BRATTLEBORO — Shopping at Hannaford is something that every SIT Graduate Institute student can claim to have done, but I don't think every SIT student can claim to have the same experience that I had.
Imagine six people in the college's shuttle being driven to the supermarket to get some food and drinks for the night's festivities. All of us pay for our respective items, and we leave.
While waiting in the shuttle for one of the slower members of our group to finish another purchase, we notice that several Hannaford employees are hovering around our car. They appear to be writing something down.
Now, this isn't normal behavior; when someone from our group approaches the employees, we all expect we'll get some answers as to why they are taking down our information.
We don't. They tell her that they aren't doing anything - that we're mistaken.
After the shuttle drops some of our group off on campus, the shuttle driver and I decide to return to town. We were well surprised to see two police cars speeding up Black Mountain Road toward campus, and even more surprised to be pulled over by the officers.
We were then accused of stealing from Hannaford, although we had most certainly just paid for our items.
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The incident raises multiple questions.
Why wasn't this matter cleared up when our friend approached the employees and explicitly asked them if there was a problem?
If the store had video of me shoplifting, as they claimed, why didn't its staff just rewind the video even farther and see with their own eyes that the items were indeed paid for?
Why didn't they just ask their cashier if she had rung us up?
We later found out that the store didn't even follow its own policy: Its employees had not seen me take anything off of the shelf and had certainly not seen me leave without paying. If employees had no real reason to suspect me of shoplifting, why did the night manager feel the need to call the police?
Was it because I am an African-American and Victoria is Latina?
Racial profiling isn't a small accusation, but it is hard not to feel that this had something to do with it. Would the police have been called on me so quickly if I had fair skin?
I tend to think not.
Accusing a minority of shoplifting in a very small, very white town is never going to have the best response. Calling the police, having our car searched, and then escorting us back to the store - only to immediately discover that we did in fact pay - is worse than being accused in the first place.
The store staff first didn't follow their own company policy. They refused to sit down and have a frank conversation with us for as long as possible, and then they gave us the proverbial runaround - really, just the cherry on top of a very bad sundae.
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While this incident is very unfortunate, it brings to light a larger problem in the Brattleboro area, and in many small, homogenous towns like it across the country.
Brattleboro seems like a generally nice town, but ask any person who doesn't have white skin - me included - their feelings about this place, and you will get a somewhat different perspective.
We have an unshakable feeling that people are looking at us differently or that we're being followed around a store while everyone else goes about their shopping free of a tail. Even if someone isn't actually following us, the fact that we fear that someone might be doing so is just as bad.
Then there is the constant fear that when something goes wrong, everyone will turn to the person with the dark skin first.
These are fears that people like me - people with brown skin - who live in small towns like Brattleboro, face daily.
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The white majority in Brattleboro is generally accepting and well meaning. Many people are aware of their white power, but just because they are aware of it doesn't mean that they don't occasionally make a misstep.
Those missteps are where the community as a whole needs to be engaged.
When an incident like this one happens in a business setting, there needs to be a more immediate response. The victims and the person directly responsible for the mistakes - and not only their higher-ups - need to be able to sit down and have a discussion and find out why.
This is a vital point: the people directly involved in the incident should be able to look one another in the eye and have a dialogue. It is not about one person talking at another. It is more about two or more people having an open discussion to try and figure out ways to avoid something similar happening.
Whenever there is an incident that involves perceived racial profiling or discrimination of any kind, the organization involved should immediately arrange for staff to be trained with a refresher on the non-discrimination policies that the majority of large businesses have in place.
Surely, that response will most definitely not be an inconvenience to anyone. And it will only help.
On a more societal level, Brattleboro - and any town - should have a venue where one can go immediately to discuss the issues at hand. If there is already one in place, then it should be set up in such a way that provides easy access.
I don't think Brattleboro is an inherently racist place, but we all come with some sort of baggage and beliefs from our own experiences. Having a place like a community forum is just one effective means to check that baggage and to put our experiences into perspective.
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Incidents like this one happen all of the time, and while it happened to me, I'm not overly concerned.
I am not a permanent member of the Brattleboro community, but when I leave SIT, other non-white students will come to campus. And there are minorities who are permanent residents of this town.
I am more concerned about making sure that something of this nature doesn't happen again - to any of us.