Barnes & Nobles responds to "racist" display allegation.

Barnes & Nobles Booksellers
Press Release

CONTACT:
Mary Ellen Keating
Senior Vice President
Corporate Communications
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
(212) 633-3323
mkeating@bn.com

03/06/2009

Barnes & Noble Outraged Over Tampering of Store Display in Coral Gables, Florida



New York, New York – March 6, 2009 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world’s largest bookseller, announced today that it is the victim of a malicious act. The company is outraged over the tampering of a store display in its Coral Gables, Florida store by a customer who placed an inappropriate title in the center of its Presidential display. Barnes & Noble believes the incident occurred two weeks ago when a customer took a book from another part of the store entitled Monkeys: A Captivating Look at These Fascinating Animals, placed it in the window display and then photographed the altered display. When Barnes & Noble discovered the book in the display it immediately removed it. Since then, the photograph has been widely distributed via email and over the Internet falsely claiming that Barnes & Noble actually placed the book in the display.

Leonard Riggio, Barnes & Noble Founder and Chairman who has long been involved in the civil rights struggle, said “this malicious and despicable act is nothing short of a hate crime, which should be punishable under federal statutes. Rather than detracting from President Obama’s historic victory as was intended, the perpetrator of this crime served only to validate the wisdom of the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him.”

Read entire press release.

Thanks to T. Patterson for the link.

President Barack H. Obama!

January 20, 2009, America embarked on a new phase of it's history with the first African American President. He embodies hope and embraces every race, nationality and ethnicity. The world rejoiced today.












View more photos by Mike Segar (Reuters) at Yahoo News.