Degrading shopping experiences

[rjs246]

White people are so lame.

[SunMo]

but when it's all said and done, being white is awesome.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Crossroids = IGY. IGY hasn't been posting much since this guy started posting here, and they both want to be of the darker persuasion.

[Phanatic]

Crossroids = IGY. He hasn't been posting much since this guy started posting hear, and they both want to be of the darker persuasion.

Man that was my guess...

Ricky Waters?

[Susquehanna Birder]

Could it also be that your paranoia is being expressed non-verbally, and is contributing to the issue?


BTW, back in my youth, my friends and I would enjoy flushing the plainclothes "watcher" types out. Sometimes we'd make them chase us around the stores. But that was a long time ago.

[Crossroids]

how do you portray yourself?

during a shopping trip, how long do you linger in the store? there;s a difference to store managers of people that are casually browsing the aisle's and people that look like they are loitering.

Well, to recount the incident that has triggered this "end of my rope"-type emotional crisis...lately, I have been kinda into the health/wholistic scene (for one thing, it seems to be a promising alternative to managing some health issues I have) - and one thing that I've liked to do lately is to go into health food stores and browse the selections, just to become familiar with the different products that these health stores offer and to compare prices (because the health scene CAN be quite pricey).  So I was in Whole Foods yesterday, looking in the vitamin/supplement isle - and yes, I am prone to reading labels.  (Whole Foods should be used to label readers and such).  I may have been in that aisle for 3 or 4 minutes when an employee comes up to me and asks the ubiquitous "May I help you" question.  Now you have to know where I'm coming from:  through years of experience, I've rightfully grown wary of the old "May I help you" tactic - I know from experience that at least 90% of the time, these employees aren't really that interested in actually helping me..."May I help you" is basically a disingenuous question designed for more "sinister" purposes.  In essence, when I hear that question I go into a bit of a "defense mode" - the "oh, is it happening again?" mode.  Because I realize that what they really mean is "you seem suspicious and I am 'feeling you out'".  So I look the employee squarely in the eye and answer, "no, I'm just looking" (which I really was).  But I could immediately tell from this employee's weird, lingering gaze in response to my answer that he considered me and/or my response suspicious.  In essence - the unfortunate dynamic that may have taken place during that moment is that he mistook my defensiveness (if my defensiveness was even that apparent) and my wariness of the motives for his overtures, as a sign that I was Prime Shoplifting Suspect #1. 

So he lingers in the aisle and does the old, predictable, "restocking inventory" routine (or whatever he was doing to "look busy" so that he could watch me).  I continue my browsing of the inventory - and there was a book section in this aisle and I started browsing the books - I am genuinely interested in the subject matter of these books and isn't it natural that a customer may want to browse through the books?!?  I mean Jesus Christ they act like it is some novel act for a customer to linger in that jam-packed, multi-product isle that features books.       Anyway, the degradation of me continued when another employee enters the isle to say something to the first employee (the one checking me out) - the first employee evidently has to go into another section of the store for a moment and the second employee says out loud, "I'll stay here", as if to reassure him that she'll keep an eye on the suspicious black person.  So they are on high-alert - they are afraid of leaving me unsupervised for even a few seconds.  After a few moments, the first employee comes back and the second employee is relieved of her duty of watching me, so to speak - so she leaves the area.    

During the whole episode, the first employee asks me for a second time can he help me, and I respond, "no - I'm really just looking" in a mild insistent/reassuring tone....either this response seems to satisfy him more than my first response, or he realizes that if he presses the issue he would begin to really look obvious - because he really wasn't in my field of vision after that.  (or maybe I was being watched by the security cameras at that point.  )  However, that wasn't the end of my degradation:  when I go to the checkout counter (because I actually bought a couple of items), it is obvious to me that the checkout employee finds me suspicious, and she proceeds to implement her own tactics of "feeling me out".  She asks some strange questions and her whole vibe is intrusive/confrontational - like I am some miscreant.  First she asks me if I want a bag for my items - which is odd given the circumstances.  I answer "yes".  Then she asks me if I want a small bag or a large bag.  Huh?!  I guess she thought I was stupid and wouldn't pick up on the purpose of her questioning.  A second ago she thought that I could do without a bag at all, and now she's asking if I want my 2 smallish items in a big bag?  I mean, don't  employees just automatically choose the appropriate bag 99% of the time?  And again, it was her tone just as much as it was the actual questioning - she thought I was some stupid, godd*mned criminal.  She was doing that either because she thought I was "nervous", or she was seeing if I would get nervous (because a customer with a few stolen items on their person would be getting mighty uncomfortable at the prolonged transaction, right?).  If my body-language isn't to her satisfaction, or up to a certain arbitrary "standard", it must be because I've stolen something.    These employees look for any little thing...and when they think they have found something, they wrongly interpret it as suspicous.  What?  Was my eye-contact not strong enough?  Do I need to bring in the various therapists that I've been seeing for the past 18 years for my social anxiety disorder to explain to them that body language that they may find suspicous is not the mark of a shoplifter, but of a severely-shy person?  (Folks, I warn you:  DON'T be both black and shy - it is a nightmare as far as the assumptions people make about you.  And if you happen to be suffering from depression on top of being both black and shy...then Lord help you.)

(Then again, if I had forced eye-contact, she would have considered that suspicous - just as the first employee did when I gave him strong eye contact.  When these employees zero in on you - you literally can't win.  Anything is proof to them that you're up to no good.)

Then on top of that, she does that little "verification" thing when I had her a $20.  That in itself wouldn't have been so bad (I try to be understanding as much as possible that these employees are only following standard protocol) if it hadn't come on top of the other slights I had just experienced.

And there are plenty more degrading experiences where that came from.  This is simply unacceptable.  Employees have no regard for the feelings and the dignity of customers, do they?  Particularly black customers (as "EagleFeva" so bluntly pointed out).

[Feva]

you still haven't explained why these stores are tageting you.  you must have a good idea why. 

A when you are black, they are going to see any little thing as an alarm bell, and construe any kind of behavior as "suspicious".  I am not exaggerating when I say that certain shoppers (i.e. blacks) can't so much as lift a finger "the wrong way", or stay in one area more than 5 seconds, without some overly-suspicious, prejudiced employee thinking that they are shoplifting.

I've never seen a black person shopping who either hasn't shoplifted... or isn't about to.

[Crossroids]

Well, I think that's oversimplifying it a bit.  It depends on where you live, what the population looks like there, how you dress, how you act, etc.  I don't think it's that blanket.  A black guy in full hip hop gear would draw more attention than a black guy in a suit in most places.  Right or wrong, it goes beyond *just* a race thing.

But the black guy in a suit would draw attention.  I know.  I've been followed when I've been dressed-up.  Sadly, it often doesn't matter how well you're dressed - if you're black.

Anyway, have there been actual studies that show that black people are responsible for most or all of the shoplifting.  Do people know that black people are doing the lion's share of shoplifting?  Is there concrete proof?  Or is this just another situation where people are acting on their prejudices?

[rjs246]

When I finally reach a position of power, I will require all chimpanzees to be rigorously trained, officially forming the world's first monkey-butler army. All will worship me.

[Susquehanna Birder]

I've never seen a black person shopping who either hasn't shoplifted... or isn't about to.

If you're trying to be funny, give up. If you're not, you need help. Either way, you're being inflammatory, and you need to back the hell off.

[rjs246]

Feva is black dude. It was a joke. And I found it funny.

[SunMo]

When I finally reach a position of power, I will require all chimpanzees to be rigorously trained, officially forming the world's first monkey-butler army. All will worship me.

What the farg happened to you, man? shtein, your ass used to be beautiful!

[SD_Eagle5]

I've never seen a black person shopping who either hasn't shoplifted... or isn't about to.

If you're trying to be funny, give up. If you're not, you need help. Either way, you're being inflammatory, and you need to back the hell off.

Sus, you do uhhh, know that Feva is black, right? I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic.

[qwert246]

This is sounding more and more like bullshtein.

[MDS]

What happens when employees are stealing, cause when I worked in a pharmacy, we all stole from the store. I had  giant stash of food and drinks that i just took whenever the hell. I ended up just never going back after I went to jubilee over the summer, no one really noticed. Speaking of which, I need a job, but have no abition to get one. Damnit.