Remember Trayon Christian, the 19-year old engineering student who was handcuffed and arrested by the NYPD after he bought a $349 Salvatore Ferragamo belt at Barneys New York? And Kayla Phillips, who bought a $2300 orange suede Céline bag from Barneys with her debit card — only to be accused of credit card fraud by cops just blocks away from the upscale store? Or “Treme” actor Rob Brown, who is now suing Macy’s and the NYPD after being handcuffed for “shopping while Black”?
October’s racial profiling stories that turned into a series of “shopping while Black” exposés highlighted the ugly racism that still runs rampant in New York City. Two NYC-based retailers, Barneys and Macy’s, were at the center of the storm. Shortly after the news that African-Americans were seemingly often accused of credit card fraud by New York City police, including repeated accusations of “how did you afford to buy that?”, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman began an investigation.
Schneiderman demanded statistics on how many customers — detailed by race and national origin — the stores had detained, what their policies for detaining customers are, what contracts or relationships they have with external security firms — including the NYPD — and what anti-discrimination policies are currently in effect.
In what appears to be a separate investigation by the NYC Human Rights Commission, Barneys apparently has complied, but Macy’s, and higher-end Bloomingdale’s, owned by Macy’s, have not, according to Women’s Wear Daily. WWD adds that the NYC Human Rights Commission is investigating 17 retailers in total.
The New York City Commission on Human Rights has issued a subpoena to Macy’s Law Department, ordering them to provide the commission with documents by Dec. 10 for all Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s locations in New York City, regarding information that pertains to their policies on loss prevention and approaching and detaining individuals suspected of theft.
Patricia L. Gatling, NYC Human Rights Commissioner, said Monday, “It is disappointing that they have not fully cooperated in the commission’s investigation into recent allegations of racial profiling at some of the city’s larger retail stores and instead sought to dictate the terms and scope of our investigation. The commission will be issuing subpoenas to other stores that have been unresponsive, including Old Navy and Banana Republic.”
Of course, it’s still unclear in the NYPD was acting alone, or in conjunction with the retailers, or if the retailers were the ones who contacted police.
But between NYC’s “shopping while Black,” and “stop and frisk” attacks, and recent reports like the three Black Rochester, NY high school basketball stars arrested for waiting on the sidewalk for their school bus, it feels like the entire state has jumped into the 1950s.
