Imagine going into a store where a sign is clearly posted “ID required for all transactions” and you were the only person singled out to show your ID when others were not.
If you were a black person, and a civil rights lawyer and the chief counsel to the National Action Network, and that happened to you, it would no doubt trigger some sense that profiling had just taken place. This is one such story, and it happened to Michael Hardy General Counsel for Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. But it could very well be a series of unfortunate circumstances.
Sartorially dressed in a black fedora hat, a black overcoat and his natty Friday casual, Michael Hardy walked in to a Manhattan liquor store near Columbus Circle on Friday to buy two bottles of Port wine. Hardy told theGrio that the person in front of him paid by charge card but when it came to him, he was required to show ID. The person in front of Mr. Hardy was a white man. Hardy said he felt this was a bit unusual and asked why he was to produce ID when the person in front of him was not required to do so. He was told by the clerk that the other customer was a regular and known to him. The clerk himself is black.
Hardy took exception, telling the employee that he had no problem showing ID if it was required of every customer, without exception. “The issue is not that you know a customer,” said Hardy, “but what is required of all customers.” Hardy said, “By not enforcing policies regardless of familiarity makes customers feel offended.” Hardy told theGrio that he had spent the past several months assisting with National Action Network and a consortium of retailers to compose a “Customers’ Bill of Rights.” This was in response to charges of racial profiling being lodged at Barney’s, Macy’s and a number of other high-profile fashion and apparel retailers.
This past November, executives from the high-end stores in Manhattan agreed to sit on a panel formed by retailers and civil rights leaders after the Rev. Al Sharpton called for action in the wake of complaints that black shoppers were being profiled. The goal of the working group is clarify store policies and establish monitors to watch for racial profiling and make recommendations for training. The problems surfaced in October when two black shoppers accused Barneys and the NYPD of racially profiling them as they shopped at the upscale store. Two other black shoppers have made similar allegations against Macy’s.
In early December Macy’s and Barneys, along with Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor and the Gap among others, promised to post and abide by a “Customers’ Bill of Rights.” The one-page document, drafted by the Retail Council of New York State, declares: “Profiling is an unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated.” It says each store in question “is committed to ensuring that all shoppers, guests and employees are treated with respect and dignity and are free from unreasonable searches, profiling and discrimination of any kind.” There is a training and awareness component asking retailers to put in place “internal programs to test compliance with strict prohibitions against profiling practices.” And to encourage enforcement, the pact requires employees who violate the company’s prohibition on profiling to be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
So being involved in the creation of these agreements in the wake of high-profile civil rights complaints, Hardy was not satisfied that “familiarity” was a good enough reason to selectively enforce a posted customer requirement. He told theGrio, “I was not asking for special treatment, just equal enforcement of their own policies.” He went on to say, “The issue was not making me show ID, but I should be required to show ID under the same conditions, the same circumstances at the same time as everyone else.” Hardy told theGrio that the clerk’s actions made him feel “small” and that selective enforcement of store policies is at the root of racial profiling. He says he was going to recommend that the store adhere to the “Customer’s Bill of Rights” as others have in New York City.
But here is where the story comes to a crossroad and the issue of selective enforcement and racial profiling becomes not so clear cut.
TheGrio interviewed the manager of the story, Derek Humphrey, who said that the clerk in question is a 22-year-old black man who would be an unlikely person to profile the 58-year-old attorney. “It definitely was not racially motivated,” said Humphrey. The sign advising customers that ID would be required is to discourage credit card fraud. ”We are a small business that caters to our regular customers. We know our regular customers on a first-name basis. If we suffer losses of $50 or $100, our business has to cover it and after a point, that could become a big expense.”
Humphrey told theGrio that few people have ever complained about having to show ID and of those who objected, says Humphrey, most are “Little old white ladies who would say they are obviously over drinking age.” But even they would hold no lingering resentment. Says Humphrey, “Once we tell them its all about credit card fraud and not their age, they appear to understand.”
Humphrey also took exception to Hardy’s assertion that because he was white, he could not understand what it was like to be profiled. Humphrey told theGrio that he grew up in Detroit, where he often found himself in the minority. He said having those experiences made him more sensitive to issues that would offend black people. Even more, said Humphrey, “I enlisted in the military following 9/11 and fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Not once was I ever accused of being racially insensitive.”
Regarding the young black man who is the clerk, Humphrey said when he read the story in the Daily News, he called the store asking if he had done something wrong. Humphrey said he and the owners reviewed the videotape of transactions and assured the young man that in their view, he had done nothing that constituted racial profiling, especially in cases when he knew the purchaser. The young man reportedly voiced concerns that if taken the wrong way, the stigma of this incident might follow him from job to job.
Humphrey confirmed that the owners of Columbus Circle Wines and Spirits received a FedEx package from the National Action Network with information regarding The Customers’ Bill of Rights. When asked if the business would display that information in the store, Humphrey said it is being reviewed by the store’s attorney.
Hardy told theGrio, “All I wanted to do was to buy two bottles of Port, not to exercise my knowledge as an expert in civil rights.” However he felt a problem with the store’s business practices that could lead to more people of color feeling as though they were profiled. But Humphrey has an entirely different take on the matter.
“It’s nothing more than maliciousness, choosing to attack a family-run small business. And now, I’m being painted with the scarlet letter of R (for racist). It certainly is unfair.”