As Americans, we enjoy certain rights and privileges which are inherent in our citizenship. Or at least we should. As Black people, our rights are sometimes violated and, many times, we allow this violation simply because we don’t know any better.
Do You Know Your Rights?
This is a serious question I’d really like you to weigh in on. I ask because of a recent incident which occurred at Target where an innocent Black woman claims she was handcuffed, taken to a back room and forced to strip in front of that store’s loss prevention officers in order to prove she did not steal a bikini. This is a familiar scenario we’ve all heard of before and some of us have even had similar experiences. When these stories make the news, they’re a big deal for a few days before the buzz dies down. Months later, a similar story makes the news, buzzes for a few days and the cycle continues.
For example, immediately upon hearing this woman’s story, I thought of the young Black man in Iowa who while shopping in an Old Navy store was accused of stealing an Old Navy jacket he’d received as a gift and worn into the store on that day. Complying with the demands of those employees, he took the jacket off and allowed them to (pretend to) scan it in order to determine his ownership.
Neither of these people or any of the many others who’ve been in similar situations have to comply with these employees wishes and are free to leave the store whenever they choose. Why do they stay and endure this? Well, I suspect two reasons. First, the threat of a call to the police. Understandably this unsettles most people… or at least most Black people. Our interactions with police, even when we are completely innocent, always come with a potential for escalation which can result in our imprisonment or bodily harm and sometimes both. In more extreme interactions, they can even result in death. We tend to want to avoid the police whenever possible, even when we are 100% innocent.
The second reason is that we just don’t know what our options are when in these situations. We don’t know our rights and who has the authority to make us do what when we’re accused of a crime. Let’s use the Black woman handcuffed at Target as an example. Please know that she didn’t have to strip to prove a damn thing to Target’s employees! I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty certain that handcuffing her was an act of false imprisonment and requiring her to lift her shirt and pull her pants down was nothing short of a violation of her privacy. This loss prevention officer was not a law enforcement officer (i.e. cop), he was a fellow civilian. She had not broken the law in any way. When he told her he was going to call the police, she should have let him. I probably would’ve called them myself if I’d been in that situation.
Same for the young man asked to prove his jacket wasn’t stolen from Old Navy. He didn’t have to prove anything to those employees. As a customer who’d done nothing wrong, he didn’t even have to entertain their conversation.
Understandably, people set out to prove themselves innocent to store employees in lieu of getting the police involved and escalating a situation. I’m of the opinion, however, that this is the wrong approach. Don’t let people threaten you with a call to the police if you know you are innocent. You have the right to walk right out of a store and carry on with your day when you have not shoplifted. Stop stripping or taking items of clothing off and allowing these people to investigate non-crimes!
If or when the police are called because you won’t comply, deal with that. Tell your truth and stand firm on it. If the police require a search, you may have to comply (or may not depending on the circumstance, but I’d do it anyway and file a grievance later if the search was unlawful), but once your innocence has been established, that’s one more thing to add to your complaint (or lawsuit) against a business who harassed you with a call to the police in the first place. Just, please stop letting employees punk you into submission on their words, alone!
The Last Time I Was Threatened With a Call to Police…
Heck, I was in the wrong a few months ago and when a White man threatened to call the police on me, I encouraged him to do so and carried on about my business.
So, here’s what happened. Earlier that day, I’d used my son’s car and dropped him off at work. Unfortunately, I’d also mysteriously changed a setting on my phone I didn’t even know existed, which wiped out all of my service. I couldn’t text, call, email– nothing! I couldn’t figure the issue out and had been too busy all day running around to Google it or call my provider for a fix. So, that evening when I went to return his car at his job and wait for my husband to pick me up from there, I had no way to contact either of them and that’s when the fun started.
I arrived at we’d agreed for me to return his car. My husband was also running late picking me up and so he wasn’t there when I arrived. It was dark out, parking was scarce and I wasn’t too familiar with the area, so I idled out front where he’d immediately see me when he came out. A White female security guard approached me and asked me what I was doing and I told her. I also told her my phone wasn’t working and so I had no way to call my son who wouldn’t know where I was if I moved to a parking lot situated across the street and a little ways down. She told me she understood, but I couldn’t idle there and had to move along. I told her okay, she walked away and I idled a few more minutes before inching a few feet closer to the closed/locked gate leading to his location.
I should add that this is a very exclusive (i.e. all White) and wealthy area in California where there are two upscale venues right on top of each other. At that time, my son managed one of the venues, which was closed for the evening already (that’s why the gate was closed and locked) and this woman was security for the second venue who’d had an event that had just ended. Most of the people had already left, no one new was coming in and there were only a few stragglers trickling out. In other words, I wasn’t in anyone’s way whether I was idling at their entrance where there was still light or in front of my son’s darkened venue a few feet away.
Anyway, as I’m sitting in front of the gate, still idling, an irate White man walks up, taps my window and questions what I’m doing. I tell him and he tells me I was already told that I can’t park there. I tell him I’m not parked, I’m idling (smart mouth, I know, lol). He tells me I have to get off of the property and I thank him for the information before beginning to roll my window up with zero intentions of moving. Remember, if I move, neither my son nor my husband will know where I am since I can’t call them, plus it’s dark out and I feel safer there as a woman by myself. Even though there are stragglers still leaving the other venue, it’s still kinda deserted. Technically, where I was parked at that time is a shared space that provides passage between both venues.
This old man starts yelling at me that I have to move or he is going to call the police and I encourage him to do so as I roll my window up. At that moment, my husband pulled up so the situation didn’t go any further although I was prepared to go the distance if it did. Even though I was illegally parked and, therefore, in the wrong, I don’t take kindly to White people threatening me with the police when I know it’s not that serious. Yes, contact with law enforcement is always risky for Black folk, but so is being a woman alone in the dark with no cell service and no one knowing where I was if I’d moved. We can’t be that afraid of the police to the point we let people order us around and end up doing things that just don’t make good common sense and work against our best interest.
When my son found out what’d happened outside, he was pissed. For one, we all know if I were a White woman alone, one of the two employees who approached me would’ve offered to call my son for me. Or they would’ve let me wait there where I was safe, especially since I wasn’t blocking traffic or in anyone’s way. He was also pissed because even after I told the angry man that my son was the manager at the other venue, his words to me were, “I don’t care who your son is, you’re going to move”. Again, these are separate venues with separate owners, but being that they’re so close together, they often collaborate on events and, as a professional courtesy, my son felt like an issue shouldn’t have been made over something so minor especially with his mother!
Don’t Get Punked
Right or wrong, it’s up to you whether you allow yourself to be bullied by employees whose only real power involves a call to the police. My suggestion if you know you’re right, though, is to stop letting them punk you. When you aren’t stealing and have done nothing wrong, you have a right to refuse a search by another civilian; you have the right to tell other civilian employees to get their hands off of you; you do not have to allow yourself to be handcuffed by store employees when you haven’t shoplifted. And you definitely don’t have to strip or expose your body to them! I get that no one wants contact with police in this climate, but we can’t allow people– especially police-happy White people– to capitalize on our fears and threaten us into submission.
Why Bring Race Into It?
And for those of you who will wonder why I keep mentioning White people calling the police, it’s because some of them are all too happy to do so. Right now, stories like Barbecue Becky and Starbucking While Black are viral stories. Truth is, though, that calling the police on Black people is an age-old tradition for some White people. Those who feel we must submit to their every order call for backup whenever we refuse. The only time they don’t call for backup is when we give into their whims and do as they command. This usually only happens after they threaten us with a call, though.
When some White people make the case that their ancestors never owned an enslaved person, most are telling the truth. What they’re not saying, though, is that many who didn’t own plantations worked as overseers or sought to make a living capturing runaways. Even after slavery was abolished, they kept Black people in line by calling the police for any reason under the sun, which, under the 13th Amendment often lead to the re-enslavement of Black people through peonage! So there’s a long history of White people terrorizing Black people just by threat of calling the police and that is what we have to stop falling victim to. Take your chances with police, but do not let these White folks do you!
Yes, occasionally, Black people and other folks will try you, too. Regardless, if you know you are innocent, let them make the call and take your chances with the police rather than let yourself be bullied by people with false authority and false accusations. Besides, not all police are as dumb (or racist) as some of the people who call them, so having them on the scene can actually work in your favor. Look what happened when a White neighbor called the police on a Black man inspecting a property he was considering purchasing:
The Stage is Yours
Tell me about a time when you or someone you know was harassed by an employee when you’d done nothing wrong. Was it racially motivated? How did you respond? What goes through your mind when people threaten to call the police on you for little to no reason? You can comment here or on social media, just remember to tag me @lalalivesonline when you do!
But Before You Go…
Enjoy this story and video about a lawyer moonlighting as an Uber driver who was outright lied to about his rights by a police officer. Trained in the law, he knew differently and got the last laugh. This is what knowing your rights will do for you!
