'Shopping while black' lawsuit – a first by employees – targets CVS

[Jazzy]

It’s an experience that even Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, and President Obama have each said they experienced: "shopping while black."

Whether wealthy or less than well off, many black Americans and other racial minorities continue to give accounts of being treated as potential criminals, shoppers without the means to afford expensive items, or even “shop and frisked” – a pun that denotes being detained and questioned after paying for items or simply leaving a store.

On Wednesday, four former security personnel at CVS Pharmacy stores in New York filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan, alleging that their loss-prevention supervisors regularly instructed them to tail black and Latino shoppers in particular. The supervisors, the suit claims, told them that “black people always are the ones that are the thieves,” and that “lots of Hispanic people steal.”

The lawsuit renews attention to an issue that reached a high point last August when two high-profile retailers in New York, Macy’s and the luxury retailer Barneys, each paid more than a half-million dollars to settle racial profiling claims after investigations by the state’s Civil Rights Bureau.

“While there have been many high-profile shop-and-frisk cases filed by customers of large retailers in recent years,” David Gottlieb, attorney for the plaintiffs, told The New York Times. “this is the first time a group of employees has banded together to provide an inside account and expose the blatant racial profiling policy at one of the largest retailers in the world.”

In a statement, CVS said it “rigorously enforces” its nondiscrimination policies, adding it was “shocked” by the allegations in the lawsuit and would “defend against them vigorously.”

Thoughts about this lawsuit?

 

[DrLeftover]

Even if they have zero proof, no evidence, and no outside testimony, it WILL cost CVS millions in legal fees, there will be a boycott by The Community, and they'll all end up on the TV talk shows and get a bit of pocket change from it.

And then, another group will file against Toys R Us or somebody.