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America’s Retailers Know They Have A Racial Profiling Problem. Now What?“I did not steal anything.”Cheryl Johnson’s words didn’t seem to matter as she was marched through the Belk department store toward a security room, led by a white woman who’d just accused her of stealing a $3. We’re bringing her upstairs,” the woman called into her walkie- talkie. She seemed so proud to say it, like she was bringing in a catch.

Moments earlier, when the woman halted her — loudly — in front of all the other afternoon shoppers at North Carolina’s Asheville Mall, Johnson wondered if this was a prank. Now, the retired Department of Justice analyst imagined she might end up in jail for something she didn’t do. This, she remembers thinking, is how black people get fed into the criminal justice system. She took a seat and waited while the woman with the walkie- talkie — a loss prevention staffer at the Belk store who never identified herself — watched surveillance footage in the next room with a human resources director.“Where?

Show me where she took it,” the store’s human resources director said.“Right there,” Johnson heard the loss prevention staffer say. Again, the HR director pressed, “Show me where she took it.” The story seemed to be crumbling. Suddenly the woman who’d hauled her in was rushing out past Johnson, slamming the door. Minutes later, a man and a woman in blue uniforms with guns appeared.

Did she have ID on her? She handed the man her license. Had she ever stolen anything before? No, Johnson replied.

The loss prevention employee had returned and all four people looked at the footage again. Is someone going to talk to me, or are you going to continue to talk about me?” Johnson finally asked. It shouldn’t take 1. The man in the uniform came back out and informed Johnson that she had been inconvenienced. Inconvenienced?” she heard herself yell. I’ve been humiliated, I’ve been lied on, and I’ve been falsely accused of something I didn't do."Amid a run of high- profile episodes in which police have shot unarmed black men, the nation is embroiled in a heated debate about the extent to which American law enforcement is shaped by racial profiling. But beneath the headline- grabbing cases, African- Americans say it's also during mundane activities like shopping that they regularly confront discrimination — including in the form of security guards watching them in stores and accusing of them of crimes like shoplifting.

Experts say the enormous power retailers hold to stop and detain people of color in their stores remains woefully unexamined. At the same time, however, a handful of retail executives, criminal justice experts and consumers like Johnson are calling for greater scrutiny of racial disparities in the private justice system of the nation’s brick- and- mortar stores.“It’s bad business to mistreat your customers,” says Ojmarrh Mitchell, a criminology professor at the University of South Florida and a member of the Department of Justice’s science advisory board. Mitchell recently co- authored an article in the trade journal Security Management that offered retailers advice on how to detect and prevent profiling and says the issue “is something they should be looking at aggressively and responding to aggressively, if there is any problem.”After being accused of stealing a dress at a department store, Cheryl Johnson decided she would not stay quiet about her account of being profiled. Photo: Courtesy of Cheryl Johnson.

Companies rarely disclose details about their theft- prevention efforts and scant data exists on the frequency of in- store enforcement actions. But Johnson’s detention at the Asheville Mall two and a half years ago is all too familiar to shoppers of color across the country. A recent Gallup poll suggests that African- Americans are more likely to feel discrimination at a store than when going to a restaurant, or dealing with police during a traffic incident. In several recent lawsuits against nationwide retailers, companies including CVS, Apple and Best Buy stand accused of misidentifying minorities as shoplifters on the basis of their race. What’s unusual about Johnson’s story is how it came to light.

Following her release, she decided she wasn’t going to join the majority of profiling victims who stay silent, she says. She partnered with a local activist group in Asheville, the People Advocating Real Change organization (PARC), and through a combination of community organizing and sheer will, Johnson’s story touched off a letter- writing campaign to Belk. She helped organize a public lecture at University of North Carolina- Asheville on the history of “shopping while black.” Furthermore, with the aid of another organization called Western North Carolina Citizens Ending Institutional Bigotry, she got three company executives to meet with her, listen to her and apologize in person. Johnson’s campaign sparked local action and a discussion of racial profiling, a subject that the nation’s major retailers — from discount outlets to luxury boutiques — don’t want associated with their valuable brands. The traditional retail business cannot afford to scare off a sizable portion of its customer base with bad publicity. Online sales keep growing, steadily eating into brick- and- mortar’s share of the pie. Heading into the high- volume holiday season, the National Retail Federation estimates that the growth rate for online sales this year — between 6 and 8 percent — will once again outpace growth for brick- and- mortar sales growth of 3.

From a demographics perspective, buying power among people of color is multiplying fast. Non- white consumers are what a recent Nielsen Company report deemed the “growth engine of the future.” The group accounted for some 9. U. S. population growth from 2.

Between 1. 99. 0 and 2. For African- Americans, Nielsen found, household income grew faster than households of non- Hispanic whites in every income bracket above $6. The difference was especially pronounced at the $2. Black buying power alone is expected to reach $1. Yet, major brands continue to come under fire for allegedly targeting minority shoppers, as evidenced by recent cases involving more than a dozen national chain stores.•In October, the Georgetown Business Improvement District in Washington, D. C., said it would suspend use of an online Group.

Me account used by local merchants, following accusations that the app was being used to racially profile shoplifting suspects.• In June, four former store detectives filed a lawsuit against CVS, alleging that loss prevention managers in New York City instructed them to track the movements of blacks and Hispanics more closely than other customers and routinely used racial slurs to describe shoppers.• According to a survey conducted by the Center for Popular Democracy earlier this year, employees at Zara clothing stores in New York City say security personnel used code words to identify and track black shoppers.• Earlier this year, in Portland, Oregon, a civil rights law firm filed six lawsuits alleging discrimination and false arrest against a local mall and major retailers including Best Buy, Ross Stores, Walgreens and Hollister.• In 2. Macy’s and Barneys New York entered settlement agreements with the New York Attorney General following incidents in which black customers were arrested and falsely accused of credit card fraud after buying expensive items. Prompted by the negative attention, some retailers have begun soul- searching — with an eye toward the bottom line.