Former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) was shopping at Walmart with his daughter and he noticed something that he thought was rather odd, reported Talking Points Memo. The employee working the checking line posted a sign that he couldn’t sell alcohol, and that employee didn’t have a traditional American name.
It has to be because Sharia law has infiltrated Walmart, he thought.
West recalled the incident in a blog post entitled “More ominous signs of Christian persecution.” West wrote:
There was a young man doing the checkout and another Walmart employee came over and put up a sign, “No alcohol products in this lane.” So being the inquisitive fella I am, I used my additional set of eyes – glasses – to see the young checkout man’s name. Let me say it was NOT “Steve.”
I pointed the sign out to Aubrey and her response was a simple question, how is it that this Muslim employee could refuse service to customers based on his religious beliefs, but Christians are being forced to participate in specific events contrary to their religious beliefs?
There are a few problems here. West assumes that just because the employee doesn’t have an “American” name, that he must automatically be Muslim. That’s xenophobic profiling. He had no proof that the employee was Muslim, only his own prejudice as weak evidence.
Also, he noted that the employee was young. Walmart noted that its policy is to not allow any employee under 21 to sell alcoholic beverages, according to an editor’s note at the end of the post. Perhaps the employee is below the age of 21.
“We spoke to the Walmart store, and apparently employees under 21 years old are prohibited from selling cigarettes and alcohol,” said the editor’s note before doubling down on the crazy notion that Muslims are taking over Walmart. “However, that isn’t to say Walmart isn’t secretly caving to Muslim demands.”
This is the exact kind of xenophobic fear mongering with which the GOP tries to infect America. And there’s a small fringe of conservative Tea Partiers who surely buy into this sort of flimsy conspiracy theory. Conservative Christians victimize themselves as if there’s a war to wipe them out. We just want them to stop acting so crazy.
