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Jean Camara is a devout Muslim who landed a job working at Costco — a retailer, as many of you know, that sells alcohol and pork.
The cashier refused to handle pork when it came down the conveyor belt. After he explained his predicament to his superiors, they reassigned him to collect the carts in the parking lot.
Now, Camara is pursuing that most American of remedies — a discrimination lawsuit against Costco.
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“Just because you have a different belief, that doesn’t give anybody the right to treat you different,” Camara told reporters.
Camara was employed at the Costco in Sunset Park, Brooklyn — clearly a hotbed of religious intolerance if there ever was one. After he was moved to collecting carts, Camara asked to be reassigned to other departments but was turned down.
He was later fired 16 days later for — you’ll never believe this — insubordination.
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“We all share different beliefs so we all should be treated equally no matter what belief we have,” Camara said. (H/T Opposing Views)
While nobody here wants to discriminate against someone’s religion, we’d like to point out that this is not a Muslim country. Therefore, there are certain jobs that, if you choose not to work with pork and alcohol, aren’t going to be open to you.
If you have a phobia of blood, nursing probably isn’t the field for you. If you can’t stand the smell of feces, don’t get a job cleaning septic tanks. If you don’t like lying, you shouldn’t get a job with the Democratic Party. It’s that simple
If you feel you cannot handle pork products, feel free to not work in a store that sells pork. In fact, that’s probably the last place you should apply, because if the store sells pork, odds are you’re going to be handling pork at some point.
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Camara was, I can only assume, aware of the fact that Costco stocked these items, inasmuch as I’m going to assume that, as a devout Muslim, he’d have checked out what employers he was applying to sold non-halal items.
I’d also like to talk a little inside baseball here — once upon a time, long before landing the glamorous job of a jet-setting Conservative Tribune correspondent, I worked for a while in retail. I can tell you that cashier is usually the lowest rung on the ladder in terms of pay and expertise. The only thing at that same level is — you guessed it — a cart collector.
Anyone who knows retail knows that Camara was reassigned to the only other job his employers deemed him qualified for. He didn’t get transferred to another department not on account of his religious beliefs, but because those who employed him didn’t feel him qualified to be there.
Furthermore, if you’re the one who requests to be reassigned, you don’t get to pick where you’re reassigned to. That’s what your bosses are for.
I get the feeling Mr. Camara is wasting his time through the court system. I’d call his lawsuit baloney, but I’d fear Camara might sue me next. After all, he can’t touch baloney, either.
He’d be better off spending the time finding another job — this time, at an establishment that doesn’t sell pork.
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