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A jury in Oregon has ordered Walmart to pay $4.4 million in compensation to a man who filed a lawsuit against the store and one of its employees, claiming that the store had engaged in racial profiling and harassed him in 2020.
Michael Magnum, a Black man, claimed that on March 26, 2020, an employee followed and "spied" on him while he shopped for a light bulb at the store in Wood Village, Oregon. This was followed by the employee asking him to leave the store, and subsequently calling non-emergency police dispatch and summoning police.
A video of the same can be found below.
An in-depth look into one more Walmart 'Shopping While Black' case
When a store employee suspects a person of color of shoplifting and then follows or harasses the customer, this is known as retail racism, also known in the Black community as "Shopping While Black." Magnum's case was one such case of "Shopping While Black."
As per court documents, Walmart employee Joe Williams allegedly spied on Magnum and asked him to leave the store. Magnum, on the other hand, refused to leave the store, claiming that he had done nothing wrong.
According to Magnum's lawyers, Williams also falsely told police that the former threatened to "smash him in the face."
Mangum's attorney, Gregory Kafoury of Portland, Oregon, said in a statement on Monday,
"His jobs would have been at great risk had he been charged with a crime, but he refused to be intimidated by Williams' lies and bullying."
According to sources, Mangum's attorneys said that the police who responded to the employee's call on Mangum did not take any action against him and even informed supervisors at the store that the employee had a history of filing fictitious police reports on other customers.
Company spokesman Randy Hargrove revealed that Joe Williams is no longer an employee at Walmart. However, he believes that Williams did not follow Michael Magnum and said the award of $4.4 million is excessive. He said,
"We do not tolerate discrimination. We believe the verdict is excessive and is not supported by the evidence."
He continued:
"Mr. Mangum was never stopped by Walmart's Asset Protection. He interfered with our associates as they were surveilling and then stopped confirmed shoplifters and then refused to leave despite being asked to repeatedly by our staff and Multnomah County deputies."
More about "Shopping While Black"
Based on multiple reports, Walmart has been involved in a number of these cases similar to Mangum's, the majority of which are currently pending.
According to a survey conducted in 2017, 80% of Black people living in the greater New York City area said they had encountered racial stigmas and stereotypes when shopping. 59% of respondents said they had experienced store employees looking at them as suspected shoplifters, and 52% said a salesperson had presumed they were "too impoverished to be able to make a purchase."
A survey from 2021 revealed that 60% of Black individuals said they experienced unequal treatment from white shoppers, the greatest proportion recorded since the issue was added.
Experts identified the harassment as a historical type of racism that has harmed thousands of people psychologically.
