Second Class citizen

Last week I spent about an hour inside the local Kroger grocery store and I was barefoot the whole time. Just shopping and enjoying my first real public barefoot outing. I had no problems. A few wary looks but no real problems. It was a very enjoyable experience.

Last night, I went back to the store to buy a nail file for my girlfriend. I was there for one thing and would only be in the store for a few minutes. I wasn't planning to be barefoot, but I forgot my sandals were in the house when I jumped in my car.

After sitting in my car in the parking lot for fifteen minutes listening to Phish and waiting for the torrential rain to slow a bit, I ventured inside. The cool tiles were a welcome sensation to my rain soaked, pavement baked soles. And then it happened....

CLERK:"Sir....sir.......SIR!" (yes I was ignoring her). "You have to have shoes on to come in here."

ME: "I know. I'll be gone in a minute. Just getting a nail file."
CLERK: "No sir. You have to have shoes on to be in here."
ME: "I'm just getting a file and I''' be gone in five minutes."
CLERK: "They can't check you out without shoes sir." (she is getting very condescending).
ME: "Why? Why can't I just get what I came for and leave?"
CLERK: (Here it comes)..."It's Health Department code sir." (HA!)
ME: "No it's not. There is no health department code about barefooting."
CLERK: "Yes there is sir and you can't be in here."
ME: "Whatever." (turning to leave in a peaceful manner.)

I ended up going to Thornton's gas station and had no problems. As I drove home I realized how it must have been for the real hippies of the sixties and seventies. People looked down on them because they didn't understand the counter culture. And since it is against the law to discriminate against a group of people for their ideas, they came up with a logical way to treat hippies like shit.

Premise: Hippies are undesirable people.
Premise: Hippies don't wear shoes very often.
Conclusion: People who are barefoot are undesirable hippies.
Solution: Refuse to serve anyone without shoes and/or shirt.

I felt like a second class citizen. Wow, what an eye opener to the attitudes of society. I guess classism is the one thing a corporation values over the mighty dollar. Oh well. Who wants to be accepted by general society anyway?

 

Rules are rules, and they are made for good reasons, bad reasons or no reasons at all. By breaking a rule you were asking for it. It doesn't matter if you agree with a rule or not.

You have three choices:

1) Obey the rule.
2) Take your business elsewhere.

Second-class citizen? Hardly. Undesirable customer? Absolutely, at least from that particular business owner's / operator view. But you have no more right to demand that the business changes the rules than that same business has the right to demand that you put shoes on once you leave the store...

 

I think there was plenty undesirable barefooters before
there was us'n hippies - like farmkids and red roaders .
The prejudice supposes to defend (urban)civilization , and at it's
stupid best , these people will feel and express compassinate
sorrow to the shoeless . One guy saw me walking about town and cripey
he took the shoes off his own feet insisting they be on mine .

Got no electricity ? Maybe it's about the same thing .

No shoes , no nukes !

 

My local Kroger has never given me a problem despite the nsnsns sign on the door. In fact I have often had some of the clerks tell me I look much more comfortable and they're jealous! Sometimes you will run into a narrow-minded overzealous clerk. That clerk may or may not be conveying the attitude or policy of the store's management. If you ask to see the manager, and the manger still asks you to leave simply tell him or her that you will be taking your business to a more barefoot friendly establishment. Good luck!

 

You forgot the third choice: convince people to change the rules. As an example, there used to be rules about forcing Africans to give up their seats on a bus. People finally got society to change its mind about those rules which didn't make any sense.

 

I go barefoot at Ralphs, which is owned by Kroger, all the time with no problem. It's a great place to get your soles nice and dirty, especiallly if you walk across the parking lot. I always see 2 or 3 other people barefoot in there when I go shopping. Guess that's one of the advantages of living in a beach town, no one cares if you're barefoot!

 

EHHHH!

Wrong example.

Racial discimination is on the basis of something one has absolutely no control over. "All men are created equal", hence racial discrimination is illegal.

Rules of the individual business against barefooting are a different animal. Going barefoot is a choice, and one that you can make very easily (it won't kill or harm you to wear shoes to go into an establishment that demands it).

You can't do anything about it. And pray it stays that way. Why? Because by the same token that you cannot demand that a business owner changes the rules for you, you cannot be demanded to change YOUR behaviour when you are not on someone else's property.

I mean, how would you like it if you were told to put your shoes on while walking down the street?

 

No, they're not. There used to be rules discriminating certain races from entering an individual business (not just public buses). People got smarter, reasoned it out, and changed the rules.

People are socialized into thinking that rules can never be changed.

 

Jesus man, can you not read or are you too stuck in your imaginary barefooting agenda to comprehend.

Racial discrimination bases on something an individual has no control over. Hence it is illegal.

You can choose whether to wear shoes or not, and choosing either way won't kill you or harm you.

Rules can be changed yes... I.E. one business may decide to let you in barefoot and the other may decide to kick you out... AND THAT'S PERFECTLY FINE BECAUSE YOU ARE ON SOMEONE ELSE'S PROPERTY... THE OWNER SETS THE RULES... IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU BEING A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN, IT'S ABOUT WHAT THE OWNER FEELS TO BE COMFORTABLE/ACCEPTABLE OR NOT. You can't change it, government can't change it, nobody really can. Do you presume to tell other people what to find acceptable and/or appropriate where you have no business doing so?..

 

There were many public businesses before that were upset about having to let in people of different ethnic heritage into their establishment. That's not a valid argument. Forcing people to put shoes on in a public establishment is like telling someone to put a bag over their head because they are the wrong color. The argument just doesn't hold water.

People can form their own private clubs if they wish and let in who they want and exclude the rest if they wish.

The 'control' argument doesn't hold water either, although it's often used to justify discrimination. One could be forced to put on eyeshadow or a bra before entering a public establishment because the owner thinks it's appropriate (it doesn't hurt to put on eyeshadow, right?). It's something that a person can control but it's still discrimination and doesn't make sense.

 

The problem is, we're not dealing anymore with stores and managers that are family-owned, nor are they small businesses. They might have cared if they drove a barefoot patron out of their place of business and lost the sale. Not some schmuck at Walmart or a chain supermarket.

I flew from Florida to New York on Friday, and returned Monday. I drove barefoot to Palm Beach airport, entered the airport barefoot, checked in barefoot, boarded barefoot, enjoyed the flight barefoot, deplaned barefoot, got my baggage barefoot, got picked up by my dad barefoot (at Islip, L.I.), and proceeded to drive to Saratoga barefoot. (I did not attend my cousin's wedding barefoot, unfortunately: I wore a suit.)

Early Monday, Dad and I went to Waldbaum's (a L.I. supermarket chain) so I could buy a bottle of water and some snacks for my flight. A puny manager-type guy was using a bar code reader to take inventory on the aisle I was on, and I saw him look at me as I made conversation with a woman who was shopping. Dad met up with me on that aisle and we talked some more. Then, as I was moving on, saying goodbye to the woman, this manager-dude says, "You have to have shoes on in here." (He seemed to have been itching to say it: I had noticed out of the corner of my eye.) I was turning to continue down the aisle as he said it, and I didn't even look at him as I walked on and said, very dismissively, "Yeah next time."

I flew out later in the day. Again, I drove barefoot to the airport (Islip), went through TSA bag check and airline check-in barefoot, walked through security barefoot, walked to my gate barefoot, gave in my boarding pass barefoot...

I was inside the jetway when a woman in front of me turned and in a surprised, flabbergasted tone said something like, "Surely you're not getting on the plane like that, no shoes!" I said of course I was, that was how I wanted to be. We ended up in a pleasant enough discussion that involved me, her, and the couple behind me. I pointed out the existence of the Society for Barefoot Living, and gently corrected her misconception that driving barefoot is illegal, as well as correcting the "Health Department" myth. She seemed to accept what I said as truth -- I told her I had done much research on the subject.

Well, we reached the door to the plane, and this officious bitch of an operations manager stopped me right there, apparently alerted by an underling to my "condition," and informed me that I "had" to have shoes on to get on the plane; and that she would not "let" me board. My fellow passengers and I exchanged knowing looks, and I said, "See, I told you that I often have to go through this with people who are uninformed about the facts." I took a pair of flip-flops out of my bag, put them on, and entered the plane. Once in my seat, they were put back into the bag and I was barefoot the whole time. So was the grandma in the seat next to me, and so was her granddaughter. Both of them spent the majority of the flight without their shoes on. I alone, though, deplaned and picked up my bags totally barefoot the whole time.

Contrast that treatment by "Donna," the officious bitch, with the fact that no one on my first flight gave me any "shoes required" bullshit. So either they failed to enforce such an important rule, or she was enforcing a nonsensical one. I mentioned to my seatmate (the grandma) that it was a bit ironic and paradoxical that it was dangerous for me to board the plane barefoot, but women are advised that if the plane has an emergency, they should remove their shoes! Hey, airline schmucks: Which is it?!

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

Well, they always check your fucking shoes for bombs, so aren't you saving them the trouble and raising the level of safety on the flight??? I hate that stupid health department bullshit....I'm just going to print out a copy of one of the letters that says there's no such thing...you can find them anywhere online. I've never been stopped, though.


And I quit shopping at Kroger a long time ago, because everyone that works there is retarded. Not that I hate retarded people, but I got sick of always having things messed up and getting stared at by creepy droolers.... oy....


I always wear my barefoot sandals. I sell them and can make some custom ones for you, if you like.

 

What you are failing to recognize and grant is the fact that many times, these business owners pretend to us that this is not about how they feel, but that it's "the Health Department" requiring them to require us to wear shoes -- and that's just utter bullshit, a complete untruth. NOWHERE in the U.S. (and probably anywhere else) does the Health Department require ANY particular mode of dress on the part of patrons.

They also claim that it's a liability issue. NO insurance company stipulates a refusal to pay claims for injuries because a patron was barefoot. They'd do better to deny claims when the patron was in teetery-tottery high heeled shoes, anyway.

No, we get given an line of shit from these people. If they were honest, they'd say that the real reason is that they just don't think bare feet are "respectable" enough for their establishment -- which is silly for a supermarket or a walmart, since you can go into either of these looking like absolute shit, smelly and disheveled, and not be denied service.

So the point really is, if the bullshit "reasons" for requiring shoes were stripped away, we'd see the flimsiness of the true reasons they are doing it, and those would be easy to expose as frivolous and foundationless, and not worthy of being actual policy.

You are saying, above, that this should be about "what the management says, goes." To a degree, that's true and it's fine. But what happens when the first reason they give us -- a health department that supposedly would fine them for letting us in barefoot -- is debunked? They fall back on the "well, it's policy" bullshit excuse. That makes it clear that they will lie to justify their decision, and that lying robs the decision itself of true validity. If it truly were policy, why not give that reason right away -- since it's really un-trumpable by the barefooter -- instead of giving a decoy reason that won't hold up?

I asked to see a written policy OR a written law when I was confronted by a super-bitch in walmart once. This obstinate scrunt not only refused to show me some walmart documentation that said it was policy to prohibit bare feet (which I don't believe even exists), she threatened to call the police on me. I ended up leaving after condemning her obstinance.

Surely, if a business owner or manager wants to claim that he's banning barefoot patrons because of the law, he should be able to show where the law can be found to say that; if he wants to claim that he's banning barefoot patrons because of a store or company policy, that police is on-hand in a handbook of store operations, and could be provided to a patron who politely requests to see it! To refuse to show it is to admit that it's probably not even to be found therein!

Care to comment, astaroth, on why a manager would not be better off really proving to this barefoot troublemaker that the rule is set down on paper and will not be relaxed? Or will you admit that most of these managers are simply biased, full of shit, and unwilling to admit either?

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey

 

The silliness of the airlines is really amusing.

'Take you shoes off because you might have a bomb'.

'Put them back on because it's unsafe to board the plane without them'.

 

I wore flip-flops through the security check last time and the security people announced to everyone waiting in line to wear flip-flops next time to avoid the hassle of removing shoes.

Oh yeah, this was the same small airport that used to have a sign recommending people with bare feet to please use the stairs instead of the escalator. Pretty cool.

 

I would say that the whole "barefooting agenda" is blowing things out of proportion.

Re: airlines. I hate the security hassle as much as the next guy, but there WAS an instance of a shoe bomb, so there's nothing that says someone else won't try it.

You shouldn't be allowed to board barefoot because of potential liability. Don't open your mouth and start screaming how you have less of a chance of injury going barefoot than shod. It may be true for you, it might not be true for the next schmuck in line who gets his toes caught in a pinch point or has a luggage piece dropped on him. Chi-ching! Welcome to America, the land of lawsuits.

(Yes, flip-flops won't give you much protection, but it is all about court arguments. Just trust me on this one).

As far as women taking their shoes off in case of an emergency, that applies only to high heel shoes. Walking normally down the ramp or around the plane is one thing. Trying to get out of a plane in a stampede is quite a different thing - and yeah, you have a bit more chance of tripping and falling here if you've got three-inch stilettos...

All in all reading this argument makes me want to roll my eyes a bit. OMG I WANNA GO BAREFOOT EVERYWHERE BOOO HOOO EVIL WALMART MANAGER WON'T LET ME IN BOO HOO DISCRIMINATION!!! Who gives a crap about a Walmart manager? Put flip-flops on for five minutes, do your thing and fughetabbouttit. That's not discrimination, that's personal / corporate preference. Discrimination, my friends, is a concept that is a whole hell lot bigger than your bare feet, and it shouldn't be cheapened - lest it might rare its ugly head in the near future.

 

Sounds like Ashtaroth has the exclusive right to determine what is and what isn't discrimination. Too bad. I thought we had come so much further in America. Yes it IS discrimination to tell someone they cannot participate in a part of societ because they choose to be barefoot. Is it the business owner's right to refuse service? YES. But that does not change the fact the it is still discrimination.

If it is policy, POST IT (or at least show it when asked).

 

20 posts by Astaroth and nothing but whining about bare feet.

He's is like that little bird that sits on the back of the rhino and pecks and pecks and pecks.

 

*shrug* I ain't no bird and you ain't no rhino.

You're the ones who get all broken up because some uneducated knucklehead in your neighbourhood Quick-e-mart told you to put shoes on. What a huge deal, good golly, someone call the waaaaaambulance or better yet ACLU.

I've experienced discrimination firsthand - albeit not in the US - and it rubs me wrong to see something so insignificant being equated with real discrimination.

C'mon, grow a friggin' spine instead of bitching and whining.

 

Not to mention, "The plane is going to crash -- take your shoes off!"

That's part of what they tell women who are wearing heels (which are stupid shoes in the first place).

But yes, it's amazing the lack of logic they are capable of. I'm somehow better protected wearing flip-flops?! How is that?? I can't run as fast, and I'm less stable on my feet, and the tops of my feet are not protected from anything that might fall on them (just as they are when totally bare).

I have simply concluded that there are many people who go about their lives doing things just because they're told this is the way you do them; and they never think for themselves, and feel threatened if they end up forced to do so. Take a person who thinks that the Health Department bars barefoot patrons from stores. Show her a letter from the Health Department that says it is perfectly okay. She will DIE trying to defend the idea that it still must be wrong, somehow, some way, even though if it were, the Health Department would probably have something to say in their regulations, after all this time. She will fall back on other bullshit supposed "reasons" but she will NOT concede that maybe she's been wrong all this time about how supposedly bad and dangerous it is to be barefoot.

*sigh*

Blue skies,
-Jeffrey