A young man in Alabama documents a shopping experience in a convenience store. According to the YouTube video description, the shop's security guard had been following him for five minutes before he started filming. Cordney Murphy, the shopper in the video, responds to this treatment by having some harmless fun with security.
Murphy's tongue-in-cheek reaction to this blatant display of racial profiling is amusing—he purposefully takes his time when wandering through the aisles looking for snacks, even going back and forth between different sections just to see what will happen—but the subject matter of this video is still disheartening. It clearly demonstrates how prevalent racism is today, even in the most mundane of settings.
Suspicions of shoplifting based on race are not a new phenomenon, nor are they restricted to a specific geographical location; even high-profile retailers like Macy's and Barneys New York have faced lawsuits regarding racial discrimination after accusing customers of shoplifting solely because of the color of their skin. An article from DiversityInc. cites one heartbreaking instance wherein African American actor Robert Brown was stopped by police and held for questioning after buying a $1,000 Movado watch from Macy's in New York City as a gift for his mother. Not only was this detainment completely unfounded, but Brown missed his mother's college graduation because he was in custody. In an interview regarding this incident, Brown stated that “You can’t let injustice roll like that...I’ll never get that time back. My mother was walking across the stage looking for me.”
Watch what happens when Murphy traverses the snack aisles in the video below, and be sure to share your thoughts with us in the comments section. Has this ever happened to you or to someone you know?
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