‘Shopping while black’: Marketplace finds some shoppers targeted by retailers because of race

Not terribly surprising – why should shops be different from other institutions – but still disturbing:

It’s called “shopping while black.” When the colour of your skin can get you increased attention from a store’s security guards. And it seems to happen every day.

Consumer racial profiling is a violation of provincial human rights codes, but some security guards admit it happens, a CBC Marketplaceinvestigation reveals.

….In a special months-long investigation, Marketplace looked at how race and culture influence how companies treat shoppers, apartment-hunters and job-seekers across Canada.

Some shoppers followed

A 2013 report for Nova Scotia’s Consumer Racial Profiling Projectfound major differences in how people are treated based on the colour of their skin.

Almost three-quarters of aboriginal respondents reported being followed by store staff, while 62.7 per cent of black Canadians reported being followed while shopping. Just 23.6 per cent of white respondents reported that they had experienced being followed.

CBC Marketplace tested consumer-based racial profiling in major chains across Canada, documenting how three male shoppers of different racial backgrounds — one white, one black and one aboriginal — were treated in 15 stores across five cities.

All three wore similar clothing, carried almost identical bags and followed specific instructions: they all acted in the same manner and visited the same aisles.

While most locations treated the three men the same, at other locations, they got very different levels of attention.

Mark Simms, a Jamaican-Canadian, was offered help three times and then followed around the store while shopping at a Best Buy location in Fredericton as part of a CBC Marketplace investigation.

A security expert who works for several large retailers — and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing his job — watched the hidden camera footage. He told Marketplace this technique is frequently used to monitor shoppers identified as suspicious in order to let them know they’re being watched.

In a Shoppers Drug Mart in Regina, Rory McCusker, who is white, noticed he was watched by an employee.

McCusker says he was surprised by the attention. “It was a little weird because I’ve never been followed in a store before.”

But when aboriginal shopper Leeland Delorme entered the same store, he was followed by multiple staff members and was tracked as he moved from aisle to aisle.

“They pretended to be scanning things and then just looking, glancing over,” he says. “It could not have been more obvious.”

Delorme says this type of experience has happened to him before. “This is exactly what I expect from this city,” he says. “I’m sorry to say I am not shocked at all. But it still pisses me off.”

Source: ‘Shopping while black’: Marketplace finds some shoppers targeted by retailers because of race – Business – CBC News