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    ad infinitumHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:24pm

    Meanwhile, I’m a middle aged white lady and I’ve walked out of stores directly in front of security guards while carrying unpaid merchandise in full view with nary a peep (not on purpose — I’m just an easily distracted dumbass and I space out sometimes).

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      Hoyo Afrikaad infinitum
      3/29/16 3:29pm

      Crimes in public are strictly a white privilege.

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      wafflesfriendsworkad infinitum
      3/29/16 3:34pm

      Once when I was about sixteen I was shopping with my parents and accidentally walked out of Old Navy with a pack of socks under my arm

      I was terrified I would get in trouble

      I was a white, blonde, teen girl

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    SheeshTheseNamesHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:18pm

    Not shocked by this. We are well aware that this is what employees at MOST chain stores are told to do.

    Signed,

    Black people

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      Hoyo AfrikaSheeshTheseNames
      3/29/16 3:22pm

      Right! Don't you love how you're asked: "Do you need help!" before you've even entered to peruse the merch? SMDH.

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      Global BeetHoyo Afrika
      3/29/16 3:26pm

      Or the old “why don’t I hold those for you” line. Not slick sales people, not slick at all.

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    Hoyo AfrikaHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:20pm

    “tolerate any practices that discriminate against any of our customers or employees, and our market investigator training explicitly prohibits the profiling of customers.”

    Well, that’s obviously a lie. Black people are aware they’re being followed in any store. The irony is that black people (in the US) should be concerned with people thieving from them considering their ancestors were stolen (and so was their labour). Race riots destroyed black businesses, their wages are always lower than everyone else’s and the housing crisis showed the predatory loan schemes that target black folks were rife. In Coates’ essay on reparations, you see how real estate agents would screw black homeowners out of thousands of dollars.

    Having said that, it doesn't stop Mme. Becky from grabbing her purse when I enter the elevator. Once I actually said I wasn't interested in her crusty knock-off.

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      hamwinkyHoyo Afrika
      3/29/16 3:36pm

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRfjLf...

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      Hoyo Afrikahamwinky
      3/29/16 3:47pm

      Lolz. I saw that video before. He's so right. It's very tiring but I just let the music take me away.

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    LuaHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:20pm

    So gross. These attitudes are still so prevalent and it’s enraging. Just last night someone I’m just getting to know, social worker btw, just told me she couldn’t eat at a certain restaurant because it’s “in the ghetto”, she “see police cars in that area all the time” and finally she “do[esn’t] want to get shot.” It’s getting so I can’t make a single friend without finding out they are racist/classist douchecanoes.

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      Hoyo AfrikaLua
      3/29/16 3:23pm

      The irony is that she'll most likely be killed by another white person. #whiteonwhitecrime

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      ddawn23Lua
      3/29/16 3:29pm

      I bought my first house a couple of years ago, and when my dog got out a neighbor caught him, gave him food, and called me. I was so excited to have a great new neighbor. Then a couple of months later she called me at work to let me know my gate was open. I was touched by how thoughtful she was until she added, “It was probably those Mexican kids.”

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    GungaMeanHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:18pm

    This reminds me of the time I was trying on work pants at Sears and noticed that there was a sign saying “Shoplifters will be prosecuted,” in the dressing room. Below it was a second one in Spanish.

    Nowhere else in the entire store was anything in Spanish. I took that to mean that they didn’t give a shit about Mexicans navigating their store, they just wanted to make sure they didn’t steal.

    I can’t understand how the conversation could have gone. “So, we put the shoplifting notices in each dressing room.” “Do you think we should put ones up in Spanish too?” “No.....we don’t have anything else in Spanish.” “Yeah......but you know.......Mexicans” “Shit.......you’re totally right.”

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      ReturnOfTheMcGungaMean
      3/29/16 3:43pm

      Wow. I’ve seen those signs and never thought about that. Shit.

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    CAPTAINOHHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:30pm

    This happened with a co-worker of mine. She was looking at bags and the lady working that section was on top of her everywhere she went. How do people not realize how hurtful this is for people to be criminalized for just living and doing normal things? Let alone the fact that it's all so wrong.

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      BootyBeepCAPTAINOH
      3/29/16 4:02pm

      Everyone I know talks about how much they loved Montreal, but it wasn’t until after I went that I realized everyone who told me that was white. I got followed in every store we went to and ended up not buying anything anywhere (because I stole it all, haha jk) because of how uncomfortably obvious it was I was being followed by employees. I pointed it out to my white friend who was oblivious to it and she tried to brush it off. Finally I told her we should separate in stores so she could watch me and see how I was being targeted. She was horrified and we stopped shopping entirely for the rest of our trip. I need to make my own souvenir T-shirt: I went to Montreal and all I got was racially profiled instead of poutine.

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      CAPTAINOHBootyBeep
      3/29/16 5:47pm

      That's just really sad. I wonder if the customer has any kind of legal recourse if this happens to them while in a store. This is just wrong.

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    Bruce Willises GhostHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:25pm

    As a former Register Queen, I can confirm this from personal experience. I had a manager who used to ask me to track shoplifters based on race.

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      thecinnamonpeelerBruce Willises Ghost
      3/29/16 3:52pm

      They must have missed a lot of shrinkage, then, you know? Profiling is actually the dumbest anti-shoplifting policy ever. I worked at a Macy’s-like department store chain for many years (in the south, no less). We were trained that shoplifters could look like ANYONE—and it was true, I had shoplifters of every age, race, social background, you name it. (I will say that I caught more women than men doing it, though I have my theories about that.)

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      okeefeiwerearichmanthecinnamonpeeler
      3/29/16 4:42pm

      Are women just more likely to be shopping anyway? Not for those cliched women-be-shopping reasons, but just because they’re more likely to be stay-at-home parents, and therefore more likely to run errands etc during the day?

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    ReturnOfTheMcHillary Crosley Coker
    3/29/16 3:38pm

    All I know is, when I pick up an item in a store I make sure it’s always in full view of everyone. I try not to make any moves towards my purse or pockets. If I need to get my phone from my purse, I make sure to put whatever merchandise down and then go in my purse. I make sure to let the salesgirl know how many things I’m taking in my dressing room and show her the items when I leave (yes, even in the stores where they don’t seem to care). I don’t put items in directly in my recyclable bags. These are conscious things I do, because the odds are that I’m being profiled or followed (whether I’m wearing sweats or a business suit). And I can’t boycott every store that does this because that’s almost every store I’ve been in and I need goods like food and clothing. BTW, this is my experience in one of the most “liberal” and “progressive” states and cities in America. I doubt many non-Black people consider these things when they go buy a candy bar.

    #RIPLatashaHarlins

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      teenytinycornteethHillary Crosley Coker
      3/29/16 3:31pm

      Is this supposed to be new news? My very first job was at a high end children’s clothing store in Rochester, New York. We also sold all the private school uniforms as well as a huge supply of winter coats and snowpants and stuff so our clientele ran the gamut of the population, the super rich, the middle class, the working poor. Anyway, I was all of fifteen and eager to be a super cool cashier chick running the LAYAWAY COUNTER. Kids, you used to be able to put down five bucks and save your favorite coat and every week you’d come in and make a payment on it until you could take it home, and I was the keeper of that ledger.

      I was given that job three weeks in and the owner of the place took me aside and gave me some “tips”.

      1) If a “black” (whispered as if it pained him to say it) family comes in, leave your post and follow them at a reasonable distance... “the blacks” shoplift.

      2) If a “black” writes a check they need three forms of ID (only 1 needed for everyone else) because “the blacks” write bad checks.

      3) If a “black” wants to keep something on layaway, they need to put down a 20% deposit (10% for everyone else). The vague, strange reasoning for this, since you can’t really steal things on layaway was “because you NEVER KNOW.”

      I told my mom that while she had told me that I would never get anywhere if I quit the first time things got hard, I couldn’t stand working there another minute following black people around with a magnifying glass like The Secret Of the Old Clock. So I quit. That was 28 years ago.

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        verymocoteenytinycornteeth
        3/29/16 6:25pm

        Secret of the Old Clock — good one!

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        coolbreezeteenytinycornteeth
        3/30/16 10:31am

        +1,000 for the Nancy Drew reference.

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      FieryAntidoteHillary Crosley Coker
      3/29/16 3:44pm

      So I happen to know because I have a relative who is a manager at CVS that the entire system for promotion and raises/annual bonuses is based on loss prevention. Theft is a huge issue for the profitability and my relatives stops thieves every single day. Sometimes she calls the cops, sometimes she bans them from coming into the store again. It doesn’t surprise me that employees whose jobs depend on low theft rates plus entrenched racism would produce these reports. I doubt it is corporate policy, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that some of the theft prevention staff are enforcing racist policies.

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