Mocking Muslims on Facebook gets Walmart manager fired

The learning process for humanity tends to be a slow one.

This is shown so many times over in the countless crass postings to social media whose consequences people somehow don't seem to anticipate.

The latest comes from Hamburg, N.Y., where a man posted an image to his Facebook account of two Muslim women in traditional, full-coverage clothing.

He accompanied this image with: "Halloween came early this year ... do they really have to f***ing dress like that ... your in my country ... get that sh** off!!!!!."

As the Buffalo News reports, the man was Terry Earsing and the posting got him fired from his job as assistant manager at a Walmart store.

A Walmart spokeswoman told the Buffalo News: "As soon as we became aware, we began looking into this and as a result, this associate is no longer with the company. We set high expectations for our associates, and this associate clearly failed to meet these expectations at every level."

There is some dispute as to whether Earsing made his posting from work and whether this would have mattered.

The board president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' New York chapter, Ryan Mahoney, insisted that Earsing was fired because it was done from work and therefore contravened Walmart's policy on hate speech.

Earsing claims he didn't post from work. Moreover, he says the picture was sent to him by a friend and he merely added the caption. He added that this began as a joke.

He also told the Buffalo News: "I'm truly, honestly sorry about the whole thing. I just apologize. I don't know what else I can say."

Walmart was made aware of the posting by a member of the local Muslim community and a national advocacy group, according to the Buffalo News. The question remains as to how they saw it.

Ultimately, though, the lesson is always the same. If you're going to post something on Facebook, try assuming that everyone is going to see it.