Name a store, any store, from Fifth Avenue to Main Street, and I’ll bet that I can find a black person who has experienced discrimination there. The beauty chain Sephora recently became the focus of criticism when the singer SZA accused one of its employees of racially profiling her, but this was just the most recent high-profile incident. Retail racism is nearly endemic to shopping. A 2018 Gallup poll of black Americans found that nearly two-thirds perceived that blacks are treated less fairly than whites while shopping – a figure that has steadily increased over the past decade. Experiences of “shopping while black” include everything from slights, like being ignored in favor of a white patron, to serious attacks on dignity and liberty, like being detained and questioned after making a purchase or handcuffed on suspicion of shoplifting.
Shopping While Black: Consumer Racial Profiling in America
— source theguardian.com | 24 Jun 2019