The incident that led to Obsidian Potency.

Is CVS racist?  It seems like a silly question on the surface.  But according to Snopes and some local news teams, the answer seems to be yes.

The incidents occurred in two South Carolina CVS stores, and several stores in Kansas City, Missouri.  Basically, these stores placed security tags on hair care products targeted at black people, while products marketed towards white customes did not have security tags.   When police records were checked, none of the offending stores reported any greater incidence of theft when it came to black hair crap vs white hair crap. 

Unfortunately, this is only the most obviuos incident reported over the past year regarding a nationwide retialier and what amounts to racial profiling.  Macy's, Dillards and Wal-Mart have all been accused of unjustly targeting black shoppers over other shoppers.  By the way, CVS Corporate refused to comment to Snopes.

This is a very sensitive subject for me, especially regarding CVS.  Some people I've meet often wonder how I ended up with such a racially-focused sense of humor given where I grew up.  Or why I ended up being so "preoccupied" with race.  Well, I really wasn't like this at all until around 6th grade. 

I had biked to my neighborhood CVS, and was wandering around the store looking at books and magazines.  I used to do this all the time, as did many kids, dating back to when the store was still People's Drug. 

I had picked up a Hardy Boys book and started to read it.  I carried that book to a magazine stand, placed the book on the rack, grabbed a magazine and starrted looking through one.  Two white girls a few years older than me were also reading magazines at the rack.  Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me: "Excuse me."

I turned around.  It was the store manager.  He said to me in an accusatory tone, "Where's the book?"  I said, "What?"  I was so surprised that I wasn't sure why he was even talking to me.  So he repeated the question. 

I turned around, pulled the book off the rack, and showed it to him.  "It's right here."

"I want you to leave my store."

I was now officially in shock.  I turned an gaped at the two white girls doing exactly what I was doing.  I turned back and looked at this stern manager, who was apparently throwing me out of his store for no reason. 

What else could I do?  I shuffled out of there and rode home, still in shock. 

I told my brother about this incident (yeah, this brother).  As you can imagine, he was pissed.  He took me back to that store the second he found out, went straight back to the manager's little security/observation deck in the back of the store, and tore the guy a new one (verbally).  Among other things, he asked him why I was kicked out of the store -- the guy stammered that I was "concealing" merchandise, which of course I wasn't -- and asked him if he'd have thrown me out if I was an 85-year-old lady in a wheelchair who was reading magazines.  The guy basically was too stunned to respond coherently to much of anything my brother shouted at him.  Sadly, I doubt this made any difference to the guy in question; he probably is even more racist now than before unless he underwent some kind of epiphany in the following years.  I can only hope he isn't managing any more retail stores. 

As for me?  Well, even though this incident was mild compared to some of the stuff my parents and other black people close to me have been through, I was never really the same again.  Up to that point I had been a very innocent kid, in a nice neighborhood, mostly with friends of other races, never thinking about racial issues seriously.  After that day, most of my self-description remained unchanged.  But my innocence was permanently lost. 

Perhaps all of this would have happened anyway, but one might even say that Obsidian Potency is the inevitable result of the events that took place on that late summer day.  And why, despite any criticism I might receive from people who accuse me of 'over-racializing' news events (or of being an "angry black man,") I'm not going to stop asking hard questions about race or outlining my own opinions on the subject anytime soon.

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