• Welcome to the Internet Infidels Discussion Board.

Racial profiling in retail stores and unintended consequences.

 
 
 
Underseer

Underseer

Contributor
Joined
May 29, 2003
Messages
11,413
Location
Chicago suburbs
Basic Beliefs
atheism, resistentialism


So no doubt you've heard about the recent Old Navy incident of racial profiling. This is obvious racism, and anyone who is African-American or goes shopping with African-Americans is familiar with this depressing phenomenon.

Let me offer a completely different perspective on this whole thing, since we know that conservatives are only able to admit that they are wrong when they are personally harmed by something.

I was a military brat. My father was a career military man, and I grew up on military bases surrounded by other children of career military people. In my case, this was entirely on overseas military bases. (Slight differences between that group of brats vs stateside because we were more disconnected from American culture.)

I'll be the first to tell you that military brats can be a bunch of little shits.

In any overseas military base, there is going to be a group of families referred to as the "off base" people. Generally, they choose to live off base so that the kids can get the experience of living in a foreign country among foreigners. When my father was stationed at USAFE headquarters in Ramstein AB. My family lived in Vogelweh, which is technically off base (it's the largest community of Americans not living under US jurisdiction). There are so many Americans in Vogelweh that when military brats talk about "off base" in and around Ramstein, they are referring to families that live neither in Ramstein nor Vogelweh because US jurisdiction or not, it might as well be counted as an American community.

Unfortunately, American racism rubbed off onto Germans, and so nearly every German shopkeeper was racist as fuck. If you went into a German store with a black kid in your group, it was guaranteed that the shopkeeper would make a big show out of following the African-American kid everywhere with a glare on their face. Some of us thought it was funny. Some of us kids were angry about it.

Since the off-base kids lived with this crap 100% of the time, they made a horrible game out of it.

They would enter a German retail store with a mixed race group. Inevitably, the shopkeeper(s) would follow the black kid around and glare at him. While this was going on, the white kids would wander around the rest of the store and steal everything they could possibly fit in their pockets. German racism guaranteed that the kids got away with it every single time.

The off base kids felt zero remorse for doing this because they all reasoned that racists deserve to be stolen from.

I hope my motive for bringing all of this up is obvious to any racists alt right free speech advocates identitarians reading this thread. If you assume that all African-Americans are thieves and make a big show out of following African-Americans around and glaring at them, you are actually making yourself more vulnerable to shoplifting. Any experienced shoplifter will notice what you are doing and head for another part of the store so that they can exploit your racism. Some might even decide that you "deserve" to be robbed because of your racism (no one deserves to be robbed, but some people think that way).

I know that I cannot appeal to your sense of morality nor decency to get you to abandon racism and stop following innocent people around your retail store, so I guess an appeal to self interest is all that's left. Glaring at innocent African-American customers might make you feel more superior, but it's really stupid, particularly since most of you are very obvious about what you are doing.

- - - Updated - - -

Oops, that should be "unintended" not "unintentional" in the subject, but sadly I can't edit the thread title. :(
 
The part I don't believe is that the German shopkeepers were racist because "it rubbed off" from Americans.
 
1. who are all the retail shop owners that you think post here that you're talking to?

2. interestingly this scenario isn't just a race thing - my friend and i used to do the same thing basically, because by the time i was 16 i was 6'4, seriously goth, and had a huge case of resting murder face.
i'd just go into a store and within 3-5 minutes every security guard (uniform and undercover) would be tailing me and my friend would stuff like 30 CDs in his pants and walk out.

anyways... obviously targeting black people is a racial thing, but the bit where retail workers are dipshits who fixate on one person that they think is "wrong" seems to be pretty common and not limited *only* to dark skin for their selection criteria.
 
Jayjay said:
The part I don't believe is that the German shopkeepers were racist because "it rubbed off" from Americans.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong about that, but it seemed the most likely source of the perception that people of African descent are shoplifters. I don't recall Nazi propganda making that particular claim about people of African descent. They would have said that kind of thing about Gypsies, immigrants, etc.
 
prideandfall said:
1. who are all the retail shop owners that you think post here that you're talking to?

2. interestingly this scenario isn't just a race thing - my friend and i used to do the same thing basically, because by the time i was 16 i was 6'4, seriously goth, and had a huge case of resting murder face.
i'd just go into a store and within 3-5 minutes every security guard (uniform and undercover) would be tailing me and my friend would stuff like 30 CDs in his pants and walk out.

anyways... obviously targeting black people is a racial thing, but the bit where retail workers are dipshits who fixate on one person that they think is "wrong" seems to be pretty common and not limited *only* to dark skin for their selection criteria.
Click to expand...

There might be people who work in retail who post here, maybe a shopkeeper, I dunno. *shrug*

- - - Updated - - -

prideandfall said:
1. who are all the retail shop owners that you think post here that you're talking to?

2. interestingly this scenario isn't just a race thing - my friend and i used to do the same thing basically, because by the time i was 16 i was 6'4, seriously goth, and had a huge case of resting murder face.
i'd just go into a store and within 3-5 minutes every security guard (uniform and undercover) would be tailing me and my friend would stuff like 30 CDs in his pants and walk out.

anyways... obviously targeting black people is a racial thing, but the bit where retail workers are dipshits who fixate on one person that they think is "wrong" seems to be pretty common and not limited *only* to dark skin for their selection criteria.
Click to expand...

Yes, profiling is also done with groups on a basis other than race, but surely you understand that racial profiling is more common and more of a problem.
 
Underseer said:
They would enter a German retail store with a mixed race group. Inevitably, the shopkeeper(s) would follow the black kid around and glare at him. While this was going on, the white kids would wander around the rest of the store and steal everything they could possibly fit in their pockets. German racism guaranteed that the kids got away with it every single time.

The off base kids felt zero remorse for doing this because they all reasoned that racists deserve to be stolen from.

I hope my motive for bringing all of this up is obvious to any racists alt right free speech advocates identitarians reading this thread. If you assume that all African-Americans are thieves and make a big show out of following African-Americans around and glaring at them, you are actually making yourself more vulnerable to shoplifting. Any experienced shoplifter will notice what you are doing and head for another part of the store so that they can exploit your racism. Some might even decide that you "deserve" to be robbed because of your racism (no one deserves to be robbed, but some people think that way).

I know that I cannot appeal to your sense of morality nor decency to get you to abandon racism and stop following innocent people around your retail store, so I guess an appeal to self interest is all that's left. Glaring at innocent African-American customers might make you feel more superior, but it's really stupid, particularly since most of you are very obvious about what you are doing.

- - - Updated - - -

Oops, that should be "unintended" not "unintentional" in the subject, but sadly I can't edit the thread title. :(
Click to expand...

I would have thought they would have wised up. I've seen the same thing the other way around, though:

Most of Africa: The exchange rate was set by the government far from reality. As always happens in such situations there was a black market in currency exchange. In most of the world a tourist is advised to stay far away from such things. However, the governments were so racist that they would not hire a non-black, period.

Thus the standard procedure was that you dealt only with a non-black and only in their established place of business. The former ensured you weren't dealing with the police, the latter ensured no ripoffs because a bad reputation would cost them far more than they could get from ripping one person off. Basically 100% safety.
 
Underseer said:
There might be people who work in retail who post here, maybe a shopkeeper, I dunno. *shrug*
Click to expand...


Having worked in supermarkets for over 15 years, I know it's all shapes and sizes. The worst one I caught was in 2006 when the person was a New Zealand diplomatic official. But I've never targeted the ethnicity of a child; I just think they are all little shits until proven otherwise.
 
My wife worked in a local JC Penney for a while. They had a little old white lady that came in shopping in the clothes department quite often. My wife caught her swapping price labels on the last batch of clothes she bought because my wife had just applied the proper labels to the clothing 15 minutes before hand.
 
There is nothing--in principle--wrong with racial profiling of course. It's not "racism" to use racial profiling.

Just as, if you are looking at street robbery, you will not be focusing on old women, but probably young-ish men. That's not "sexist" or "ageist" behaviour to do such a thing, assuming that these factors are actually highly relevant. If in a particular area, you actually had a problem with young women (or old women) carrying out the crime, of course you would need to adjust your profiling accordingly.

You also shouldn't--obviously--profile in ways that become a practical disadvantage.

But there is nothing wrong with racial profiling, assuming it works. And I can't see why it wouldn't be useful in some situations.

You may make a section of the community angry?-- well stop trying to equate intelligent use of racial profiling with "racism" and instead justify its use. Then people will understand it and shouldn't be bothered by it yes?
 
Vork said:
There is nothing--in principle--wrong with racial profiling of course. It's not "racism" to use racial profiling.

Just as, if you are looking at street robbery, you will not be focusing on old women, but probably young-ish men. That's not "sexist" or "ageist" behaviour to do such a thing, assuming that these factors are actually highly relevant. If in a particular area, you actually had a problem with young women (or old women) carrying out the crime, of course you would need to adjust your profiling accordingly.

You also shouldn't--obviously--profile in ways that become a practical disadvantage.

But there is nothing wrong with racial profiling, assuming it works. And I can't see why it wouldn't be useful in some situations.

You may make a section of the community angry?-- well stop trying to equate intelligent use of racial profiling with "racism" and instead justify its use. Then people will understand it and shouldn't be bothered by it yes?
Click to expand...

No.
 
Vork said:
There is nothing--in principle--wrong with racial profiling of course. It's not "racism" to use racial profiling.

Just as, if you are looking at street robbery, you will not be focusing on old women, but probably young-ish men. That's not "sexist" or "ageist" behaviour to do such a thing, assuming that these factors are actually highly relevant. If in a particular area, you actually had a problem with young women (or old women) carrying out the crime, of course you would need to adjust your profiling accordingly.

You also shouldn't--obviously--profile in ways that become a practical disadvantage.

But there is nothing wrong with racial profiling, assuming it works. And I can't see why it wouldn't be useful in some situations.

You may make a section of the community angry?-- well stop trying to equate intelligent use of racial profiling with "racism" and instead justify its use. Then people will understand it and shouldn't be bothered by it yes?
Click to expand...

There's a difference between focusing your law enforcement efforts on those most likely to have done the wrong and taking negative action against the whole population because they have a higher percentage of wrongdoers.

Yes, you look at young, poor men (especially druggies) when there's a rash of street robbery. You don't assume a young, poor man is a robber, though.
 
Is anyone taking "negative action" against a whole population? What exactly does that involve? Do you mean that the police are carrying out a collective punishment and randomly beating blacks?? Or maybe pulling over more black drivers? When it comes to pulling over more black drivers, it should depend on whether it delivers real-world results.

And yes, you shouldn't assume someone is guilty. But racial profiling obviously involves assuming certain people are more likely to be involved in crime.

Note that not every time you make assumptions about e.g. a black person will even count as "racial profiling". Racial profiling is not the same as just assuming, without evidence, that black folks will be more inclined to crime X. You need some sort of reasonable evidence, or it's hardly "racial profiling" in the first place. (Or to avoid semantic arguments, even if both should be called "racial profiling" they are quite different.) We can imagine cases based on no evidence, but just blatant prejudice. That is quite different to racial profiling based on statistical evidence of crime offenders. And maybe somewhere in the middle is practical experience of dealing with crime, criminals, on a daily basis. If it's your genuine experience that you need to be more careful around many black people when searching them, arresting them, because they do turn violent more often, are you just supposed to ignore that to treat everyone equally?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom