Customer Service and Profiling

[Jimmie Higgins]

Does anyone know of any sources or articles discussing "shopping while black" and other profiling by retail or services, but from the perspective of customer service workers?

I am constantly asked in a de-facto way to essentially profile people - actually mostly by customers. There are a lot of homless people in the area and I will also be asked to call the police because a disturbed person is yelling... not inside, not in front, but somewhere on a nearby street (I work at night, so someone yelling could be heard for several blocks potentially).

Generally I just side-step the issue and tell people that the police will not show up unless it's an emergency or that I can not call if it's not our property, etc. Tonight someone challenged me on it and asked why I didn't think it was a good idea. I just said the request made me feel uncomfortable. The guy who asked was young and I also couldn't believe that someone would consider calling armed men (who belong to an institution that just got away will murdering a homeless man for yelling in this very state) is an appropriate response to someone being disturbed and disturbing your sleep. I'm also a block away from a university and every thursday friday and saturday night, college students are drunkenly running up and down the block - yelling. They've drunkenly vandalized cars in the parking lot and even wrenched a gate off its hinges; they've knocked over garbage cans and so on. People call to complain.... but they don't ask for the cops to be called when it's drunk college students!!! But one drunk (or disturbed) homeless man and it's a different story.

[Marshal of the People]

Sorry, I couldn't find any resources to do with customer service.

I think race profiling is racist and also illogical. Black people are no more likely to steal than people of other backgrounds and generally older people are more likely to shoplift than younger people yet it is younger people who are targeted, the same can be said for women who are targeted more than males when males are more likely to shoplift. Oprah Winfery was even racially profiled when in Switzerland. The police racially profile all the time in America, in fact heaps of people from heaps of professions do it and I find it bad. It should be made illegal because not only is it racist and harmful it is silly and illogical as well.

[RedWaves]

It's a form of class warfare if you really want to get down to the bottom of it.