I m glad I ain't the only one who noticed this card the most out of all postcards yesterday on that website.

sigh.

This also demonstrates the other flip side of racial profiling, which is how it harms the profiler thru being inaccurate. Someone who was not blinded by prejudice would not have white women walking out with their stuff so easily.

Interesting. When I worked in a suburban clothing store for a few months as a teenager in the late 1980s, the owners told me to stay on middle-aged white women like white on rice because they were the most likely to steal.

I have never had a speeding ticket. I can blast by the hiway patrol 25 miles over the speed limit, and they have NEVER pulled me over. I'm female, white, middle aged, and I drive a green minivan.

My mother and I once speculated that we could pull off the greatest crimes of all time, and, like Lizzie Borden, we'd get off.

Nice. White women can use this power to redistribute wealth and bring big corporations to their knees! Mwahahahaha!

I think it's interesting she uses the word invisible. Does she shoplift because she's unhappy she feels invisible and wants attention? Or is she recognizing her privilege and how messed up it is? It's impossible to understand all the nuances of what she meant, or how she really feels. But it says so much anyway.

Minorities are often described as invisible because they are not represented in media and other institutions. White is described as invisible because it is the default and so pervasive in media and other institutions.

Story time: A local drugstore in my neighborhood had a problem with an older white woman who tried to shoplift. She had snuck something of little value (like face cream) into her purse before trying to leave the store. Well, she was caught and the police questioned her. She was fined and told she couldn't enter that drugstore for a year. Anyway, when this story broke out, the community RAGED about it and people gasped, "How could this drugstore hurt that poor old woman? She didn't mean it!" People actually boycotted the drugstore or showed up to yell at the poor cashiers. I remember telling my mom, "If the shoplifter had been a young black male, would people have given him the benefit of the doubt the way they did this older white woman?" People really went to bat for this old woman, but I think it had something to do with her age, race, and gender, rather than whether she stole or not.

I don't think this is true. Most women in the UK in jail are there for shoplifting. I think maybe "middle class" is missing from this.

A friend of mine in college noticed the same thing--where the story differs, however, is that this friend of mine was Korean, not white. We went to a school where approximately 65% of the population was Asian. She used to stroll into the bookstore and steal binders, paper, printer ink, you name it--she would walk in, pick it up, and walk out, without ever having to even try and conceal it. She did this all four years. She told me, once, "nobody ever suspects the sweet, little Asian girl. So I take advantage."

I have to confess, when I was a teenager, I had a bit of a shoplifting problem. I stole all sorts of things, and I got away with it, partially because I was a white girl, but more (I think), because I was the RIGHT KIND of white girl. Plenty of white teenagers would get caught because they didn't look right, but if I walked in with shopping bags like I knew what I was looking for and spoiled, I could waltz out without a problem. It's more than being an "unassuming white woman"-- there is a class aspect as well, I think.

At times I went with boys or friends of mine who were black or hispanic, but because we were (regardless of race) the right KINDS of girls (according to store managers or whomever), no one stopped us. Race was probably a part of it, but it's not just race, and I think assuming it is ignores socioeconomic issues and the way people are expected to look and act as well.

I am white, middle class, unassuming in the way that authority loves.

Then I died my hair blue and now I am always tested for explosives at airports and asked to have my bag checked.

A minor effect. But still interesting.

I'm think that elderly white middle class women with a minor physical disability would be excellent shoplifters. Or spys.

he said, "every week the local paper lists black people who were caught shoplifting at lord and taylor."
i said, "every kid i know who lives in this [87% white] town has shoplifted from lord and taylor."

and he finally got it. lord and taylor basically had -no- theft deterrents. no one in the dressing rooms, no anti-theft devices to explode ink if you jimmied them, no theft detectors at the door. racial profiling was the -only- way they had security, and they failed literally -every day- to see teenaged white girls walking out of the place, layered in stolen clothing.

of course, not one of those girls was trying to make a political statement. we were just exercising our privilege.

I’d like to relay my own experiences with retail security. For the last two summers, my friend Isak and I spent almost every day biking around Silverdale and Poulsbo. We’re both stereotypical WASPs, and we look the part too. Neither of us sport tattoos, “punk” hairdos, or any other type of fashion that carries negative connotations in our culture. My friend only wears designer jeans and expensive stripped shirts. According to the author’s logic we should have been free to do as we please without anyone batting an eye.
Almost every summer morning we’d leave my house early (or his), and bike for several hours, often returning back around six o’clock. We spent most of the stay browsing through various stores in the mall and around town. We frequently visited both Gamestop and F.Y.E. I didn’t have that much money, so I rarely ever bought anything. I’d look around for and hour or so in one store and then promptly leave. And like clockwork, every single time I’d enter, an employee would spot me and friend and begin to watch us. Often he’d follow us around the store, asking what we needed or why we were there. Sometimes, one of the workers would just walk around us, never making direct contact. Either that, or just walk in the middle of where we were and just stand there. It was easy to tell when this was going on, as there were only about three people maintaining the store at a time. We were not the only ones present; there were plenty of other cutomers browsing as well, many of them being minorities. And yet they were passed up for us.
Isak and I brought water bottles with us wherever we went, often carrying a back pack to do so. We were subject to frequent bag checks. An employee would ask for my backpack and then begin scanning it with some sort of anti-theft device. They were suspicious of our behavior (and rightly so), we would visit Gamestop almost every day and never buy anything. That is a well-known common behavior of shop lifters. My point is, contrary to what the author may believe, most store owners aren’t racist, they just look for certain behavior, regardless of outward appearances. One cannot just make a broad assumption about a group and then treat it as fact: that’s how stereotypes get started.

This form of racism is subtle and rather all-permeating at least in the US.
The black security guard at a store in an affluent area is going to be paying attention to black people, and if you look homeless enough, white people too. That's about class and race and an immediate reaction.

The arguments which seek to put that aside smack of a type of sophistry.