"A sad reality of being black in America. The guy in his Snapchat put as his caption “Racist, lol,” but there’s nothing funny about it...
Just like it wasn’t funny a few weeks ago when I was looking for my new office space, and the owner, upon seeing me, brought me into the conference room and grilled me for 15 minutes about the type of client I would be seeing. He kept asking me questions about their noise level, telling me he can’t have any kids running around his building, stating how this is a professional building and needing me to understand that they keep a “certain type of atmosphere” here, while interrupting me to ask me the same questions again.
Foolishly, I still put in a rental application because the space was gorgeous, and upon calling my references, he still calls me back and says “it just doesn’t sit right in [his] gut what I’m trying to do.”
What?!! What am I trying to do? Since when is therapy provocative?
He proceeds to try to ask me the same questions as before to which I cut him off and say I’m not answering any more questions and will be moving on.
This happened 5 minutes from where I live.
And then at HEB, my favorite place on earth, I was chased down by a CSM who thought I stole some post-it’s, after spending $100 on a previous order at the self check out.
Again... what?!!
In that instance, O and I walked away incredulous in silent shock at first at how small that questioning made me (us) feel, before doing what you have to do when these things happen which is shake them off (O made a joke to break the tension) and keep going.
These experiences, though common, are never those I never get used to. Sometimes I live in my little diversity bubble of friends and serving black and brown kids at the school and my rainbow of private practice clients so much that when I step out, I’m sadly reminded that the rules are different for me.
To some, I am ghetto, unprofessional, a thief, a danger, ignorant, poor, etc until proven otherwise.
To those who read the article below and watched the videos and thought, “Well, I understand where they’re coming from... they have to do their job...” your thinking and excusal of this is part of the problem. You are biased and have racist thoughts, and need to challenge it if you want to grow. You need to assess why this level of scrutiny was appropriate for him, and I hope you would land on that it wasn’t."
James Conley III added a photo and 4 videos — at Old Navy Jordan Creek Tc.
Today I was racially profiled by the Old Navy store in West Des Moines, Iowa in Jordan creek. I was accused that I didn't pay for my blue bubble jacket that I got for Christmas that I wore into the store. As I was checking out to purchase some hoodies, I was asked if I wanted to also purchase the jacket that I was wearing. First, I started laughing because I didnt believe what I was hearing. The store manager Beau Carter was very unprofessional and stereotyped me because I was a Black male. He says "anytime someone wears Old Navy clothing they have to always scan that customers clothing to insure that it was previously purchased". (Where do they do that at?) Every time I go to this store I have on my same exact winter blue jacket and have never been asked to scan my clothing and the previous "non-black" customers had on identical apparel as me from old navy but was never asked to scan their clothing. Then after they scan my jacket they try to make me repay for it?? Finally the District Manager Shannon (who refused to give out her last name) came out and I made her check the surveillance tape to prove that her and her fellow employees were in the wrong for racially profiling me because of the color of my skin. Once she confirmed that I was telling the truth (after watching the tape) she never came back out to apologize to me nor did the store manager Beau Carter as you can see in my videos below. #RacialProfiling #CrazyWorld #NoMore #OldNavy #VeryDisappointed#ThankGodForKeepingMePoised #Repost #Share
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