By Todd Starnes
Three Walmart workers in McDonough, Georgia refused to decorate a “thin blue
line” cake for a police officer’s retirement party because they said it was racist.
A number of my Georgia readers alerted me to the story and on Saturday night I spoke directly with the police officer’s
daughter. She asked that I not divulge her name and I’ve agreed to honor her request.
“I was so shocked,” she told me. “I didn’t know what to do or say or anything. I was trying
not to lose my temper or make a scene.”
“One
of the bakers told me the design could be perceived as racist and nobody feels comfortable decorating the cake,” the
police officer’s daughter told me.
As an alternative,
she suggested a chocolate-frosted cake with a horizontal, frosted blue line.
But that design was also rejected by Walmart’s cake decorator.
“She said, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing this,’” the cop’s daughter told me.
“I asked her, ‘Is there something wrong with cops?’”
After being rejected for a third time, the 21-year-old told the bakers, “I’ll find another bakery, thank
you.”
She was much more polite than I would’ve been,
folks.
“I was disappointed,” she told me. “I
go to Walmart all the time — at least once a week spend hundreds of dollars. I just wanted to make my dad a cake to
show how much i appreciated him.”
A friend of the family
posted an item about the incident on Facebook and it wasn’t long before the Walmart store manager called the police
officer’s wife and daughter — and apologized.
“He
said he was so sorry,” the daughter told me. “He offered to make the cake free of charge and he gave me a $50
gift card.”
A Walmart corporate spokesperson confirmed
most of the story.
“Our goal is to always take care of
customers,” the spokesperson told me. “But, sometimes we misstep.We’re glad we were able to connect with
the family to apologize and make this right.”
Walmart
did not say if one of their associates called the cake racist.
“I
can confirm an associate made a mistake that has since been corrected for the customer,” the spokesperson told me.
So how did Walmart right their wrong? The answer to that question is going to curdle
your Fruit Loops, folks.
The manager offered to make and decorate
a new cake. But there was just one problem — the cake decorators refused to comply.
“So the manager told me that he would decorate it — but it looked terrible,” the police officer’s
daughter said. “It doesn’t look professional.”
I’ve attached photographs of Walmart’s handiwork — it’s absolutely embarrassing and unacceptable.
“I work in retail,” the officer’s daughter told me. “If
I didn’t want to deal with a customer — and said ‘No’ — I would get fired.”
Unfortunately, her father’s retirement party is Sunday night - so there’s
no time to go elsewhere.
“It irritates me that in
Charlotte, North Carolina, the Walmart was looted and the cops were protecting them,” she said. “And you can’t
make a cake for the people who are protecting you?”
Walmart
needs to make this right and they can start by delivering a professionally decorated cake to the police officer’s family.
The three cake decorators need to be told: either decorate the cake or be fired.
Just because Walmart is the home of low prices, doesn’t mean they have to
hire a bunch of low class, anti-cop bigots.
