‘Round-Up in Aisle 3’

Wal-Mart has just opened a new Dearborn store on Ford Road that, in addition to its ordinary fare, stocks in its ethnic aisle 3 items targeted at Hispanic, African-American, and Islamic shoppers, including a “a range of products from the Middle East and other areas includes a large variety of olives, halal meats, Lebanese spices, Greek olive oil, date-filled cookies from Saudi Arabia, chewing gum from Jordan, Turkish candies, frozen okra, Lebanese-style yogurt and Bulgarian feta cheese.” (“ETHNIC WAL-MART IN DEARBORN”).

From a newspaper account of Wednesday’s opening, (“New Wal-Mart draws crowd”), many in Dearborn’s Middle Eastern community seems quite happy about the opening. Rather than travel from store to store gathering ingredients, they can do it all in one place.

All the more reason for them to be wary, I’d say, in view of Senator Obama’s dark warning about the routine “rounding up” of Arab American families in America.

If Barack is telling the truth (need one even ask?), hadn’t Dearborn’s Muslims ought to be cautious that the new Wal-Mart isn’t just a ruse to lure them into a “one-stop” shopping trip that ends up being a “last-stop” trip to a convenient gathering place for easy “round-up,” thence to disappear into the American gulag?

I’m just asking. One of our correspondents checked out opening day, and he swears he saw two guys in leather trench coats, homburgs, and flag lapel pins lingering suspiciously near the pomegranates.