Is Dry Asparagus Racist? One Man Says 'Yes

If your grocery store has dry asparagus is it because of racism? Believe it or not, that's the speculation from one citizen-led human rights commission in the St. Louis area.

Screen Capture: You Tube

Early Wednesday morning, Stephen Deere of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the latest update on a story that started almost two months ago.

Back in May, University City, Missouri resident David Olander (and member of the Human Rights commission), noted that the fresh asparagus in his local grocery store was not sitting in a pan of water (as one might expect). The ever-vigilant Olander speculated that the mistreatment of the veggies was likely due to RACISM! David Olander believed that the store's neglect of the asparagus was related to the fact that the store was located in a predominantly black area. So he started writing letters mentioning his position on the Human Rights Commission.

The grocery store that was allegedly trying to sell the arid asparagus was Schnucks -- a St. Louis institution. Olander's letter sparked a meeting with the company. Schnucks has denied that any racism was involved in the unfortunate mishap. A spokesperson told the Post-Dispatch, “Schnucks does not discriminate on any level.”

The story was big enough to earn a spot on the front page of the newspaper:

Cover of the St Louis Post-Dispatch

The front page item about the racist dry asparagus quickly caught the eye of the many readers and sparked an avalanche of comments on the paper's website.

TheBlaze spoke with the story's author, Stephan Deere. He told us that he had "taken quite a beating online" for having the story so prominently displayed on the front page.

Image: Screen capture from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website

Even more surprising to TheBlaze was the amount of time that the University City council spent discussing the problems and workings of their Human Rights Commission.

At the town's June meeting of the City Council, there was a protracted discussion of how the citizen-led group acted. After the extended discussion, the University City Council voted that the commission should not do anything without first consulting with the elected officials on the city council. The entire discussion had little or no mention of the allegedly dry asparagus that started all of this.

Confused?

Perhaps the best way to leave you is to have DC radio pro Chris Plante have some fun with it (as he did on Wednesday morning):

(H/T: Chris Plante at WMAL)

Follow Mike Opelka on Twitter - @stuntbrain