Adolph Hitler’s Birthday: Who Takes the Cake?
If you received an order to make a birthday cake for Adolph Hitler, would you comply?
“We believe the request to inscribe a birthday wish to Adolph Hitler is inappropriate,” said a ShopRite spokeswoman.
The store offered to make a cake leaving space for Adolph’s parents to decorate with their own inscription, but they refused.
“ShopRite can’t even make a cake for a 3-year-old,” the boy’s mother complained to the Express-Times newspaper, which ran a story noting that the family has “swastikas on walls, on jackets, on the freezer and on a pillow” in their home. Adolph’s little sister—JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell—turns two in February and has also been refused a full-name birthday cake by ShopRite.
The Campbell’s said they wanted their children to have unique names and didn’t expect the names to cause problems. “Other kids get their cake. I get a hard time,” said Adolph’s father. “It’s not fair to my children.”
Some local residents detected a hunger, but not for birthday cake. “What I see here is a craving for media attention,” one commented to the newspaper. Another pointed out that “No one puts the whole name of someone having a birthday anyway. Just put Happy Birthday Adolph on the cake and let it rest.”
“Hooray for ShopRite’s decision!” another reader wrote. “I am so tired of people feeling there are no boundaries to freedom of expression.” But others took issue. “By not writing on the cake,” one said, “ShopRite is basically saying that they make the decision as to what is acceptable and not acceptable in your homes. Do you really want to trust this to a supermarket?”
“This is America,” another commented, “not the United States of ShopRite. I’m sure ShopRite would not refuse to personalize a cake for Barack Hussein Obama, who turned out great in spite of his given name.”
Tell us what you think: Did ShopRite employees do the right thing? Is it irresponsible to give children highly provocative names? Should the newspaper have given the parents a public forum for their complaint about a cake?
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Equally irresponsible
Shame on the parents for sticking the innocent children with names that will cause them problems their entire lives — until they’re old enough to have them legally changed!
However, it’s just as irresponsible and judgmental of the store employees to refuse to put the child’s name on the cake. I don’t like the name either; but who appointed me judge & jury of how these people choose to live their lives?
This is as bad as the pharmacists who refused to fill legal prescriptions for birth control pills because birth control offended their personal beliefs. If people can’t allow others to have their own belief systems, perhaps they shouldn’t work with the public.
Two wrongs have never made a right!
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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Thadinator
The story makes it pretty clear that this family supports the beliefs of the Nazis and while I think its wrong it’s their right to name their kid what they want and believe what they want.
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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parent
sad
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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COMMON SENSE..oh yea
I side with the baker and thank them for taking a common sense stand.
Discrimination…I DON’T think so!
Irresponsible…NO!
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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Don't Bother
I think that by refusing to write on the cake, the store was essentially picking a fight. They really should have paused a second and wondered what the horrific and unspeakable consequences of writing Adolph Hitler on a birthday cake would be. It’s quite presumptuous and self-righteous for people to take a stand like that on a matter which has no legitimate negative consequences.
Yes. The family is comprised of Nazis. Growing up in a Nazi household, it’s quite possible that the children will fully appreciate their names and grow up quite content with them. This isn’t to say that their beliefs shouldn’t be challenged, but one must also let their beliefs challenge one’s own. Never enter an argument seeking to change someone’s mind, only to express your own ideas and understand the other person’s. The zeitgeist of the times may, many years in the future, turn to favor a society in which people are systematically analyzed in order to be physically perfect. The concepts of right and wrong will always be changing, and people need to come to accept that history will mock their opinions just like we now mock the Catholic Church’s notions of astrophysics, or the cannibal practices of islanders in the Pacific.
In sum, every single person out there can be construed to have a skewed view of right and wrong. Nobody should presume to think that they are somehow arbiters of justice, and you are wasting peoples’ time if you speak out about an asserted moral failing that isn’t going to hurt anyone regardless of the outcome, and simply take up bandwidth and airwaves in the discussion of it. Let Nazis be Nazis; stop them if they’re ACTUALLY hurting someone.
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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Although the parents named their son a name that has cause horrific tragedy in many lives in the entire world, the child had no part in picking his name.
Their job is to provide a birthday cake and to write what the customer requested. After all that what they were paid to do. They are in business to provide a service not to make a judgment. Shame on them that they didn’t think of the child.
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS
I’m going to start off saying poor kid. Next it’s his name, give the kid a break, he didn’t get to name his self. What if your name was Hannibal?
Would you feel awkward if everyone stayed away from because they think your going to eat them alive. No I don’t think you would like that. Its time we moved on. I’m German, but people don’t put me down because of what the German’s did before me.
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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Look at it from different perspectives
Basically it comes down to a lot of things like maybe the parents supported Hitler and just wanted another one. The shop employees should have done what they were ordered to go since according to customer service, a customer’s order and happiness comes first. They may know it’s morally wrong but it’s ethically right.
Anonymous | 10 months, 3 weeks ago
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Responsible Parenting?
We’ve discussed at length the conscious thought required in making the decision to have children and to see it through. The rite of naming a child, in my opinion, requires a bit more thought and consideration for the child than, perhaps, naming a race car or a boat.
I, the parent in this case, truly “only wanted their child(ren) to have unique names … and didn’t know it would cause problems …”, I suspect we are dealing with either immaturity and lack of knowledge or a real deficiency of some kind. I have the feeling that is not the real issue here.
Whether it is rational or irrational, and I definitely suggest this case is irrational in nature, commentary of a political nature invites, and in this case demands, rebuttal.
I have been, over the course of my career as a skilled tradesman, employed be several food markets and, in one case, had a female employee come to me and ask for assistance with a customer who stated he “ … didn’t want to be served by a $%^#&@ (a derogatory racial term). I called the store manager, reported the incident and, in the presence of the offending customer, refused to provide him with service and requested he leave the store.
I would have taken the same position as did the Shoprite employees in refusing to partner the use of Nazi names or symbols … period … and, frankly, would have refused service of any kind, even if it cost me my job.
Anonymous | 10 months, 2 weeks ago
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I've twice run businesses
I’ve twice run businesses where this sort of issue has come up – a photocopy shop and a custom software firm. Employees have had issues with Nazi-themed business cards, nuclear-weapons-related software, weird-but-consensual pornography. In every case, we did not require an employee to go beyond their comfort level. If NO employee would do the work, then it didn’t get done. As a company, we never took moral stances; morals are for individuals, and we supported our employees’ choices. If that’s what Shop Rite did, I think it was fully appropriate. I would have decorated the cake – but I wouldn’t have wanted my boss to tell me I had to.
Anonymous | 10 months, 2 weeks ago
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