On the sales floor at the Madison Avenue flagship store of Barneys New York, salespeople would joke about customers who, in their view, didn’t belong.
Often, those jokes would be aimed at the black customers, a former sales associate at the store told The Huffington Post.
The former employee, who spoke on condition she not be named for fear of jeopardizing her career in the industry, said she heard sales staff and security repeatedly rip on black shoppers: “Their card is probably not going to go through,” they’d say. “I don’t know why they come in here and want to try stuff on that they know they’re not going to buy.”
“If a black person comes in with a sweatshirt or sneakers, some of the white sales associates would be on the floor saying: ‘Why are they even here? They’re probably going to scam,'” said the former associate, who is black and worked at the store in 2012 and 2013. “They would say this stuff in front of me. Sometimes I would just walk away, and sometimes I would say, ‘You never know.'”
The luxury department store chain counts on its reputation of elitism and exclusivity to attract rich shoppers willing to shell out big bucks for a $1,595 Givenchy sweatshirtor a $4,495 Andrea Campagna suit. But that same highbrow culture has fostered racial profiling at Barneys, company insiders and industry experts say.
Barneys insiders told HuffPost they’ve seen profiling by salespeople and security guards. One current veteran employee at the Madison Avenue store — who asked for anonymity because workers were given “strict warning” they could lose their jobs for speaking to the media — alleged that store security keeps a close eye on black shoppers who don’t look famous.
“If you’re black and come in with an entourage, you won’t be followed because they’ll be like ‘Oh, that’s somebody famous,’” the employee said. “But if you come in by yourself or with one other person, then you’re going to be followed.”
But even famous black shoppers aren’t completely safe. The former employee recalled one of the Barneys loss-prevention specialists, who are tasked with reducing store theft, reminiscing about the time he was working at Saks Fifth Avenue and stopped the rapper Lil’ Kim.
“He said, ‘Sometimes you think certain rappers have money, but just because they have money doesn’t mean they don’t shoplift,'” the former employee alleged the specialist said.
In recent weeks, Barneys has been accused in two cases of alleged racial discrimination that sparked widespread outrage. Trayon Christian, a 19-year-old college student, sued Barneys in Manhattan Supreme Court last month, after he was falsely accused of shoplifting a $359 Ferragamo belt he bought at the Madison Avenue store. After Christian’s story spread, 21-year-old nursing student Kayla Phillips alleged that she experienced racial profiling after she bought a $2,500 Céline bag at the same store.
Barneys has said that its employees were not involved in either incident, effectively shifting blame to the New York Police Department officers who stopped the customers. The company has apologized, and assured it will review its internal procedures to make sure such incidents don’t happen again. Michael Yaki, who serves on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, has been brought in to consult.
When contacted by HuffPost, a Barneys spokeswoman pointed to a statement the company’s chief executive, Mark Lee, made after a meeting with Rev. Al Sharptonand black community leaders in response to alleged profiling: “We take this issue very seriously, and if any employees were to deviate from our policies we would terminate those individuals immediately,” Lee said.
But the situation at Barneys isn’t unique, nor is it limited to upscale department stores. In the past decade, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, Dillards and Kohl’s have each been sued for alleged racial profiling. In 2000, thousands protested against Lord & Taylor after its security guards were accused of strangling a black man to death in a confrontation over alleged shoplifting.
Less than two weeks ago, actor Robert Brown, star of the HBO show “Treme,” sued Macy’s for alleged racial discrimination regarding a June incident at the retailer’s flagship store at Herald Square in New York City.
In response to the discrimination complaints, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has begun an investigation of Barneys and Macy’s practices, demanding the companies turn over information about any policies on detaining and questioning customers based on race, according to letters obtained by The New York Daily News.
“The alleged repeated behavior of your employees raises troubling questions about your company’s commitment” to the ideal of equal protection under the law, Schneiderman’s office told both companies in the letters.
Black Americans have long dealt with the problem of “shopping while black” — a humiliating experience typified by suspicious looks from security guards, rude salespeople and bad service. In a 2007 Gallup survey, 28 percent of black people polled said they had been singled out due to their race while shopping in the previous 30 days.
But at a luxury retailer like Barneys, elitism and brand culture may be particularly potent catalysts for racial discrimination.
