I work for Anthropologie. No, I’m not in management, I’m not from corporate, and I’m not getting paid to say this. I just really love our store. Maybe it varies by location, but I don’t find any of those things true in our store. I have many coworkers who are not white, several who are very high level and respected managers who have been with the company for years, and none who work in the stock room. Our managers are incredibly respectful of us and our personal styles….many of us have tattoos and piercings and are allowed to openly show them (full sleeves, lip and septum piercings, the works). That kind of tolerance is not so common in retail. We also have “suspected lesbians” too, it’s a complete non-issue.

As far as following black customers for shoplifting potential, yes it happens. But it happens if you’re white too. Bottom line, our managers tell us if they look shady, follow them. Trust your gut. So all kinds of customers get followed. The problem is the individual employee in that situation, not the company. One individual might flag someone as a shoplifter, where another employee would never think to. It’s all about what someone is comfortable with. We’re always told to flag people not by what they look like, but by their behavior. It’s always the much more telling sign.

All I will say is that I have never, EVER, been told to follow someone because they’re black. or white. or hispanic. or asian. I’m kind of appalled that even happened at one of our stores. I really think it was a bad call that was made by an ill-informed individual. Unfortunately, with the amount of theft we deal with in the store (it is epic) some people feel they can’t be too careful and watch anyone they suspect in the slightest bit.

I hope that gives you another side of the story. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re a west coast store in a major city, but there is a lot of tolerance. The west coast regional office is out of our store as well, so they see everything we do and don’t tell us to do anything different. Which means corporate is a-OK with having blacks, hispanics, asians, and gays out of the floor representing our image.

the woman who runs it is an fbomb reader and a feminist. if you’re wondering where to shop definitely show her some love!

I began to think that AA ads are a kind of softcore porn. With exposure of nipples in their uni-sex bow tie ads, I think my observation is correct.