The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression
One memory that I have of an incident where I witnessed someone else being the target of bias and prejudice was around 15 years ago. For Spring Break I took a group of approximately 30 African American teenage youth to Atlanta Georgia for Spring Break. At least 60 percent of the group was males. While in Atlanta I decided to take the group to Underground Atlanta. My directions to them were to walk around, do some shopping and to meet me back at a certain time and location. Prior to coming I instructed everyone to be on their best behaviors, do not go in stores in large numbers, and not to stay in the stores to long.
After being in the Underground for about an hour one of the youth came and told me that security had one of my youth for shoplifting. I quickly went to the store and found the youth being questioned by security. I asked the young man what was going on and he said that he was accused of stealing something. He told me that he had brought something from the store and I asked him if he had a receipt and he said yes. I asked for the receipt and sure enough he had it. Security told us that they were sorry for the mix up.
The young man was terrified at what had just happened. I knew that he had been questioned because he was a black male in a store and with other young black boys. Personally I feel that the situation was unfair and that the young men were automatically being watched because of their race and because it was more than one youth in the store. I did explain to the entire group that it was important to be very careful when going in and out of stores. I told them to keep up with their receipts. As I listened to different ones I could hear them saying that was not fair, we don’t even want to go into any other stores. Their comfort of going into stores and shopping had left a bad feeling in them.
As for me I knew that I had to try to protect our youth as much as possible and educate them on how to protect themselves in situations like this one. I had never had a situation like this one to happen to me before so I could only imagine what it felt like the, embarrassment and shame of being accused of stealing.
In order for there to be changes for greater equity I feel that the store managers would have to come together with security and their employees and put together steps to be followed in cases where one is suspected of shoplifting. Just because there are more than 2 black boys in a store does not mean they are there shoplifting. The easiest thing that could have been done was for security to simply ask the young man if he had a receipt before he accused him of stealing
I live in Atlanta, GA and I am so sorry for the incident that happened. I hate to say this, but it is all to common. Alot of African American men are accused of wrongdoing, becasue that is what society shows.
ReplyDeleteOnce again we have poeple jumping the gun just to get what we want to hear. Like i posted on another blog that we need to breathe than start asking questions to get to the right ended. we tend to assume to much about situations becuase because things look right. when the end result may have a complete different meaning.
ReplyDeleteI think this situation is what Taylor was talking about during her media presenation when she said her parents wanted to make her aware of isms that happen in the world and how uncomfortable she felt with them. Being aware of them does not make them right though and this was a hard lesson for the children to have to learn and also incredibly unfair.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. Asking the proper questions and exploring the facts before accusations is the best way to go. People of authority sometimes carry situations overboard. I can only imagine how the young man felt. Being of accused of something u did not do can be an awful feeling.Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteHi Rosemary,
ReplyDeleteYour story saddens me because I know it happens everyday and who knows exactly how many times a day to how many innocent Black youths. The fact that you (or anyone) even has to tell them to be careful traveling into stores as a group is such a dichotomy that makes me seethe that it still exists in our present society. Young black youths, especially males, are not safe anywhere no matter the setting. You can stress not to go into stores as a group, but what do you then tell the 'Trayvon Martins' who are simply walking ALONE. It sends a negative message to our youth that no matter what, you are perceived as guilty until proven innocent and guess what-there's no guarantee that innocent verdict is even coming your way. It's like those subconcious tests we had to take in this course a few weeks back, where Black and innocent don't seem to go hand in hand as similar.