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I look at it this way. I actually was followed around in a bookstore. I was the only Black person there amidst White people. All I wanted to do was what everyone else was doing: reading a book. I didn't even fit a profile. I was wearing a suit. I kept getting followed around in the store. I basically decided "I'm not coming back to this store ever again. If this is the way I am going to be treated, then I'm boycotting this store". I did just that. Did it make a difference? No it didn't. Why? Me boycotting the store vs. thousands of customers shopping there did not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. That store lost MY business as I never gave them my business. However, the store got business from other people.
I don't know what to say about this but that I'm rather angry.
Why?
They got ****ed as a result. Small sense of justice, don't you think? Maybe next time they can be smarter watching customers.
Whenever that happened to me, I'd just accidentally knock over something expensive and exit the store and never return. Sometimes life is all about the small victories
I look at it this way. I actually was followed around in a bookstore. I was the only Black person there amidst White people. All I wanted to do was what everyone else was doing: reading a book. I didn't even fit a profile. I was wearing a suit. I kept getting followed around in the store. I basically decided "I'm not coming back to this store ever again. If this is the way I am going to be treated, then I'm boycotting this store". I did just that. Did it make a difference? No it didn't. Why? Me boycotting the store vs. thousands of customers shopping there did not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. That store lost MY business as I never gave them my business. However, the store got business from other people.
Why should you have to wear a suit? Is it fair for a black man to have to be in a suit not to be profiled? I know this ain't what you're saying but it has to be said. Dress like you want, it's no one's business. Don't adjust to unfair expectations.
There's nothing like people staring you down so hard that you can feel them burning a hole through your head with their fiery glare. There's no better way inspire a sense of warm welcome for your customers.
I've never been stared at for my own race, but I have been "by proxy"--from being a white person in longterm relationship with a black person in a part of the country that looks down on interracial relationships (especially white/black ones). Definitely not a nice feeling.
I touch and feel everything in the store too. I've definitely gotten the "Oh-God-just-please-don't-break-anything-blind-person" stare-down. I can practically feel the daggers shooting from their eyes on my neck when I do this.
I think all the people in this thread who think that racial profiling is "playing the odds" should get a taste of what it feels like to have three employees hovering over you, their sudden, intense concern--"Can I help you, sir??"--or the random announcement--"customer service to aisle five, costumer service to aisle five" that always seems to be the same aisle you're in--or the coincidental change in store policy that requires ID check for making a $15 purchase with a credit card. But I have seen it happen to my friends and family first-hand.
I think that is the thing. The people who say it is "playing the odds" really don't understand what it feels like. Not only the lack of understanding, but the lack of care.
But there is something you aren't understanding. One group did the crap. However, what about the next group of Blacks? You are dealing with two different cases. Let's say you do "play the odds". Here is a question: what if that next group of Blacks aren't doing anything to you and you judge them unfairly. They haven't brought it on themselves as individuals. Suppose I walk past you. Are you going to avoid me like the plague? My question is "How does it help the persons who DON'T fit the so-called profile other than through skin color"? Please answer that for me. I've been trying to get an answer for that question. I ask this question and look for answers because I pretty much feel like a target in this society, and if I am going to live in this society, I as an individual need to be guaranteed that I can live like everyone else.
Truth is, profiling and criminalizing the innocent is only intended to "help" those who are doing the profiling and criminalizing. What it comes down to is that those who happen to be the target of this activity are essentially expected to bear a degree of responsibility for the behavior of others, to "pay" for their crimes in exchange for the illusion of safety and moral vigilance for those who discriminate. The store clerk who prejudges a black customer is not the least bit interested in "helping" him; in fact, it is usually the clerk who demands that the customer do the "helping" by enduring prejudicial treatment without protest whenever he is deemed suspicious, even as he tries his best to avoid appearing so.
Yep, I moved from Chicago to one of those dastardly "red states" that are supposed to be chock-full of racist republicans.
I found the decrease in racism to be ironic.
My experience in a red state was that people were more concerned with judging you based on whether you were an upstanding Christian and how far down your sleeve you carried your religion. Then once you were determined not to be a self-professed Jesus-lover, you then became game for all kinds of other judgment, based on your race, appearance, word choice, etc. I think the fact that my ex was openly not Christian opened up the floodgates for people to be unapologetically racist towards her. I passed under the radar as "Christian by assumption." I think if we were both super "righteous" in people's eyes, they would have looked past our interracial relationship, but because we already opened up that door of judgment, race was just another thing to add to the list.
I look at it this way. I actually was followed around in a bookstore. I was the only Black person there amidst White people. All I wanted to do was what everyone else was doing: reading a book. I didn't even fit a profile. I was wearing a suit. I kept getting followed around in the store. I basically decided "I'm not coming back to this store ever again. If this is the way I am going to be treated, then I'm boycotting this store". I did just that. Did it make a difference? No it didn't. Why? Me boycotting the store vs. thousands of customers shopping there did not make a difference in the grand scheme of things. That store lost MY business as I never gave them my business. However, the store got business from other people.
Conservatives say there is no racism in the USA anymore, but if a black guy walks into a conservative store they automatically think they are being robbed and call the swat team.
My experience in a red state was that people were more concerned with judging you based on whether you were an upstanding Christian and how far down your sleeve you carried your religion. Then once you were determined not to be a self-professed Jesus-lover, you then became game for all kinds of other judgment, based on your race, appearance, word choice, etc. I think the fact that my ex was openly not Christian opened up the floodgates for people to be unapologetically racist towards her. I passed under the radar as "Christian by assumption." I think if we were both super "righteous" in people's eyes, they would have looked past our interracial relationship, but because we already opened up that door of judgment, race was just another thing to add to the list.
I'm mainly just cautioning that the assumption that urban democratically voting areas are some sort of bastion against racism is pretty badly flawed.
Fortunately things across the country are better than they were.
Religious descrimination is a sad thing and goes in both directions. The faux christians that don't actually practice thier beliefs are as bad as the people that want everyone to embrace diversity and then say hateful things about religious people.
Actually, it was not a sensible example. The poster suggested that all blacks should be treated like suspects because a group of blacks assaulted those people in Norfolk. Again, not a sensible example.
When non-blacks (AKA 'youths" in news-speak) start flash mobbing around the country let me know.
When non-blacks (AKA 'youths" in news-speak) start flash mobbing around the country let me know.
You want to know, you find out for yourself. I really don't care, because I don't want to be part of one or near one, and I can't do anything to prevent them. So I'm out of that one altogether.
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