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By Micah Yip
A customer spotted a slur against the Japanese community on a product advertisement sign at a Grocery Outlet store in Sacramento, California, on Wednesday.
Gary Lee, a lifelong Sacramento resident, was shopping at the Grocery Outlet on Riverside Boulevard when he noticed a sign at the front of the store advertising “J*p Kit Kats.”
While we are not using it here, the three-letter slur was especially popular during World War II.
The word was used in a derogatory manner toward Japanese people during World War II and the Japanese incarceration era. It has since been regarded as an offensive slur.
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Lee said he brought the sign to the employees at the checkout kiosk.
“I said, ‘This sign here is very offensive. It’s derogatory. I don’t understand how a sign like this can be placed up in the store,’” Lee told AsAmNews.
He said the employees responded with the same shock as he did.
“They were all flabbergasted that a sign like that would be posted up. Or, they were actually flabbergasted that whoever created the sign would not have caught it,” Lee said.
The employee said they would leave a note on the manager’s desk.
Afterward, Lee posted on Grocery Outlet’s Nextdoor account — an app where folks can engage with members in their community, including local businesses — a photo of the sign and a caption describing the encounter.
“Somebody from the store responded back to me apologizing and said that they’re sorry that that happened, and that all their signs come from corporate,” Lee said. “So that tells me that if this store had that sign, all of the Grocery Outlets that carry those Kit Kat bags have the same signage.”
A Grocery Outlet manager at the Riverside Boulevard store, who asked to not be identified, confirmed that the signs come from corporate. They also confirmed that the sign was taken down at this location.
Lee said that he shops at this Grocery Outlet often and that this incident won’t affect how he chooses to shop in the future, as he felt the employees heard his concern.
However, he hopes corporations will become more educated.
We reached out to Grocery Outlets corporate office and a representative promised to get back to us this m morning by 11 a.m. Pacific. As of our deadline, we had not yet heard back.
It’s unclear if this sign has been posted at other Grocery Outlets. If you see the sign in your local store, please let us know at info at asamnews dot com.
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc. Follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our efforts to produce diverse content about the AAPI communities. We are supported in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.