I’m sitting in the food court of Century City Mall, in front of a clear plastic container that held a cobb salad from Chick-fil-A before I scarfed it down like I hadn’t eaten in days.
As I’m clearing my mouth with saliva, since I never buy a drink, I think to myself, “what was the name of that store? Let me make sure I never shop there.”
Maybe I’m hyper aware from my years in the retail service industry, seeing the profiling of potential customers in front of my own eyes and hearing the slick (often discriminatory) remarks of my co-workers at the time.
It’s nothing new, and I even understand the position that employees can be in that causes them to misjudge, but it pisses me off nonetheless when it’s done to me.
A mall isn’t a place I’ve been found in regularly when I’m not on the clock, about to be on the clock, or recently have gotten off the clock. Mainly because, as I said, I’ve worked in retail and would do majority of my shopping at whichever job.
Maybe when I’m out-of-town, the mall can be an activity, if that’s what other people want to do, or if there’s some sort of attraction there it’s recommended I see. (For example, when I went to Minneapolis to visit my corporate, influencer on the side, girlfriend Bria, and she took me to the Mall of America with an amusement park and all sorts of installations on the inside.)
When I come to the mall, I come with a purpose, and being racially profiled by white employees is nowhere in the plan.
Today’s purpose was to visit LA’s Dyson store location for my very first blow dryer! Yes, I’m a grown woman and I’d never owned a blow dryer in my life. A part of this twenty-fine year, as I’m calling it, is being muhfuggin’ FINE! And by fine, I mean both physically, and the metaphorically finer things in life. I don’t make it a habit to look like a complete bum, but there have been runs of days where I could’ve looked better. I want to do better. I want to look better. I want to be better.
Keeping your hair done is a great starting point to always looking polished.
There have been way too many days in the past couple of months (or maybe even years) that I’ve thrown on a turban, hat, or headpiece to go to an event gig because my hair isn’t done, and being a natural with the amount and texture of hair I have, there’s no quick fix.
As I mentioned in the post about getting clothes custom tailored for a more expensive look, even if you weren’t raised that way, you can start now.
I adore the way one of my girlfriends from Louisiana, Gabrielle, was raised by her mother. When we began hanging out regularly from working together at Dillard's in the Mall of Louisiana, I noticed how she always came to work with makeup on and her hair done. I wasn’t a slob, but I for sure wasn’t wearing makeup unless I knew I had plans after work, and even then I still might not. Was Gabrielle at work trying to catch something in the women’s clothing department? Most likely not. It was a habit that was built into her. I complimented her on it and she told me, “oh girl, my mother would die if I tried to leave the house without at least mascara and a lip.” It was the way she was raised. That’s a blessing. (It’s a blessing daughters don’t even realize, or easily take for granted, because they’ve always had it.)
I didn’t have that, there was no cute mother-daughter relationship where she teaches you how to be woman, in the little ways.. the reminders to moisturize your skin nightly, have your fragrances, do your hair, put on a little makeup, and so forth, until it becomes a part of you, and you no longer need the reminders.
My womanhood is in my hands now, and I’m taking it more seriously.
It’s unlikely that anyone that’s met me in my adult life would find me severely deficient of femininity. I appreciate when people compliment me on the way I carry myself, or how polished I am, but they don’t know that I had to fight to become this girl.. and I still work at it everyday.
Okay, they're turning off the lights in the food court, and my girl is about to get off work and I wanted to catch her before she leaves.
I got a little side-tracked, but the point I was making is that I came to the mall to buy my very first blow dryer, an investment in my ongoing femininity journey, and I was giddy about it! I mean, geeked!
I’m all excited, in a good mood, feeling blessed that I can do this, make this investment, and glad I was allowing myself to splurge on myself in this way. And then, BOOM!
Some raggedy, blonde-haired bimbo calls out, shuffling her feet with a quickness to follow behind me, announcing to the entire corridor, “HEY!! DID YOU BUY SOMETHING?!”
Mind you, I was carrying the huge white shopping bag with the 500-dollar blow dryer I just bought a couple doors down. I’d only popped into this clothing store because my old co-worker, that I was accompanying on a walk around the mall on her break, wanted to pop in. She pointed out some items that were cute and I felt the material, agreeing that it was nice, and we debated over whether this placed was appropriately priced in comparison to Zara. My perspective was it’s not much more expensive than Zara, and for the quality, especially against the crappy threads from Insta-boutiques for the same price, it seemed reasonable.
That was it. She was really only pointing out the store to me, by way of making a half circle thru it. Neither of us even picked up a single item off of a rack. Other than feeling the fabric of a top on the first display table when we walked in, I barely touched anything.
Also, when we entered the store, as someone may have been exiting, the sensory detectors went off. We paused at the door, as you do by instinct, looked around for a split second, then towards the perceived employees/security (whoever would be looking towards alarms going off), as to say, “hey, you see your alarms went off for no reason when we walked in, right?”
We were in the store for all of 3 minutes, if that. I’m really being generous. We basically walked in one door and right out of the other.
When the buzzers went off again as we exited, we both paused and politely glanced back, as to let them know, “it’s just us. your sensors are still malfunctioning,” and were about to continue our stroll as I notice the first white girl scurrying quickly in our direction. This is when she looked directly at me, asking in an elevated volume if I’d bought something. She repeated the question more than once, I suppose because I was just looking at her wondering if she’s dumb.
WTF do you mean did I buy something when you’re obviously the sales girl and you didn’t see me walk anywhere near a register?! You KNOW I didn’t buy anything out of this damn store during this 30-second walk through, but I guess yelling out blatant accusations of theft isn’t listed in the company’s best practices.
She was inching her way closer to me, and I could tell she wanted to search my bag; and I was standing still hoping she would so I could sue TF out of them. Let me go research and see if it’s true that you can have a good case if you’re accused of stealing when you aren't and the search caused defamation, emotional stress, or embarrassment. If it is, I can see why! I wasn’t even physically searched and this encounter was emotionally taxing.
It seems the initial white girl that subliminally accused me of stealing was buying time for the other white girl to come flying out of their storefront door and into the mall’s open-air breezeway. As soon as the second white girl approached, her face went from an aggressive, “Ugh! I’m going to get her!” to a pleasantly surprised smile. She hit the corner where her view of me was no longer obstructed, looked down at my bag, and her entire demeanor changed as she said, “OH! You bought a Dyson?!” She seemed both caught off guard and impressed.
The initial white girl that tried to put me on blast had a change of disposition as well, saying, “oh, I was only asking if you bought something from here because we could’ve forgotten to take the sensor off.” Now you’ve seen the Dyson bag… Now you're friendly? Now you’re pleasant? Now you want to take care of me?
The white store employee that noticed the Dyson bag first went on to say, “yeah, they always do that with a Dyson. You’re good. Yeah, For some reason, Dyson products make our sensors go off.. you are totally great!” She repeated the same thing twice with a now friendly (or nervous) smile.
Getting followed out of Aritzia by 2 employees falsely accusing me of stealing (with NO reason) is why I won’t be shopping there.
I mentioned earlier that I can understand when an employee is in a position to believe someone is stealing and they have the responsibility of handling the situation in some sort of way.
Nowhere in the situation I explained did Aritzia employees have reason to believe I was stealing. One, thinking back on our quick pass thru Aritzia, I realize that the same body that followed us out had been on our bumper from right after entry thru our exit. You watched us the whole time, the very short time, and we picked nothing up. Do you think we’re magicians?!
I’m closing my eyes and shaking my head as I think about this situation. Well, on a positive note, at least venting about this disgusting situation at Aritzia gave me an easy blog post topic. Thoughts surely do seem to flow when I’m ticked off.
The situation is minor in the grand scheme of racial profiling. As we all sadly know, our brothers and sisters are still killed in the 21st century for breathing while Black. I’m thankful I was only followed out of a store, not followed down a street and hunted like a wild animal.
[Sigh] I’m disgusted, y’all, I’m really disgusted. And what made it worse is that I was feeling so good, in my moment of elevation, investing in luxury for my ongoing luxury lifestyle. You know, feeling myself with my big girl purchase. I’m doing something I couldn’t do before. Ayeeeee! I’m gliding. And then, plop! The man sticks out his foot to remind you, (to them) you’re still just a n****.
Bye. I’m over it.
I usually tend to finish my blog posts with a pretty little bow, but that’s all I’ve got for you all tonight. Maybe I’ll give you a fairy tail ending during tomorrow’s blog post.
I’ve long made it home, and it’s approaching midnight.
