Walmart

8:49 pm… An assistant manager finally arrived to assist me with picking up my order. He brought another assistant manager with him and gave her a quick training on how to assist customers with website to store orders.

On December 14, 2013 around 7pm My Husband & I along with our 6 month old went to our local Wal-​Mart on Hwy 5 in Douglasville, GA to purchase some Christmas Lights for our tree. The store was really crowded and suffered from long lines so I decided to head to the Jewelry Department to check out since we only had 4 boxes of lights around this time it probably was 7:30pm. When we get there the clerk a medium height elderly Caucasian woman with short gray hair is talking to a Caucasian Couple on the other side of the counter in the meantime there is no one else around so we proceed to wait at the cash register. A minute later a Hispanic Woman walks up to the counter interested in a watch. After the clerk is done with the couple she walks over to the cash register and then walks away to help the Hispanic Woman, so we continue to wait, during that time another Caucasian Couple walks up to the counter. She then tells the Hispanic Woman if she wants to purchase the watch she is interested in she will have to wait until the other clerk returns because she is not going to look for the box it came in. So the lady’s says she will wait politely. The clerk again ignores us and then helps the Caucasian Couple waiting that are interested in a necklace; they decide on the necklace they would like to purchase. By this time it has been at least 30 minutes of us waiting at the register with our items watching her help everyone else around us. The clerk then walks over to the register completely ignoring us like we are invisible and rings up the necklace and then looks around us to the couple and tells them their total for the purchase. We are in complete disbelief and shock and I then tell her that we were here first and having been waiting for over 30 minutes. She then says that her jewelry customers come first no matter what and we would just have to continue to wait. I told her that is ridiculous and so unfair and that I will be making a complaint and asked for her name since her name tag was not visible and she refused to tell me. We totally felt belittled and discriminated against being an African American Couple that I had to immediately leave the situation and headed directly towards Customer Service to speak with a Manager. I cannot quite remember the Manager’s name but her I remember her yellow tag displaying Asst. Manager she was African American with burgundy dreadlocks. She told me that she would go over there and speak with her. In the meantime I just had to hurry and leave the store with my family so we just stood in a line in the front to check out which cost us another 20 minutes. I have never felt so belittled and discriminated against in my life, I was truly hurt and so was my family. Someone with that type of attitude and judgment should not be working in a place of retail or dealing with any customer’s period. I’m just not sure how many other people has been hurt by her actions.

I have been living in Douglas County a little over two years now and I have noticed that black and white patrons of these area businesses are treated differently. My first visit to the Walmart in Douglasville Georgia two years ago was not good due to the fact that the door greeter I noticed seems to only check people of color receipts and allow white customers to exit without checking their receipts which is clearly racially motivated. I informed the store manager about this behavior but I see the practice still persist to this day. I stopped patronizing Walmart after this incident and in fact Sunday January 3, 2015 was the first time in almost two years since I have shopped at any Walmart. The employees both black and white are practicing a subtle form of racism toward people of color at this location. Black men at this Walmart are treated like pariahs and I would not recommend this particular Walmart for people of color especially black men until they work on race relations at this store. I was ostracized not only by the staff but also by the customers mainly females white and black who seem to think that every black man that they encounter is somehow after their purse. Regina the African American person who is in charge of your auto service desk clearly has an problem with black customers and I think it’s mostly with black men because when I initially entered the department she did not greet me at all and she seemed irritated at me approaching her to pay for an oil change before it was completed along with a few items that I picked up in the store and she seemed to get upset with me about my trying to pay for the oil change early and abruptly pushed my items aside in discuss. I talked to Susan the manager on duty about the way I was treated and she seemed concerned but another visit a week later and nothing has changed. I also noticed that black and Hispanic customers who visit this Walmart are routinely treated different from their white counterparts and that is RACISM. I was totally ignored by the Walmart staff both black and white but I noticed the white patrons were given the royal treatment. Black and Hispanic shoppers will experience what sociologist call «unconscious bias» which means because of their skin color will not receive the same level of service as their white counterparts. I have noticed at this Walmart that it was both black and white employees who are guilty of this form of racism. I am deeply disappointed that people of color would emulate the racial bias of intolerant white Americans.
Racial bias is not good for business and people like me are watching!