Today December 29, 2012 I got racially profiled at my neighborhood Associated Supermarket on 167th Street and Sheridan Avenue .
At around 12:00 I’d just gotten off the bus from Path Mark and I had bags with me. After I went in with my bags I bought two gallons of water. After I paid for my purchase I was stopped by some dude in a coat. Not a licensed certified security guard in a uniform but some Hispanic dude. He pointed to the Digiorno pizza I had bough talking about I had stolen it. I showed them my receipt from PathMark and they backed off.
Why am I mad? I’ve gone into this store for over 25 years. I’ve walked past their bag check for over two decades with no problems. And I’ve walked into this store with hundreds of dollars of merchandise from other stores.
Today they decide to racially profile me. Now several other Hispanic women had walked into that store with bags, strollers, backpacks, and just about anything else. And they walked out with no problems.
Me and my sister walked into that store the day before with bags, bought some eggs on sale and walked out with no problems.
But today they decide to racially profile me. Me. the Black customer.
Why do people walk by that bag check with their bags in that store? Because it’s NOT SAFE. People leave bags there and the clerks just WALK AWAY. Yeah, they leave your stuff there UNATTENDED so ANYONE could steal it.
And all those shopping carts left at the front are a FIRE HAZARD.
Worse, when they lose a customer’s property they refuse to take responsibility for the loss. That’s right these ghetto stores want the right to check your property but don’t want to exercise REASONABLE CARE when it’s in their hands.
When I was a kid I was told we had to take racist treatment like this. That it was a part of life in the ghetto.
I’m sorry but those unwritten racist policies of life in the inner-city are no longer acceptable to me. Because they’re just a revision of Jim Crow laws for the 21st Century.
As a Black man who knows his rights I’m no longer taking this type of abuse sitting down. Along with this blog I’ve sent an e-mail to Associated’s corporate offices letting them know I won’t be shopping at their 167th Street location or any of their other stores.
My money is valuable.
And my time is precious.
When the employees of businesses racially profile me, they show me they don’t value my business. And when a business doesn’t value me, they don’t get any more of my money.
Now that I’m an adult I understand that Racial profiling isn’t bad customer service. It’s just bad business.
And I don’t have to put up with it anymore.
Associated Supermarkets you have lost a life-long customer today December 29, 2012. I’ll be taking my business to your competitors from now on
So sad that this is still going on today and good decent people have to be subjected to stupidity.
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