Video: White store manager follows black teens around a store

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And if there were a gang of hoody-wearing white kids in the shop he probably would've followed them.


Why the fuck are people acting like hoodies= thugs nowadays its insane.

I'd say 75% of my college campus wears one when its cold including teachers.

Motherfuckers acting like a hoodie is a gun dripping in blood from pistol whipping an infant.
 
When I was a teenager Radio Shack was the worst when it came to being followed. Every time I walked into one I was immediately approached by the manager and asked: "What are you looking for?" If I said I was just browsing he would follow me around the entire time I was inside. He would only do this with teens but not adults.
 
I was always able to get away with my stealing because the store detectives followed the black kids instead.

I successfully retired and the shop lost many sweets.
 
Used to have to do this all the time when I worked at Blockbuster. If kids come into a retail store with a backpack its pretty common practice to follow them around.
 
when this happened to my friends and i in Walmart we would start following the person that was following us.

Occasionally get right up behind them and start hitting on them, like "you're cute can i get your number?" or "would it be to forward of me to grab your ass?" and blowing on their ear.

Another one was to start picking up stuff and walk up to them and ask "hey since your following us around and we forgot to get a basket, mind carrying these two gallons of apple juice for us?" they were the ones that came in a glass jug.
 
So it's understandable for white people to not care about racism for the illogical reason you've given, but not understandable for black people to call out something that the vast majority of them have faced to a much larger degree than the majority of whites due to their race...as racist.

That's odd.

No, it's not odd.

I can see no reason for those two premises to be linked in any way. Like at all. Ever.

However, if we pretend that those two totally unrelated premises are somehow linked....

The reason for not caring is not "illogical" at all. If one does not know an other, it is easy to ignore that other's problems. Confusion and annoyance make it easier.

As for the other side of your post... I never said that. Ever.

It's stupid when people do this and I am not under the impression that you are stupid.

Now that is odd.
 
it's his job to follow kids around. all kids steal. all of them

Yeah... this seems realistic. I'm sure they have enough staff to make sure every kid walking into that (very large) supermarket is monitored. It would be ashamed he had to prioritize whose a threat based on other characteristics other than their age.

I hope the kids didn't buy Skittles.
 
It must be nice. I'm a black attorney in his 30s and get followed once a week.

Shoutout to the Chinese owned liquor store that had their 18yr old kid chaperone over my shoulder at every aisle. lol since then I have earned that stores trust.


Why are you still shopping at that store then? Fuck earning their trust. I generally boycott Asian groceries because of this problem because I feel unwanted and watched. I get less of that at Krogers so that's where I will buy some 5 spice, or better yet, Meijers which has a better selection. Those stores are too under staffed to bother me. This is from experience.
 
I was in Target yesterday and my wife tells me that an employee pointed at me and told another to "make sure you watch him". She was in the position to hear this because I went ahead of her to pay.

If only I heard this. We just moved to San Jose a month ago and I can count the number of black people I've seen on my digits. So I seem to get a lot of looks now.
 
I'm not sure I've ever been followed in stores. Mostly because I never really "browse". I'm always walking fast which just isn't all that suspicious. But yea this doesn't seem racially driven. He could probably see the kid recording and was weary of what he was doing.

That's my take anyways.
 
When I worked in Best Buy we were basically instructed to follow anyone who looked like they could be up to no good. They taught us to look for certain signs. If the person went to the CDs and then immediately toward the remote corners of the store, or if they were constantly looking around, if they had big bags with them, etc.

Thing was, you HAD to follow them to catch them. The policy was that even if they were seen on camera opening a DVD or CD or something and then putting it in a pocket, if they weren't in visual range of an employee or a camera for the entire duration of their time in the store you couldn't confront or call the police on them. So I followed a crapload of people around. I just tried to do it from a respectful distance. It might suck to be assumed to be stealing, but the fact of the matter is that the store I worked at lost thousands of dollars a week in thefts, it was crazy. It's the nature of the beast with retail.

A few things though. Rap cds and horror movies were the highest loss areas in my department. Part of it was because they were on the edge of the department, but the other stuff that was on the edges didn't ever get stolen.
 
it can be tough, it is possible to be black and followed and it not be racially motivated.

You can be black and have a lot of shit happen that's not racism that seems to be.

Not getting a job, not getting the best real estate deals, not being treated with respect at high end stores, there is a lot of stuff that can be construed as racism, and argued not to be racism.

I'm black, there is no question that this is one of the harder things in life.

Unfortunately shit happens for real far too often, no one is going to be able to decipher which incidents are/are not. Its impossible. Benefit of doubt is a good way to start.

In any case, somehow these discussions flip around into the minorities being the problem/cause, I don't think that's fair. I think it's convenient.
 
What am I supposed to gather from that video? I don't get it. Am I automatically supposed to be jumping to the 'racism' conclusion? I guess that's what the point of this is, right?

FFS.
 
No, it's not odd.

I can see no reason for those two premises to be linked in any way. Like at all. Ever.

However, if we pretend that those two totally unrelated premises are somehow linked....

The reason for not caring is not "illogical" at all. If one does not know an other, it is easy to ignore that other's problems. Confusion and annoyance make it easier.

As for the other side of your post... I never said that. Ever.

It's stupid when people do this and I am not under the impression that you are stupid.

Now that is odd.

"Illogical" was a bad choice of words on my part. Both things (white people not caring about actual racism because they hear things called racist too much in situations where it's ambiguous, and black people calling out things as racist without significant evidence) are illogical.

My point is that one of these illogical things is born out of living your entire life seeing people of your race, for no reason other than their race and the fact that they were born in America, live in destitute, seemingly hopeless conditions. Seeing black people functionally quarantined into war zones, with terrible schools with low budgets, few options for healthy diet, fewer job prospects even for those with equivalent credentials to a white counterpart, profiling by police leading to a higher rate of incarceration of blacks irrespective of actual crime rates, harsher sentencing for the same crimes, being followed constantly at stores, being treated different in general by many people (and by "different" I don't mean treated wrongly, I'd actually say most people do not treat blacks disrespectfully the majority of the time, but there is certainly an undertone of reservedness and sometimes possible fear from thinking of blacks as "outsiders")

Blacks are reminded of this kind of stuff constantly. Constantly. They live their lives being reminded of racism (explicit or implicit) at every turn. This is why I tend to find hasty proclamations of "racism!" pretty understandable. If you see racism constantly, and it is negatively affecting your life constantly, then paranoia is bound to result.

The second illogical thing is linked to the first precisely because it is born out of not truly understanding all the stuff I wrote up there ^^^, or not having very much empathy. Is there a lot of "noise" with black people claiming things to be racist that might not have actual racist intentions? Perhaps. But most racism is not explicit and uniquely identifiable as racially motivated, and yet somehow black people are generally born second class citizens. Instead of taking great offense to understandable paranoia about racism, people should take that paranoia as a signal that something is incredibly, incredibly wrong.
 
I'll tell ya what tho. It's not common to see a manager tail a pair of patrons at a Publix. I'm privileged that my people were blessed with this wonderful opportunity to display our shopping habits for such careful analysis. I've always felt the product placement in the store did not suit our needs. It's hard as fuck to find kool-aid and collard greens up in that bitch but they got sunny D and granola bars laying all over the damn place.
 
The fact that the term "race card" even exists shows how fucked up racial issues are in the US and how unlikely they are to change.

Super fucking insensitive for people who actually have to deal with this shit on a daily basis.
 
What am I supposed to gather from that video? I don't get it. Am I automatically supposed to be jumping to the 'racism' conclusion? I guess that's what the point of this is, right?

FFS.

You're clearly not black then.

I'm pretty sure 99% of black people, teens or adults have been followed like this. I know I have. The other 1% either live in an all-black neighborhood or are elderly and thus a "non-threat". My favorite is walking into a store filled with white patrons and having some employee or manager walk up to me like I'm some jerk magnet and ask me, "Can I help you today?" Yeah, nice greeting, but why aren't you asking everyone else who comes in that's not black? I usually give them an annoyed look and a gruff, "No!" If I steal something, come at me, but I never stole a damn thing in my life. And I certainly don't need your help finding what I want.

I got no problem fussing someone out for being overly aggressive in their store. My skin color doesn't make me a criminal, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay for the misdeeds of others. PEACE.

EDIT: After this happens to you for the dozenth time, it ceases to be coincidence. I'm 35, and earn more than these store managers anyway.
 
"Illogical" was a bad choice of words on my part. Both things (white people not caring about actual racism because they hear things called racist too much in situations where it's ambiguous, and black people calling out things as racist without significant evidence) are illogical.

My point is that one of these illogical things is born out of living your entire life seeing people of your race, for no reason other than their race and the fact that they were born in America, live in destitute, seemingly hopeless conditions. Seeing black people functionally quarantined into war zones, with terrible schools with low budgets, few options for healthy diet, fewer job prospects even for those with equivalent credentials to a white counterpart, profiling by police leading to a higher rate of incarceration of blacks irrespective of actual crime rates, harsher sentencing for the same crimes, being followed constantly at stores, being treated different in general by many people (and by "different" I don't mean treated wrongly, I'd actually say most people do not treat blacks disrespectfully the majority of the time, but there is certainly an undertone of reservedness and sometimes possible fear from thinking of blacks as "outsiders")

Blacks are reminded of this kind of stuff constantly. Constantly. They live their lives being reminded of racism (explicit or implicit) at every turn. This is why I tend to find hasty proclamations of "racism!" pretty understandable. If you see racism constantly, and it is negatively affecting your life constantly, then paranoia is bound to result.

The second illogical thing is linked to the first precisely because it is born out of not truly understanding all the stuff I wrote up there ^^^, or not having very much empathy. Is there a lot of "noise" with black people claiming things to be racist that might not have actual racist intentions? Perhaps. But most racism is not explicit and uniquely identifiable as racially motivated, and yet somehow black people are generally born second class citizens. Instead of taking great offense to understandable paranoia about racism, people should take that paranoia as a signal that something is incredibly, incredibly wrong.

Most of this makes sense, but I still think you are responding to something I have not said.

I read your post and nod throughout, but I don't see why you are telling me any of this.


The fact that the term "race card" even exists shows how fucked up racial issues are in the US and how unlikely they are to change.

Super fucking insensitive for people who actually have to deal with this shit on a daily basis.

That "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" exists is not an insult to real victims of wolf attacks.
 
You're clearly not black then.

I'm pretty sure 99% of black people, teens or adults have been followed like this. I know I have. The other 1% either live in an all-black neighborhood or are elderly and thus a "non-threat". My favorite is walking into a store filled with white patrons and having some employee or manager walk up to me like I'm some jerk magnet and ask me, "Can I help you today?" Yeah, nice greeting, but why aren't you asking everyone else who comes in that's not black? I usually give them an annoyed look and a gruff, "No!" If I steal something, come at me, but I never stole a damn thing in my life. And I certainly don't need your help finding what I want.

I got no problem fussing someone out for being overly aggressive in their store. My skin color doesn't make me a criminal, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay for the misdeeds of others. PEACE.

EDIT: After this happens to you for the dozenth time, it ceases to be coincidence. I'm 35, and earn more than these store managers anyway.
Normal retail procedure is to greet as many people as possible face to face. It's a sales technique. (As an introverted guy, I was happy to be working in a non-sales department, cause it was exhausting when I'd fill in.)
 
That "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" exists is not an insult to real victims of wolf attacks.

This might come as a shock to some, but people who want to discuss or talk about racial issues aren't doing so because they want to pull out a "race card". They do it because they want things to change. There is a certain audience of people (in this thread even) who have used the term do diminish the undelying issue. Regardless of if that's what happened in this particular video, it happens. A lot. More often than not, in fact. But instead of discussing that, we get the handful of driveby posters who want to accuse people of race baiting or claim it's all equal because "I'm white and I got followed in a store once."

The term is disrespectful. Or do we have some evidence that people are pulling out the "race card" for no real reason a vast majority of the time? If so, I'm more than happy to back down and say there's nothing wrong with it, and that it's absoutely not being used to diminish real situations that blacks and other minorities go through because those using it don't have to experience them.
 
Do you think it's fair that the people who filmed the video accuse the manager of racism without any actual evidence? Does anyone think this manager could have received threats as a result from people who see the word 'racist' splat right in the title description?
 
Incredibly hard to determine the motive of the employee just from the video, as others have said.


it can be tough, it is possible to be black and followed and it not be racially motivated.

You can be black and have a lot of shit happen that's not racism that seems to be.

Not getting a job, not getting the best real estate deals, not being treated with respect at high end stores, there is a lot of stuff that can be construed as racism, and argued not to be racism.

I'm black, there is no question that this is one of the harder things in life.

Unfortunately shit happens for real far too often, no one is going to be able to decipher which incidents are/are not. Its impossible. Benefit of doubt is a good way to start.

In any case, somehow these discussions flip around into the minorities being the problem/cause, I don't think that's fair. I think it's convenient.

I think this one of the best posts I have read when it comes to any topic with this similar subject matter. Simple yet it really drives home your perspective on these things, and the challenge of looking at it from both logical and an emotional perspective. Can't disagree with anything you said.

These topics always become (understandably) personal for some users, and those users start to get emotional, personal, and sometimes hostile towards users who have a differing viewpoint, which undermines what they are trying to convey and I think ends up starting pretty heated posting towards each other that really doesn't further the discussion and maybe contributes to the discussion being "flipped" as you pointed out.
 
I was in Target yesterday and my wife tells me that an employee pointed at me and told another to "make sure you watch him". She was in the position to hear this because I went ahead of her to pay.

If only I heard this. We just moved to San Jose a month ago and I can count the number of black people I've seen on my digits. So I seem to get a lot of looks now.

Lol where in san jose?
 
Normal retail procedure is to greet as many people as possible face to face. It's a sales technique. (As an introverted guy, I was happy to be working in a non-sales department, cause it was exhausting when I'd fill in.)

It's not a coincidence, and it's not some retail procedure. Not when, like I said, the store is full of white patrons and somehow, I'm the lucky millionth customer who gets the greeting and "assistance" while none of the other patrons get such a blessing. Why me? Maybe it's my good looks.

Like I said, it ceases to be a coincidence once it's happened to you enough times. Then it becomes aggravating. My mom makes six figures and is in her 60s, but she still gets followed around stores. She has dreadlocks, but outearns any manager at any store. It's not a coincidence, man, and claiming it's just normal retail procedure is discounting first-hand experience. I'm smart enough to know when someone is doing their job (like at a Gap or other mall clothing store, where the employees actively walk the floor) or just being a profiling asshole.

Store owners and managers are free to operate their stores however they feel. I'm also free to tell them how I feel about them snooping on me. I'm not shy about it at all, and I've walked out of more than a few establishments after giving the stalker an earful about their behavior. If enough honest people stand up for themselves vocally (not physical confrontations, mind you) then it will help educate the public at large. As it stands, profiling by race and age is all too common and is not proven to be effective.

You know who steal a lot of stuff? Old, white people. Somehow they're not very high on the profiling list. I wonder why. PEACE.
 
Incredibly hard to determine the motive of the employee just from the video, as others have said.




I think this one of the best posts I have read when it comes to any topic with this similar subject matter. Simple yet it really drives home your perspective on these things, and the challenge of looking at it from both logical and an emotional perspective. Can't disagree with anything you said.

These topics always become (understandably) personal for some users, and those users start to get emotional, personal, and sometimes hostile towards users who have a differing viewpoint, which undermines what they are trying to convey and I think ends up starting pretty heated posting towards each other that really doesn't further the discussion and maybe contributes to the discussion being "flipped" as you pointed out.

No one likes being told they're jumping to conclusions by people who haven't or can't walk a mile in their shoes. It's awful hard to listen to a white person talk about racial issues being non-factors or misunderstandings when this is a chronic problem for people of color. This is one video from those kids. How many more times have they been followed, not just in that store, but in others as well? It's someone telling you the repeated torture you've been put through is just a coincidence or a misunderstanding, when you yourself know that they have no clue what it feels like, and never could.

There's a level of forced naivety in these discussions, and a lot of it comes off as wishful thinking more than reality. The reality is this happens a lot to black people. The reality is this is driven by race. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it's an even tougher to have to live through it. This is pretty much how every discussion on race goes, which is why these debates sometimes get hostile. Just like there's only so much profiling you can take, there's only so much second-guessing of your complaints that you can take. PEACE.
 
What am I supposed to gather from that video? I don't get it. Am I automatically supposed to be jumping to the 'racism' conclusion? I guess that's what the point of this is, right?

FFS.

Yep this will happen too anyone that loss prevention perceives as a thief. Happen a lot to young people. Call out ageism.
 
No one likes being told they're jumping to conclusions by people who haven't or can't walk a mile in their shoes. It's awful hard to listen to a white person talk about racial issues being non-factors or misunderstandings when this is a chronic problem for people of color. This is one video from those kids. How many more times have they been followed, not just in that store, but in others as well? It's someone telling you the repeated torture you've been put through is just a coincidence or a misunderstanding, when you yourself know that they have no clue what it feels like, and never could.

There's a level of forced naivety in these discussions, and a lot of it comes off as wishful thinking more than reality. The reality is this happens a lot to black people. The reality is this is driven by race. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it's an even tougher to have to live through it. This is pretty much how every discussion on race goes, which is why these debates sometimes get hostile. Just like there's only so much profiling you can take, there's only so much second-guessing of your complaints that you can take. PEACE.


At the same time though, I think it's hard for a white person to try and have an honest discussion about the story and its related issues, and have their opinion be constantly questioned, harshly critiqued, and often times ridiculed for the sole reason that it came from a white poster. This happens a lot and I think it's unfair.
I don't understand how posts like this can be allowed:

hey minorities, don't talk about racism until it's 100% confirmed by independent non-racist white people

Can you give us minorities an example of what white people think is real racism so we can stop using this "race card" that we apparently have?


When we should have more posts like this:

If you think about this event in a vacuum, maybe it makes sense to argue, "Well, it could be age and not race."

He's right that we can't know whether racism was what motivated the store manager to follow these teens around the store - but that's true about every single incident when this happens. At some point you have to observe the larger societal context, note the fact that the black (male, especially) experience of being stalked around stores is nigh ubiquitous, and conclude that, yes, it probably is a reasonable position to think that racism was key here. It's certainly not a wild-eyed and irresponsible position to take.

or the one i quoted in my earlier post. I think these topics need to get rid of the obvious, and implied dismissive attitude of opinions from good posts and instead debate about it more logically. In the end everyone may not agree but I think more people would at least be more understanding and respectful of other's viewpoints.
 
At the same time though, I think it's hard for a white person to try and have an honest discussion about the story and its related issues, and have their opinion be constantly questioned, harshly critiqued, and often times ridiculed for the sole reason that it came from a white poster. This happens a lot and I think it's unfair.
I don't understand how posts like this can be allowed:






When we should have more posts like this:



or the one i quoted in my earlier post. I think these topics need to get rid of the obvious, and implied dismissive attitude of opinions from good posts and instead debate about it more logically. In the end everyone may not agree but I think more people would at least be more understanding and respectful of other's viewpoints.

This point is quite understandable, but after the millionth iteration of this debate, with no apparent change in understanding, it's also understandable that it gets annoying. It gets to the point where simply pointing out, "you're not black, so you really don't know what you're talking about" becomes the most convenient and efficient way of ending the debate. Basically, to someone who's experienced this (which is a large number of people), there is nothing to debate. When it's a fact of life for you, it's hard to listen to theories. PEACE.
 
This point is quite understandable, but after the millionth iteration of this debate, with no apparent change in understanding, it's also understandable that it gets annoying. It gets to the point where simply pointing out, "you're not black, so you really don't know what you're talking about" becomes the most convenient and efficient way of ending the debate. Basically, to someone who's experienced this (which is a large number of people), there is nothing to debate. When it's a fact of life for you, it's hard to listen to theories. PEACE.
It's not that people aren't sympathetic to the fact that racial bias is a real thing. I'm pretty confident that people aren't trying to downplay the personal experiences of many people who have experienced that. It's a very real issue and I definitely don't have the personal experience of having to deal with it on a regular basis.

But the thread's not actually about that societal issue- it's about a singular incident. And the problem is that these experiences are then used as justification to immediately label the behavior of the manager as racist instead of at least giving him the benefit of the doubt absent any evidence.
 
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