To think it's because I'm black?

[notamumsymum]

Walked to co op this morning as OH has taken my car today. So me DD and DS went to pick up some fruit & veg for today.
I don't normally shop at co op I normally go to Asda or Tesco sometimes M&S.

Anyhow one of the staff in there followed me around the whole time then proceeded to wait for me at the door. I was so frustrated at this point I said I'm not stealing anything! She said well we have to be sure. Then I thought let me go back in and see if she is still waiting by the door and shock she was gone.

Aibu and just paranoid? Or am I allowed to be this angry!

I often get followed around shops because I'm always shabbily dressed in jeans, t-shirt and ancient hoody. I always feel like yelling "FFS shoplifters are better dressed than this because they don't have to pay for their clothes!"

Yes, I suspect it's because the OP is black.

Erm maybe it's because you had two children with you?
Not everyone's a racist

Im relly sorry @notamumsymum
This is appauling because she basically told you that on the basis of your looks, she thought it was likely you are a thief :(

For those who are saying 'of course its not', is it the same when a black MEP is told that he should be at the European Parliament on the first session??
I would also advice you to read that book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. You might learn some stuff about how life is actually quite different for a white person vs a black and that no, its not the same to be followed in a supermarket by a security guard as a white person.

OP YANBU. Sorry.

My experience is this. I am white and educated and have an accent that is regarded as being "posh". Despite being perpetually scruffy and poorly dressed I have rarely met with any suspicion and/or hostility at all in the UK. And if I ever do I only have to open my mouth and it goes away (I do a lot of bat work so am often encountered hanging around suspiciously at the dead of night). The experience of my equally white, educated and far better dressed but clearly foreign parents has been far more mixed. They are generally well treated right up to the point they open their mouths.

Anyone who thinks that skin colour and accent don't matter in the UK is kidding themselves.

Was it you with two kids following you, or did you have a pram for at least one of them? If you were pushing a buggy, that might have raised your risk profile (ease of hiding stolen goods).

I've caught security staff sizing me up before out of the corner of my eye, ignored it and carried on doing whatever I wanted to do and they've left me alone as it's become apparent I'm just a normal (if indecisive) shopper. I half wonder if when you clocked you were being watched, you became upset enough that you started to act more agitated and that's what kept the guard's interest - your reaction rather than your skin colour.

It could be that your local shop has had shoplifting issues with 'respectable' looking people - anyone can fall hard with sudden job loss. I've noticed in some shops before that things like meat are tagged. These can't be things that people are taking for a laugh or to sell on - they look like the kind of things that you'd want to feed a family but couldn't afford if you'd suddenly been made unemployed. You could have been profiled for looking nice and normal.

Of course, it's possible you were followed just because you were black, which isn't on. It's impossible for any of us to know without having been there.

What I can say with any degree of certainty is that it sounds like you had a fairly shitty morning and I'm so sorry that the guard made you feel that way. No one deserves to feel like that. She should definitely have been less obtrusive in her behaviour - she's always going to identify some possible troublemakers who are just ordinary shoppers and the trick is to watch in a way that doesn't upset the normal shoppers and allows her to catch the actual shoplifters. Following one person around a store is not the way to do that.

Report it to the store. You don't deserve that.

The aount of blindness to racism on this thread is quite staggering tbh.

Then maybe I might be more sensitive to it bevause im a foreigner so i've been on the receiving end of those ever so slightly different attitudes and i can understand better where the OP is coming from .

But tbh it comes down to a simple thing. If a black erson tells you its racist then it probably is.
Just like if a woman tells you she has been raped, then she probably has been too....
'We Believe You' should apply to many different situations.

The only times I've been followed around a shop have been when I've been with my mate, who's black. She told me she was used to it. :(

She sounds nuts. I'd report the incident to their head office and say you felt very uncomfortable shopping there. You might get a voucher for some groceries

Ahhhhh! This thread is unbelievable!
“Coloured” “only doing their job” “lazy” “make more of it”
I know being ‘woke’ isn’t very mumsnet but you lot are practically asleep. Check your privilege!
Black person: “this is my experience”
White people: “you are wrong and also I had that experience too one time! So it’s NOT a black thing, it’s all our thing!”

I was 17 and walking round B&Q with my now MIL, who is black, and we were followed round the shop the entire time by a security person. Who then stopped us on the way out to check we weren't shoplifting.

It had never happened to me before. I was shocked - she wasn't.

I'm not shocked anymore. My DH is treated very differently everywhere we go. Funnily enough, in our local Co-op, there's a woman who is absolutely awful to him - rude, throws his items at him and refuses to even make eye contact. She's lovely to me. Actually considering making a complaint after she sighed loudly, muttered 'for god's sake' and rolled her eyes at him for daring to ask for cashback the other day.

@BarbarianMum yep that is my experience unfortunatly.

And it is also my experience that, just like on this thread, it is NOT OK to say i am treated differently (worse since Brexit too). Apparently, white educated english people now better than me

I had my buggy it's a Icandy orange it can be used as a double but DS likes to walk now so I use it as a single so it's very open and you can see my basket so you would be able to see if I was stealing.

There responding to other tweets but not mine.

Who cares if they follow you around the shop if you aren't stealing anything?
Am I missing something here?

Who cares if they follow you around the shop if you aren't stealing anything?

Because it's intimidating?

It’s always possible that someone is a racist pig, but might not always be the case - we can’t say definitively. I have been pulled up by security in Tesco years ago, with a pram, and asked if I’d put something under the baby’s blanket. What I was actually doing was putting a few things balanced on the pram apron thing across the bassinet, without a basket. I’m white. Was followed recently around Waitrose with my youngest, I turned and asked the guy why he was following us and he insisted he wasn’t, he definitely was though!

eurochick please read the post of GreenGrowTheRushesOhh also checking the wiki entry of white privilege may be enlightening.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege

The people saying avoid the shop from now on- why should she? She's got every right to shop in there as anyone else, without racially stereotyping guards over her shoulder watching every thing she does.

Hopefully you'll go in there anytime OP with your head held high although I know if you get nasty people like this guard it can be bloody hard.

@HopelessLayout because it's not a nice feeling following someone around waiting for them at every isle following them down to the checkouts then waiting at the door!! I'm not a criminal I should be able to shop in peace.

Who cares if they follow you around the shop if you aren't stealing anything?
Am I missing something here?

Ummmm yes, you are.

OP, sorry to hear about your experience and I would defo complain about it.

However, someone up thread said this:

which is easy to say when you’re white

I'm actually sick of sh!t like this. It is possible to be white AND experience racism. I lived in 4 other countries and experienced racism nearly every day. In 2 countries I lived in I was constantly referred to as a red haired monkey and a white ghost, both derogatory terms for white people. Once my boss told my whole department that he hated white people. In the 2 other European countries I lived in a man threw a glass at me because I am English and the in other country, also where my DH relatives are from, I was constantly told English people were ugly and stupid. The last 2 are not racist, but still prejudice.

It's possible it's because you had a pushchair but the kids were walking - so in they're view 'why the pushchair' - not a good reason but I used to get this when DS was little and insisted on walking. Or it could be because they've had kids pick stuff up in the past, with or without the parent's knowledge, so they've made a 'rule' to follow younger kids about. Bit daft but it could be that.

Or, as you say, it could be because you're black. Have you got a white friend with similar age kids who could test the 'it's because there were kids and a pushchair' theory? If you have and it's blatantly obvious they aren't going to be followed, then YANBU and they are very, very rude.

Yanbu.
And for the comment alone I would complain.

It could be OP, we can’t deny the possibility of racism, it’s certainly more common than we think it is.
I do get followed around shops and I’m white & in my late 20s and also a mum, but that doesn’t negate the possibility that your experience could be based on racism.
I would also just like to point out as another pp brought it up- the statistics on stop and search are skewered as the majority of black Britons live in cities where stop and searches are more likely to happen whereas the majority of white Britons live in more rural areas where stop and searches never happen. Again, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t instances where this is based on racism, of course there will be, whether stop and searches happen at higher rates or lower rates for black Britons than they do white, just that the statistics are an unreliable source of evidence for this.

My son has a black friend and she has similar experiences.. she’s a lovely girl works hard and very kind more importantly ... some people are just ignorant