How would you feel if a cashier made you swipe your own groceries because of his/her religious beliefs?
I'm a reporter who covers Target for the Star Tribune and the other day, I got a call from someone who said that an employee at the Target store downtown refused to run his bacon through a scanning machine. He was mighty upset, arguing that the cashier had "no right to work as a cashier at Target" if she wasn't prepared to swipe his groceries.
But he was a little vague on the details, so I decided to check it out myself. At the Target store on E. Lake Street, a cashier wearing a hijab looked uncomfortable when I showed up at the cash register with a frozen pepperoni pizza. She immediately called for help, and another employee rang up the pizza and placed it in the basket.
I asked her if it was because she was Muslim, and she nodded her head. "I can't even touch it," she said.
The E. Lake store has only has a few aisles of food. How do Muslim workers adapt in Super Targets where there are full-fledged grocery sections? And is anyone other than this caller bothered by this? Are there some Muslim workers at Target who feel they have to suppress their beliefs to avoid conflicts?
Editor's note: A story about this issue appeared in Wednesday's Star Tribune.


Muslim migration
Sounds interesting. Perhaps we should take a lesson from post-colonial India and give the Muslims North Dakota.
Seriously,I am absolutely sure that we were put here to get along. But as long as we have individuals from each religion Screaming "mis-treatment", "Foul", etc., we are doing nothing to "get along".
Here is an exam-ple of a quote from the Trib article today.
"Such vitriol bubbling up from a few incidents has drawn undue attention from non-Muslims, according to Atia Ibrahim, a computer security specialist who lives in Eden Prairie.
"If a vegetarian refused to scan hamburger, that wouldn't make the front page," she said. "But because the word 'Muslims' comes up, suddenly it becomes news."
The problem here is that the Vegetarian would not work at mickey d's if it was a problem and my jewish ex-wife would not be handling non-kosher meat if it were a problem. If I am Hindu, you would never find me working in the meat industry anywhere. But "because the word 'Muslims' comes up," SUDDENLY IT IS DISCIMINATION SOMEHOW.
"IF YOU CAN'T DO THE WORK, DO NOT (I REPEAT) DO NOT TAKE THE JOB" AND if you are a business that hires employees that Can't do the work, WELL GOOD LUCK ON YOUR BOTTOM LINE!!