The scale of the reaction reflects continuing trauma from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said psychologists, religious scholars and workplace consultants. This group also chalked up many of the responses to something as simple as modern impatience and as complicated as human prejudice.

"It may not be something we really fully understand," said Wade Rowatt, an associate psychology professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, who studies religious differences.

...

Some of this sounds like prejudice masquerading as customer-service outrage, said Jack Glaser, an assistant public policy professor at the University of California in Berkeley, who studies stereotyping and hate crimes.

"People these days don't really like to see themselves as prejudiced," Glaser said. "This way they can say, 'It's not that I don't like Muslims, but these people are being inconsiderate and I take umbrage at that.' "

But a funny thing happened while the academics were solemnly intoning about rights and prejudices; Target Corporation was already reacting to the outcry from its customers and providing what should be a case study in dealing with a potential problem in the Age of the Internet:

Target is transferring cashiers who avoid pork

In the wake of community criticism, Target Corp. is reassigning its Muslim cashiers who refuse to ring up pork products for religious reasons to other jobs at the stores.

Target received a wave of criticism earlier this week after the Star Tribune reported in a front-page article that some Muslim cashiers at Target declined to scan bacon and other pork products. They would call over another cashier to ring up the products, or in some cases, ask customers to do it themselves.

...

"We are confident that this is a reasonable solution for our guests and team members," Target spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greear said in a statement.

They probably should have done that from the start, but give them credit for acting promptly and in the customer's best interest. It is a reasonable solution, though not all feel that way:

"This is being blown way out of proportion," said Abdi Sheikhosman, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Minnesota Law School. "Pork products represent a very small percentage of Target's overall products. ... Accommodations could have been made."

Sorry Professor, you're wrong there. This has nothing to do with the proportion of products sold at Target and everything to do with not imposing burdens or religious beliefs on customers. For some reason the good Professor has trouble comprehending what this recent immigrant understands all too well:

Mohamed Muse, who also works at the St. Louis Park store but not as a cashier, has no problems with the new policy. "If someone is trying to buy pork, you can't just say, 'Wait here,' " he said. "You can't put a hold on the work system."

Muse, speaking to a reporter Friday afternoon at the Somali mall just off Lake Street, said when he applied for his job six months ago, a human-resources worker asked him whether he could handle pork. Muse, who arrived in the country eight months ago after immigrating with his family from Nairobi, Kenya, said no. "They said OK. So I work mostly with fruits and vegetables overnight," he said. "It was really no problem."

Getting along is just not that complicated if everyone is willing to act in good faith. Welcome to America, Mr. Muse.

And Professor Glaser? Stick your "prejudice" in your ear, you simpering fool.

Comments

[tree hugging sister]

Glaser needs to suck a stone.

[Dave E.]

If he wanted to point out a specific comment that would be one thing, but I don't care at all for his airy, ivory-tower, broadbrush statement. It's not "prejudice" to decline to have someone else's religious beliefs foisted upon you.

I'm sure Abdi Sheikhosman would be more than happy to respond to everyone's emails:

"Finally, I can be reached at: shei0038@umn.edu and will be more then happy to answer any questions that you have."