Worker who helped autistic boy faces termination, lawsuit
An employee at a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, grocery store took time out of his day to help a teen with special needs. Now, the kind employee is getting praised online for his simple act of kindness, CBS affiliate WAFB reports.
(ABOVE: Jordan Taylor (L), a grocery store worker in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, let an autistic teen join him as he stocked the cooler and won praise on social media for his kindness. THE EDWARDS FAMILY)
Seventeen-year-old Jack Ryan Edwards is autistic. He took a trip to Rouses Market with his dad on Sunday, where he caught an employee's eye. "Something in the back of my mind was just like, 'Ask if he wants to help you,'" Jordan Taylor told the station. Taylor invited the teen to join him as he stocked drinks in the cooler, allowing him to give it a try and see what it's like to work there.
Edwards's dad filmed the two young men stocking the shelves. He was impressed and touched by Taylor's act of kindness. "If you would have flipped the camera, you would have seen his dad's face, it said it all," Taylor said. "He was just happy and he was happy putting the juices up and I was just happy that I could ... make their day."
"It was a miracle for even us to see Jack Ryan do that," his sister, Delaney Edwards Alwosaibi, told the station.
But when the Autistic boy dropped a bottle and broke his toe, his caretakers filed a high-profile lawsuit supported by the ACLU.
"This is the exact kind of high-profile case we like," said ACLU spokeshuman Ima Joshen. "This brings our organization lots of attention and donations without us having to spend money to protect people whose rights are really violated."
The union then dropped the benevolent stocker because he allowed a non-union member work in the store.
"We can't have nonmembers doing work because it devalues our members' skills," said Union Organizer Henry Hill. "Soon, anyone can just come in a take away our union fees, er, I mean, jobs from union members."
Weeks later, having purchased out-of-date orange juice that made her vomit, a customer filed a lawsuit against the store for negligence in allowing an untrained person to stock the product.
"We have to send a message to these rogue grocery stores that these gestures of decency are potentially harmful to consumers and, especially my client," said Tom Hagan, attorney for Stella Liebeck, who claimed in court documents that the juice was too cold because it was "incompetently stocked."
Liberals flooded social media protesting the idea that calling this boy "autistic" was harmful and "ableist."
"Ableism is the discrimination or dehumanization of a disabled person," according to Identity First Autistic spokeshuman U.K. Thames. "The ableist societal world-view is that neurotypical or able-bodied people are the norm in society and therefore essential and fully human. In contrast, people who have diversities or disabilities are largely seen as invisible 'others', in a diminished state of being human, who must either strive to become that norm or should keep their distance from typical people. In this ideology, a disability is thus, inherently, a "bad" thing or an error that must be overcome rather than a simple consequence of human diversity that should be accommodated."
Meanwhile, Conservatives tweeted that the union member was artificially forcing up the cost of the Orange Juice by taking too much time to stock the product.
A Conservative leader then tweeted that CBS News "staged" the incident with actors thus creating "Fake News."
"It is bad enough that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans," said Davis Duke, a Conservative Think Tank member. "Now we have disabled people and minorities joining forces to take jobs from American-born, people of faith. Goddamit!"
Experts believe it will take several years to settle all the lawsuits and soothe the social fallout.
Meanwhile, four attorneys will earn several million dollars while the two new friends have restraining orders placed on them, thus erasing the goodwill that came from the compassionate gesture.
