Virginia Lowes Store Bends To The Will Of Racism

Marcus Bradley was set to deliver a package from Lowes’ Danville, Virginia location, until he got to the customer’s home and the owner told him she didn’t want a black man delivering packages to her home.

Naturally, the manager of that Lowe’s told the woman to fuc … oh, wait, the manager replaced Bradley with a whiter, more appropriately skin-toned driver. Even worse, if possible, when Bradley asked the manager why he should bring the package back to the store and allow another driver to deliver it, the manager said:

“Because you're black.”

America. 2020.

Alex Brooks, who has worked with Bradley for 11 years, was in the truck when the call came in from the manager:

"I was embarrassed because I got the phone call. I think that's kind of how [Marcus] felt, too. Marcus was more shocked at Lowe's doing this. He couldn't believe that the place he worked at would go along with this woman's wishes."

And Brooks acknowledged that the store knows this particular client is a racist:

"The weekend before this delivery, everybody told us that this woman in the store wouldn't deal with any of the black customer service representatives or salesmen. She said she didn't want any black delivery drivers, so they knew beforehand."

And yet they sent Marcus Bradley anyway. And when the two men returned to the store, the manager asked Alex Brooks, who is white, to go back out on the delivery with another white driver; Alex Brooks refused.

And Lowes corporate offices have also refused to allow the three managers who took part in this racist episode to continue to work at the store:

"There had been a customer who had requested only white delivery drivers to deliver an item to her home. After we learned of a situation that a manager had pulled the driver from the delivery, we did a quick investigation. The three managers who had been part of that decision are no longer part of the company. We have zero tolerance for behavior of that kind. We have apologized and our senior vice president actually went to the [Danville, Virginia] store last week and spoke to the delivery drivers personally and apologized on behalf of the company. We wanted to make sure they knew they had our full support."

Although saddened and hurt by the incident, Marcus Bradley plans to continue working for Lowe's.

"I mean, I gotta work. I'm going to keep going to work like I've always done, but I would think Lowe's would take it into consideration to think about what they're doing the next time.”

The racist homeowner, who asked not to be identified, though that's her picture up there and I'm guessing her name is Karen, was very willing to talk to the local news about the incident:

“I got a right to have whatever I want and that’s it. I don’t feel bad about nothing.”

Clearly, her ignorance and command of the English language go hand—in-hand with her racism.

Now, Lowes … I know it’s not you, but it’s the people you hired at the Danville location, so this is how you train your employees:

A customer requests to have only a white person help them, show them the door.

A customer asks to have only white people deliver to their home, tell them to pick up the goods themselves.

Better yet, tell that racist old hag—who told the news that she would still never allow a black man on her property—and any other person who makes the same request, be it about a black person, Latino, Asian, gay, Indian, Muslim, to kindly fuck off.

And show them the door.

ABC News

A Lowe's In Virginia Bends To Racism

As we mourn the loss of Julian Bond, here's yet another reminder that his work is not over, and that the march goes on ...

Marcus Bradley has worked for Lowe’s as a delivery driver for the last eleven years at their Danville, Virginia location, but that may soon be changing because Marcus is a Black man.

Oh, Lowe’s itself doesn’t really have a problem with Marcus’ race, but some of their customers do and that particular Lowe’s is bowing down to the racism.

It goes like this: while out on his regular run delivering for Lowe’s Marcus got a call to return to the store because, he was told, he could not do the delivery because the customer didn’t want a Black man at her house.

Oh, and before I forget, this did happen this year, in 2015; this is not some decade’s old tale.

Marcus says his boss told him that the customer specifically asked that Lowe's not to send a black delivery person. Again … 2015. And when the client, an older woman, was contacted by a local news station she replied like this:

"I got a right to have whatever I want and that's it. I don't feel bad about nothing."

Well for starters, I feel bad about her loose knowledge of grammar and the English language, but that’s not as bad as I feel about Lowe’s kowtowing to racism.

Look, it’s a free country and you can be narrow-minded bigot all you want, but you cannot tell a company to keep the Blacks away from your house. If this woman wanted a new dryer, or whatever it was, though it was clearly not a book on grammar, she should go down to the Lowes’s in her pick-up truck, with its Confederate flag window decal, and have one of her knuckle-dragging, toothless cousin-f**king illiterate kinfolk pick up her order.

Just sayin’.

Oh, and that Lowe’s has fired the manager who told Marcus to come back to the store. Chris Ahearn, a Lowe’s spokeswoman:

“We’ve reached out to the drivers and one of our senior executives went to the store to apologize to them in person. We have zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind, and we should never have accepted the terms of the sale with the individuals who were delivered to.”

I was all about the boycott there for a moment, but then Lowe’s did the right thing.

But here’s the queer deal: if you are a racist bigot homophobe anti-Semite anti-women, anti-whatever, then don’t buy anything that needs to be delivered because, if I owned that Lowe’s I’d send over a big Black Jewish bull dyke with a crew cut and tattoos wearing daisy dukes to that woman’s house just to watch her head explode.

Again … just sayin’.

Daily Kos