“Shopping While Black” or “Shopping While Brown” (SWB) is seen in our banks, hotels, restaurants, and even shopping centers. People might be familiar with the saying, “Driving while Black.” This saying refers to racial profiling specifically law enforcement’s practice of pulling over blacks drivers and detaining them with no probable cause. Police Officers simply stop black drivers due to the observation that blacks are likely to break the law. Well, the term “Shopping While Black” is related to “Driving While Black.” SWB is a term used to describe how people feel when they are racially profiled while they shop.Recently, racial profiling has been in the local news, just Google in the search engine.bar on the internet and you will see.
In 2010, ABC conducted a controversial “What Would You Do?” experiment focusing on discrimination. The point of the experiment was to determine peoples’ reactions at seeing a Black customer profiled and discriminated against in an upscale store in New York. See the results of that in the YouTube Video above.
People will argue that racial profiling is justified on the backgrounds of other race groups who are more likely to commit a crime. For example, I know someone that work at company that rents items to people. The company says if a person “fits a certain criteria” then they will not rent to them. My understand of criteria is if a black person is wearing baggy pants or has mess up car the sales person will think the he/she is not trustworthy person and they will steal from their store. Basically if a person look a certain way then the company are not going to rent them to that person. This is wrong because they are judging a person because of the actions of other people in its cultural group commit.
I know some jobs may need some diversity training in the workplaces. So what diversity training exists for employees at our local stores, banks, hotels, hospitals, etc? I think we may be able to eliminate bias through diversity training, and in the training employees can be taught to manage their biases. We can see the increasing multiracial and multicultural customer base and we know stores cannot afford to alienate customers because of their skin color nor does it help them because they lose business, and it shows negative image of United States. I want to see a change and see people treated with respect when come to stores or bank.
Due to the holidays are coming up and more people are going to be shopping. I hope this blog SWB will make people aware of racial profiling. If you or someone who you might know experience racial profiling, you should take action on this matter. If you decided to take action, remember names and who said what and then put your thoughts down in writing. Explain why you believe your rights were violated and request a specific remedy. Then put this information in letter form and send to the company higher-ups, Department of Justice, the Better Business Bureau, a local elected official, or some other authority figure that you feel you can trust.
I still see this going on at department stores in the mall. I see security guards following people of color around the store and if were them, this would make me feel very uncomfortable. I dislike how security guards are wasting their time following people who they think will steal, when there are other serious crimes taking place around the area. This would just make the stores lose customers and it is not good especially in this economy. Some people think that just because you are a person of color, you can't afford expensive things. I just think that people should mind their own business because there are others in this world who are trying to make a living and are working as hard as a they can to accumulate as much income as they can in order to get themselves something really nice no matter what it says on the price tag.
ReplyDeleteAs an African American female, I have also experienced racial profiling. I have been stared at inside of stores while I was shopping because I was black. This is not a good feeling when this happens. I have simply refused to step foot in ambercrombie (how ever you spell it) and fitch. I didnt even have to walk all the way into the store before there were several pair of white eyes staring at me. I turned right back around and left out. They wont be gettin my money witb that type of attitude.
ReplyDeleteRacial profiling is no good, however, judging somebody on how they dress, act, speak, ect. is not the same. You state in your blog that a friend of yours works in a rental store where they refuse to rent to people "who fit a certain type of criteria" and I, frankly, don't see a problem with that. If I were to own a restaurant I wouldn't want certain people to enter it (loud, smelly, clearly homeless, rowdy, ect.) because it's bad for business. I know racial profiling exists, but I also think it is important to examine other possibilities in these kinds of situations. As a society we jump too quickly to the race card without examining all the factors that influenced the situation.
ReplyDeleteI just think it's terrible that racial profiling exists to this extreme today. In my 190 class, the topic of structural racism came up and I think that that has a lot in common here. I understand that there's been tension between races in the past, but I believe that by now, we should be far past that. The thing that surprised me the most was that the experiment was done in an upscale store and people still reacted as such. People use the rationalization that race and income may go hand in hand depending on the location. That may be true, but this blows a large part of it out of the water showing that in some cases, race has nothing to do with income... people of all shapes, sizes, and races shop in the same places and should be granted the same respect. Ugh. Profiling just upsets me. People can still be so damned ignorant. Well done though Kamla! Keep it up!
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