Profiles Of Courage

As part of her series "Black In America", CNN's Soledad O'Brien recently profiled an Atlanta professional named Leah Wells. It seems that Wells and two girlfriends decided to spend their lunch break doing some "power-shopping". Shockingly, the three young women, all in their 20s and all black, ended up detained on suspicion of shoplifting.

"We were dressed professionally," Wells said. "It was casual Friday. We had on dresses and casual office wear. We were racially profiled. It was as simple as that." At about 1:15 p.m., mall security contacted Gwinnett County police saying there was a group involved in shoplifting. The police department says four officers arrived at the mall about 10 minutes later, and security pointed out Wells and her two friends as they walked away from the Old Navy store (owned by The Gap). The officers asked the three to return to the store.

Wells says six officers were involved, not four, and that she and her friends were detained for "about an hour and a half"; the police say it was 29 minutes. In her letter to Murphy, the Gap CEO, Wells describes enduring "disdainful stares from the mothers and grandmothers and children entering the store."

Police found no stolen merchandise on Wells or her friends. But Wells says neither the police nor the store managers bothered to apologize. Gwinnett Police say their officers were responding to a call and that the three women detained had thanked the officers for looking into the allegations thoroughly.

The fact remains that Wells and her friends were wrongly detained. "No matter your education, your status or profession, some still only see the color of your skin," Wells wrote two months after the event.

The Gap told CNN that an internal investigation led to the firing of a manager. Later the spokesperson said, "We realize it's probably too late. We regret that we did not apologize for what these ladies experienced at our store, and this goes against everything we stand for as a company."

Sad to say, but it's a common refrain from black people in this country. All of us know someone who has, or have ourselves, been stopped for no apparent reason while driving or been searched for fitting a description.

It happened to O'Brien's brother Orestes. A Harvard medical student at the time, he was visiting a friend in Brooklyn, New York, when he was stopped and searched by officers late one night. He "fit the profile" of a robbery suspect. They dumped his belongings in the street and made him lie face-down. What infuriated him was that no apology ever followed when it became clear the cops got it wrong. It seemed no one felt that one was owed.

In preparing her report, O'Brien said that many parents told stories of sitting down with their sons starting at 12 years old to tell them what to do if pulled over by the police so as not to get shot. I don't imagine many white parents even think such a conversation is necessary with their teenage sons.