Monkey Book Display at Barnes & Noble: Snopes Says It's Fake

This photo was sent to me recently by a friend who claims that the Barnes & Noble store in the Miracle Mile Mall in Coral Gables, Florida had this display in the front display of the store.

Notice the various Obama books and in the center is a book about Monkeys. If you'll notice, this display is not in a place where a customer could have placed the monkey book.

I sent this to my cousin Pam who said she'd received the e-mail as well and that Snopes.com claims that according to a statement from Barnes & Noble, the monkey book was placed there by a customer as a prank and not by an employee of Barnes & Noble.

I was in a rush and blogged about the picture, but had no time to stop and check it's authenticity.

Lazy blogging on my part and I chalk it up as a lesson learned. I pledge to refrain from printing photos I receive from people second-hand in the future and will, as has been the focus of my blog, focus on issues covered by the media.

Given the number of stores and the range of employees Barnes & Noble has, I cannot in all fairness just accuse the entire corporation as a whole of being racist.

As I stated in my original blog I worked part-time for Barnes & Noble in New York (the original store on 5th avenue) and I know they had a diverse range of employees and managers working there during my brief tenure and I never had any problems or saw any such nonsense.

I'll be more careful in the future.