Lowe's and All-American Muslim

As if I had nothing else to do this week of Christmas, I have devoted a great deal of time on this issue -- and have never done anything that has drawn so much attention, and so much fire. I've given interviews for about a dozen media outlets, and was contacted by the Keith Olbermann show on Current TV... Here's my synopsis of the events of Tuesday. I welcome your comments.

I spent most of my day Tuesday wrapped up in the delivery of a box of signed petitions to the headquarters of Lowe’s, Inc. As a representative of Mecklenburg Ministries, I was part of a 5-member clergy delegation who visited Mooresville, signatures in hand. The signatures were from six organizations around the country and ended in my hands through some cyber-miracle and laser printing. The signatures represented petitions protesting Lowe’s decision to withdraw advertising from the show “All-American Muslim,” and asked Lowe’s executives to reconsider their decision.
If I have a “soap box” it’s that we have lost the ability to communicate in this country. No one listens. We’re just obsessed with talking points. And lobbing grenades toward the other side. So, we didn’t know what to expect from Lowe’s. They didn’t know what to expect from us. But both parties were pleased.
I’m not afraid of differing viewpoints, nor even of ideas I consider wrong-headed. I am afraid of the future of a nation that cannot dialogue. But in a second-floor conference room at the Lowe’s headquarters in Mooresville, NC, dialogue happened. They talked, and we listened. We talked, and they listened. In the end, we didn’t necessarily agree – but we walked out understanding one another’s positions, with a real sense of respect and trust, and with hope for the future. Chalk one up for dialogue.
The dialogue was healthy and respectful. We delivered a message from 200,000 Americans, frustrated that Lowe’s had made a decision that seemed biased against the Muslim American community. Baptists, like all true Americans, have always stood for religious freedom (our nation was founded on this principle, and so were Baptists), so as a Baptist minister I stand against any decision discriminating against any religion. And as a Baptist minister with Muslim friends who are All-American: hard-working and honest, peace-loving and God-fearing, who have the same dreams for their children and the same hopes for our country – and who hold as central many of the same religious imperatives that I do, I was sorry to hear of one more event that further divided us.
In that board room, though, four executives told us that the decision was not based on intolerance or discrimination, and it was made before they ever heard from the Florida group that has now taken credit for pressuring Lowe’s into withdrawing its ad. Lowe’s has an impressive policy and record regarding diversity and holds commitments to pluralism, tolerance, and respect. The decision to pull their advertising was made as all of them are made – based on the rules governing advertising decisions. This was just a business decision. The wisdom of advertising experts and the numbers influenced the decision. They make these decisions, based on these same rules, every day. I trust that report. Dialogue will do that for you. And I understand making business decisions. Our country was also founded on this principle.
So, as a Baptist minister I support my All-American Muslim friends, and sympathize with their frustration, feeling once again stereotyped and alienated, and I support my new friends at Lowe’s (who should be old friends by now, given the money I’ve spent there in a decade!), and I sympathize with the predicament they are in, being a company founded on values such as diversity and integrity, yet embroiled in controversy over a business decision.
We went to Mooresville because we thought this was a teachable moment for all. The clergy learned the perennial lesson that things are not always as they seem, that people should listen more carefully, be sure of the facts, before they speak. It’s not my place to assume what Lowe’s learned, though they freely admitted they made errors in this, and wish they had done things differently. But perhaps there is a lesson for us all in being aware that the bottom line shouldn’t always be the bottom line, and a reminder that real people often get caught in the wake that business decisions always leave. Life is about relationships. And no business decision can ever guarantee a real relationship.
We’ve got to have dialogue for that.