B&H Photo Video

If you ever need a simple memory card reader for your camera and would like to immerse yourself in a “culturally enriched” atmosphere, you should check out B&H Photo Video on 34^th street and 9^th Avenue. It may be the most unique store in Manhattan. As you enter you’re greeted twice. Continuing to walk down a wide hall with a fork in the road,  you’ll find product department maps hanging above your head and a third person to greet you and help you navigate your way about the superstore. Cameras, phones, computers, cell phones, alarm clocks, batteries, and little fuzzy pouches for your iPod nano are about.
The first thing you’ll notice is the assembly line that hovers products either overhead or behind counters. My little six dollar card reader would be bagged by one of employees catering to fifty or so booths at the photography department, dropped into a green plastic tray that’s tagged with my receipt, and routed to the pick-up area. I’d take a receipt and make my way back down the stairs, as the escalator goes only upwards, and head to the payment area, where one of four cash clerks or one of ten credit card clerks will take my money from me and offer me another receipt to pickup my purchase. The process is systematic and the methodology is brilliant and efficient to an extent.
Virtually every person working at the department counters is male and Orthodox Jewish. The salesmen who work the floor are male Orthodox Jews. The cashiers that handle the money are male Orthodox Jews. The information guide, however, was a Hispanic woman. The second person to welcome me in after the doorman was a Hispanic woman. The person who checked in my bag was a Black man. The person who looked for and gave me my purchase of the assembly line was a Hispanic man. The person who gave me back my backpack at the bag check this time a Hispanic man.
I thought that something was wrong, that there was a certain level of discrimination that should have already resonated in legal channels, but in reality this was the solution. In October 2007, B&H settled a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for discriminating against Hispanic workers. In November 2009. B&H was sued for $19 million for refusing to hire and discriminating against women. Status: Pending – go figure.
The stores track record and current atmosphere is allegorical of America’s history in general. Our system is extremely efficient and productive; we champion services rather than production to other; we departmentalize our government with bureaucratic scrutiny, but disappointingly we still champion discrimination de facto.

Addendum
This is absolutely not intended to singling out Orthodox Jews as racists, but to provide an example that illustrates the stark reality of general discrimination in American society. It just so happens that this was the store I went to and found a blatant contrast in job detail vs. gender and ethnicity.