#dining while black

By Holly Edgell | Editor, Sharing America 

Implicit bias is everywhere. We as human beings cannot completely shed it, no matter how woke we strive to become.

From the conversations about implicit bias in the news media, corporate offices, police departments and pretty much everywhere, we know that there are things we can do to check our biases, heighten awareness about our blind spots, and adjust our behavior accordingly.

And yet. And yet. We continue to see incident after incident play out in public spaces. (When one thinks about the incidents in private spaces, it boggles the mind). Some incidents are diffused on the spot. Some escalate into violence.

Things can go fatally wrong. You’ll recall how a Thanksgiving holiday outing at an Alabama mall ended in the death of a black man named Emantic “EJ” Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. Police believed he had fired shots after an altercation, so they shot him. Turns out, the 21-year-old was not the man who had discharged his weapon, injuring two. That was a different black man.

Not all racial profiling incidents prove fatal, but taken as a whole, they paint a disturbing picture. Spurred by the April Starbucks incident in Philadelphia and an incident at a St. Louis area Nordstrom Rack not long after, we decided to start tracking incidents involving black customers and national and regional retail and restaurant chains.

Guess what? According to the 2018 report “Black Dollars Matter: The Sales Impact of Black Consumers” from Nielsen, black consumers account for more some $1.2 trillion in purchases each year.

To be included in this project one or more of the following must be true of an incident: police and/or security were involved; the incident was captured on video and shared via social media or a news organization; the company took action as a response (e.g. firing an employee, admitting fault, closing the store).

Here are a few details of note:

We found more than 30 cases in more than 20 states

There were more retail cases than dining or fast food

Walgreens and IHOP both appear twice for incidents at different locations

California, Oregon and Missouri were the site of more incidents than other states

As we came across incidents we added them to this map to get a better sense of the geographic distribution of these cases. No particular patterns emerged in terms of where incidents occurred, but--as you’ll see--the incidents themselves seems to unfold in a similar sequence of events.

If you are interested in our news coverage related to racial profiling and implicit bias, here are some items:

What is ‘racial bias training’? As Starbucks breaks to learn, we ask an expert 

After Starbucks Fiasco, Hartford Coffeehouse Gets Its Own Anti-Bias Training

Nordstrom Rack incident leaves St. Louis teen skeptical about racial bias training

Ferguson Starbucks manager calls company-wide anti-bias training ‘thought provoking’

Clayton, Missouri officials meet with Wash U students, say city will conduct racial sensitivity training

Good Service Is A Coin Toss For Those 'Dining While Black'