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Pastor says racial profiling at retail chains could drive shoppers to smaller stores

November 6, 2013

Macy's and Barneys of New York have been in the news recently, but not for any reasons they can be happy about: Both retailers have been accused of racial profiling in their stores, and Macy's is currently on the receiving end of several lawsuits.

It's a big issue that is much larger than any one incident, but writing on the Huffington Post, Rev. Charles E. Williams II suggests an interesting consequence of these conversations and allegations — African-American shoppers might start voting with their dollars at smaller retailers:

Retail success depends heavily on the entertainment and sports industry and most trends are set are by hip-hop artists, sports figures, moguls and their children. Imagine this, what would happen if these trendsetters, would be more intentional by limiting access to their products, and brands to small business? Maybe, African-American consumers should be more intentional at purchasing these products from small businesses where the suspect stigma doesn't exist. After all, Dr. David L. Birch of Massachusetts Institute of Technology writes in his book; Job Creation in America: How Our Smallest Companies Put the Most People to Work, about how supporting small business grows the local economy and shrinks unemployment numbers. Now, in September, United States Department of Labor stats say that African-American unemployment is 13 percent. I'm not an economist but it seems pretty obvious, that if we who face this relentless problem of profiling at large chain stores and malls purposely focused our buying power to our smaller retail stores, we could affect change in a couple of different ways — like, forcing the larger retail industry to work harder to court our dollars and business, creating jobs in our community, promoting entrepreneurship and who knows lessen the catalyst for the violence that's caused by the urban drug economy.

Read more about consumer behavior.