dailykos.com
NBA player locked out of jewelry store - because black
by mconventeFollow

Another day, another incident of racial profiling. Except, this time, the person profiled happens to be NBA player John Henson, and he's not letting the profiler get away with it.

This particular incident occurred over the past several days in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin - a over 90% white, wealthy northern suburb of Milwaukee.

Here is the personal story from Henson's Instagram account:

Text caption (formatted for easier reading):

@johnhenson31: Went to @schwankekasten jewelry today in White-Fish Bay during regular business hours. They locked the door and told me to go away. After I rang the doorbell twice everyone went to the back. No answered the door or told me what was going on. This was followed by two police cars pulling up and parking across the street and watching me for 5 minutes ( I assumed they were called by the store ).

I was then approached by 2 officers and questioned about the dealer vehicle I was in which is apart of my endorsement deal with Kunes country Chevrolet and asked me what I wanted amongst other things that were just irrelevant to me being there just trying to shop at the store like a normal paying customer would do. I told them I was just trying to look at a watch.

He then had to go in the back and tell them to come out it was safe but this is after they ran my plates and I overheard them talking about doing more of a background check on the car. The employees finally came out of the back and proceeded to conduct business like they previously were as we walked up.

This was one of the the most degrading and racially prejudice things I've ever experienced in life and wouldn't wish this on anyone. This store needs to be called out and that's what I'm doing. You have no right to profile someone because of their race and nationality and this incident needs to be brought to light and I urge anyone who ever is thinking of shopping here reads this and doesn't bring any business to this discriminatory place.

A recap of the story is described here (summarized from the Reddit /r/NBA sub-reddit):

Thursday, Oct 15th: Person calls store between 2PM and 3PM and inquires about closing times. Closing time is 5.30PM

Friday, Oct 16th: Person (not known if same person as day before) calls about closing times. Clerks decide to close at 5PM because of suspicious calls. Police camp outside from 3.57PM. At 4.58PM Henson + entourage of 3 arrive, store is closed, lights turned off, discussion with clerk (assuming something along the lines of "You said you were open til 5.30PM over the phone?"). Henson+3 drive off.

Officers check Henson's plates. Dealer plates. "Might be stolen, but not reported stolen." Tells this to store, lets them know to inform the police if car returns.

Sunday, Oct 18th: Store owner tells police a jewelry store in Green Bay got robbed by hooded white man, gives surveillance footage. (Store owner's store was robbed once 2 years ago) Robbery committed by a white male.

Monday, Oct 19th: Police arrives at store at 1.20PM. Henson+1 are outside, and the store won't let them in. Locked. Police gets informed he's a Buck, and that Bucks get cars from dealership. Police calls store to get them to open up front. Store wants police to come out back. Police goes out back and informs store that person is a Milwaukee Buck. Store re-opens, but wants police to stand-by as Henson+1 shop. Police refuses and leave the store and area.

TL;DR - store was worried about suspicious activity and called police, but even when police told store person is an NBA player, store still wanted police for safety.

John Henson is a multi-millionaire. To this date, he has earned over $5 million in salary, and he will earn $2.9 million this season. Also, just weeks ago he signed a contract extension that will pay him a guaranteed $44 million!

Class and wealth does not and will not shield people of color from racism and profiling. We see this time and time again. To anyone reading this that says #AllLivesMatter, I ask this: Do #AllLives deal with incidents like this? If a white NBA player was browsing the outside windows of the store, would the store close shop early?

I must say, however, credit the police for not bowing to the requests of the store. They figured out why the store was paranoid and explained the situation, and when asked to stay around even after told Henson was a perfectly fine potential customer, the police force basically told the store to **** off. Broken clocks and all.

But yeah, just another day in "post-racial" America...

WaltLongmire wrote:NBA player locked out of jewelry store - because black

dailykos.com
NBA player locked out of jewelry store - because black
by mconventeFollow

Another day, another incident of racial profiling. Except, this time, the person profiled happens to be NBA player John Henson, and he's not letting the profiler get away with it.

This particular incident occurred over the past several days in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin - a over 90% white, wealthy northern suburb of Milwaukee.

Here is the personal story from Henson's Instagram account:

Text caption (formatted for easier reading):

@johnhenson31: Went to @schwankekasten jewelry today in White-Fish Bay during regular business hours. They locked the door and told me to go away. After I rang the doorbell twice everyone went to the back. No answered the door or told me what was going on. This was followed by two police cars pulling up and parking across the street and watching me for 5 minutes ( I assumed they were called by the store ).

I was then approached by 2 officers and questioned about the dealer vehicle I was in which is apart of my endorsement deal with Kunes country Chevrolet and asked me what I wanted amongst other things that were just irrelevant to me being there just trying to shop at the store like a normal paying customer would do. I told them I was just trying to look at a watch.

He then had to go in the back and tell them to come out it was safe but this is after they ran my plates and I overheard them talking about doing more of a background check on the car. The employees finally came out of the back and proceeded to conduct business like they previously were as we walked up.

This was one of the the most degrading and racially prejudice things I've ever experienced in life and wouldn't wish this on anyone. This store needs to be called out and that's what I'm doing. You have no right to profile someone because of their race and nationality and this incident needs to be brought to light and I urge anyone who ever is thinking of shopping here reads this and doesn't bring any business to this discriminatory place.

A recap of the story is described here (summarized from the Reddit /r/NBA sub-reddit):

Thursday, Oct 15th: Person calls store between 2PM and 3PM and inquires about closing times. Closing time is 5.30PM

Friday, Oct 16th: Person (not known if same person as day before) calls about closing times. Clerks decide to close at 5PM because of suspicious calls. Police camp outside from 3.57PM. At 4.58PM Henson + entourage of 3 arrive, store is closed, lights turned off, discussion with clerk (assuming something along the lines of "You said you were open til 5.30PM over the phone?"). Henson+3 drive off.

Officers check Henson's plates. Dealer plates. "Might be stolen, but not reported stolen." Tells this to store, lets them know to inform the police if car returns.

Sunday, Oct 18th: Store owner tells police a jewelry store in Green Bay got robbed by hooded white man, gives surveillance footage. (Store owner's store was robbed once 2 years ago) Robbery committed by a white male.

Monday, Oct 19th: Police arrives at store at 1.20PM. Henson+1 are outside, and the store won't let them in. Locked. Police gets informed he's a Buck, and that Bucks get cars from dealership. Police calls store to get them to open up front. Store wants police to come out back. Police goes out back and informs store that person is a Milwaukee Buck. Store re-opens, but wants police to stand-by as Henson+1 shop. Police refuses and leave the store and area.

TL;DR - store was worried about suspicious activity and called police, but even when police told store person is an NBA player, store still wanted police for safety.

John Henson is a multi-millionaire. To this date, he has earned over $5 million in salary, and he will earn $2.9 million this season. Also, just weeks ago he signed a contract extension that will pay him a guaranteed $44 million!

Class and wealth does not and will not shield people of color from racism and profiling. We see this time and time again. To anyone reading this that says #AllLivesMatter, I ask this: Do #AllLives deal with incidents like this? If a white NBA player was browsing the outside windows of the store, would the store close shop early?

I must say, however, credit the police for not bowing to the requests of the store. They figured out why the store was paranoid and explained the situation, and when asked to stay around even after told Henson was a perfectly fine potential customer, the police force basically told the store to **** off. Broken clocks and all.

But yeah, just another day in "post-racial" America...

The shop stuff insist that they get scared because of the car with dealer plate robbers came when they get robbed 3 times before.
Plus 6'10" dude coming out of it to bang the door...
Black or white this is really scary...

BRIGGS wrote:

arkrud wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:NBA player locked out of jewelry store - because black

dailykos.com
NBA player locked out of jewelry store - because black
by mconventeFollow

Another day, another incident of racial profiling. Except, this time, the person profiled happens to be NBA player John Henson, and he's not letting the profiler get away with it.

This particular incident occurred over the past several days in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin - a over 90% white, wealthy northern suburb of Milwaukee.

Here is the personal story from Henson's Instagram account:

Text caption (formatted for easier reading):

@johnhenson31: Went to @schwankekasten jewelry today in White-Fish Bay during regular business hours. They locked the door and told me to go away. After I rang the doorbell twice everyone went to the back. No answered the door or told me what was going on. This was followed by two police cars pulling up and parking across the street and watching me for 5 minutes ( I assumed they were called by the store ).

I was then approached by 2 officers and questioned about the dealer vehicle I was in which is apart of my endorsement deal with Kunes country Chevrolet and asked me what I wanted amongst other things that were just irrelevant to me being there just trying to shop at the store like a normal paying customer would do. I told them I was just trying to look at a watch.

He then had to go in the back and tell them to come out it was safe but this is after they ran my plates and I overheard them talking about doing more of a background check on the car. The employees finally came out of the back and proceeded to conduct business like they previously were as we walked up.

This was one of the the most degrading and racially prejudice things I've ever experienced in life and wouldn't wish this on anyone. This store needs to be called out and that's what I'm doing. You have no right to profile someone because of their race and nationality and this incident needs to be brought to light and I urge anyone who ever is thinking of shopping here reads this and doesn't bring any business to this discriminatory place.

A recap of the story is described here (summarized from the Reddit /r/NBA sub-reddit):

Thursday, Oct 15th: Person calls store between 2PM and 3PM and inquires about closing times. Closing time is 5.30PM

Friday, Oct 16th: Person (not known if same person as day before) calls about closing times. Clerks decide to close at 5PM because of suspicious calls. Police camp outside from 3.57PM. At 4.58PM Henson + entourage of 3 arrive, store is closed, lights turned off, discussion with clerk (assuming something along the lines of "You said you were open til 5.30PM over the phone?"). Henson+3 drive off.

Officers check Henson's plates. Dealer plates. "Might be stolen, but not reported stolen." Tells this to store, lets them know to inform the police if car returns.

Sunday, Oct 18th: Store owner tells police a jewelry store in Green Bay got robbed by hooded white man, gives surveillance footage. (Store owner's store was robbed once 2 years ago) Robbery committed by a white male.

Monday, Oct 19th: Police arrives at store at 1.20PM. Henson+1 are outside, and the store won't let them in. Locked. Police gets informed he's a Buck, and that Bucks get cars from dealership. Police calls store to get them to open up front. Store wants police to come out back. Police goes out back and informs store that person is a Milwaukee Buck. Store re-opens, but wants police to stand-by as Henson+1 shop. Police refuses and leave the store and area.

TL;DR - store was worried about suspicious activity and called police, but even when police told store person is an NBA player, store still wanted police for safety.

John Henson is a multi-millionaire. To this date, he has earned over $5 million in salary, and he will earn $2.9 million this season. Also, just weeks ago he signed a contract extension that will pay him a guaranteed $44 million!

Class and wealth does not and will not shield people of color from racism and profiling. We see this time and time again. To anyone reading this that says #AllLivesMatter, I ask this: Do #AllLives deal with incidents like this? If a white NBA player was browsing the outside windows of the store, would the store close shop early?

I must say, however, credit the police for not bowing to the requests of the store. They figured out why the store was paranoid and explained the situation, and when asked to stay around even after told Henson was a perfectly fine potential customer, the police force basically told the store to **** off. Broken clocks and all.

But yeah, just another day in "post-racial" America...

The shop stuff insist that they get scared because of the car with dealer plate robbers came when they get robbed 3 times before.
Plus 6'10" dude coming out of it to bang the door...
Black or white this is really scary...

Ah thats no good on the store
whatever the deal is. If you cant handle people coming in even at 5:29 then you should not be in business. Poor thing about John Henson--my bet is he believes ALL white people are the same. I think many black Chinese Spanish etc.. think the same of whites--but the reality of the majority is not even close.

Any time anybody referring for any race in generalized terms it is sign of racism and ignorance.

callmened wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:
Ah thats no good on the store
whatever the deal is. If you cant handle people coming in even at 5:29 then you should not be in business. Poor thing about John Henson--my bet is he believes ALL white people are the same. I think many black Chinese Spanish etc.. think the same of whites--but the reality of the majority is not even close.

how do you know what John Henson believes or doesn't believe or bet he believes? lol

He immediately concluded that he is racially profiled regardless of other possibilities.
I can relate to this from me being Jewish and leaving back in USSR where Antisemitism was official government policy and the national sentiment as well. When I get any problems with bureaucracy and people I immediately assumed that this happened because
I am Jewish but it was not the case many times. But this is a human nature to generalize. Its the easy way out of any problem.

Briggs applying his xenophobic racism to an innocent. Priceless.

WaltLongmire wrote:Sure that you're not one of those guys taking up two spaces by spreading out your legs? I saw your photo- you almost look a bit nerdy- it would be surprising to me if they shied away from you. Do you think you get the same reaction if you are on the subway with your wife?

I do have to admit that although I'm an older Italian boy, some have said I look a bit crazy, and I've seen people not sit near me when it looked like the seat space next to me was the logical seat for them to sit in. (Have to admit that I actually like this at times.)

The sad thing is that by all accounts Henson seems like a nice guy, and I read where he is frequently seen at the Bucks public events. Would hate to see him changed because of this.

Can we really know that he was "profiled?" Perhaps not, but the number of times an African American or Latin American are the recipients of such treatment makes you believe that his thinking was spot on.

Only way to know about this store for sure is to have Birdman Anderson stop by in a similar circumstance and see how they react to him.

- HA!! who knows! but im going with "my odor theory"
- notice how i didnt say he was being profiled. i wasnt there so i cant conclude anything. it seemed like from his account he was. the store manager said he was responding to the car (recent newspaper stated that a similar car was recently stolen and to be careful). but henson being a black man who has likely had this experience before put 2 and 2 together.
- i believe both parties made up and called it a misunderstanding - at least i hope so

callmened wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Sure that you're not one of those guys taking up two spaces by spreading out your legs? I saw your photo- you almost look a bit nerdy- it would be surprising to me if they shied away from you. Do you think you get the same reaction if you are on the subway with your wife?

I do have to admit that although I'm an older Italian boy, some have said I look a bit crazy, and I've seen people not sit near me when it looked like the seat space next to me was the logical seat for them to sit in. (Have to admit that I actually like this at times.)

The sad thing is that by all accounts Henson seems like a nice guy, and I read where he is frequently seen at the Bucks public events. Would hate to see him changed because of this.

Can we really know that he was "profiled?" Perhaps not, but the number of times an African American or Latin American are the recipients of such treatment makes you believe that his thinking was spot on.

Only way to know about this store for sure is to have Birdman Anderson stop by in a similar circumstance and see how they react to him.

- HA!! who knows! but im going with "my odor theory"
- notice how i didnt say he was being profiled. i wasnt there so i cant conclude anything. it seemed like from his account he was. the store manager said he was responding to the car (recent newspaper stated that a similar car was recently stolen and to be careful). but henson being a black man who has likely had this experience before put 2 and 2 together.
- i believe both parties made up and called it a misunderstanding - at least i hope so

We have a racial problem in America that's been going on for years. One race would like to turn a blind eye to it, the other race wants to express it, through their actions (negative or positive). The best thing that could happen is if more NBA / Entrepreneurs speak out about this situation. The only way to clean an infected wound, is to open it up and expose it. I'm glad Henson is stepping out....Hopefully others will follow and use social media as a main tool.

Secondly, I didn't know black or white was a race. As far as my kids know, those are colors on a crayon box. It's when they get older and become brain washed, their minds (just like all of us), becomes corrupted with racial barriers and stigmas.

Good for Henson to speak out on something that's been around for years. These guys have the platform, and don't even use it.