To be ‘woke’ is to always be threatened by the weaker people you wish to terrorize and oppress.
This season, the woke went to war against the Salvation Army for being well… religious. And Nordstrom has joined the war and collected the scalp of an 85-year-old man collecting donations for the homeless. It’s another great victory for social justice.
For 19 years, 85-year-old Dick Clarke has raised money for The Salvation Army during the holiday season — 18 of them ringing a bell beside a red kettle for donations outside Nordstrom’s downtown Seattle store. He loved the conversations and the feeling of giving back through the more than $100,000 he collected. He volunteered five days a week, six hours a day.
“The best thing I like about Thanksgiving is the next day I go to work,” said the retired teacher and principal.
Or that’s how he used to feel. This year, Nordstrom told The Salvation Army it would no longer allow solicitation in front of its doors.
Beyond stating that policy, Nordstrom spokeswoman Jennifer Tice Walker did not answer questions about the change. But Clarke said he was told in a meeting last week with head of stores Jamie Nordstrom that LGBTQ employees said The Salvation Army’s presence made them uncomfortable.
The presence of an 85-year-old man collecting money for the homeless made hipsters working in upscale fashion uncomfortable.
Here’s a little background on Dick before Nordstrom decided to purge him as a threat to its ideology.
If you’ve spent time in downtown Seattle during the holiday season, then you many recognize Richard Clarke, who has become a Salvation Army staple in front of Nordstrom.
“I’m working on my 16th year now at Nordstorm, 17th year overall, and I look forward to it,” Clarke said. “I look forward to Thanksgiving because it means the next day I can down and start ringing.”
It’s something Clarke does selflessly and skillfully, rain or shine. The Salvation estimates he’s raised more than $100,000 in his many years of volunteer service. What he received in return — Clarke calls priceless.
“I probably get more out of it than I put into it, because I get hugs, I get kisses, I get lots of thank yous. It’s just one of those happy times for me,” said Clarke. “It’s kind of quid pro quo, because I’m getting, and hopefully I’m doing for Salvation Army, and hopefully I can continue, because people expect me here now.”
People including Marsha Mutisi who works in downtown Seattle and notices Clarke day in day out, during December.
“On those cold days, it was freezing, and he was here,” described Mutisi. “I’m so thankful and so blessed to know him. He touched my heart.”
“As I watch people enjoying the holiday season as they’re buying for family and friends, I would hope that each of them is thinking about what percentage of my income am I also giving to someone whom I will never see,” said Clarke.
Now, thanks to Jamie Nordstrom, they never will see him.
That ‘punching down’ thing is going really well.
Mark Baldwin, a ringer standing in front of Pacific Place, and a part-time chef who himself has received Salvation Army clothing and toy donations for his family, said he’s been called “bigot” and “homophobe.
Calling a formerly poor man collecting for donations for the homeless a ‘bigot’ is so wonderfully woke.
Meanwhile Seattle itself, which has a horrible homeless problem, will join in by harassing the Salvation Army.
The city of Seattle, which like King County contracts with The Salvation Army to provide homeless shelters, will next month begin an “equity audit” in response to “concerns expressed by the community that Salvation Army is not a safe place for LBGTQ persons experiencing homelessness,” wrote Jason Johnson, acting director of the city’s Human Services Department, in a letter to Salvation Army officials in early December.
This isn’t about LGBwhatever homeless people. It’s about pressure from the Human Rights Campaign and other Harvey Weinstein cash recipients to harass the Salvation army. Seattle is taking away services from homeless people under pressure from activist millionaires.
Not so, said Monisha Harrell, chair of Equal Rights Washington. “Either you are an accepting organization or you are not,” she said.
You will obey. Or we will destroy you. And if the homeless are collateral damage, that’s acceptable. We have to destroy the village for social justice.
As for the Nordstrom employees who complained, Clarke said he asked Jamie Nordstrom if he might be able to meet some of them to work something out, and Nordstrom said he’d look into it. The Salvation Army has offered Clarke other locations, but at his age, he said, he needs to be somewhere convenient. At his home in a First Hill retirement community, he keeps four bells at the ready.
It’s another victory for social justice.
You can contact Nordstrom at contact@nordstrom.com to inquire how an 85-year-old man collecting charity for the homeless threatens them.
Meanwhile if you shop at Nordstrom, you’re supporting politically correct hate.
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