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A South African pharmacy has been accused of racial profiling in a Twitter thread that's gone viral.
Tina Redman took to Twitter earlier this week to detail her experience at Dis-Chem Neighbourhood Square in Johannesburg. Redman claimed she was racially profiled and falsely accused of stealing one of the pharmacy's products, per Revolt.
“Just got racially profiled [at] Dis-Chem Neighbourhood Square,” Redman tweeted on Sunday (March 5). “Multiple people forcibly took me to the back, frisked me, despite refusing to search my white partner, falsely accused me of stealing fake eyelashes [and] then refused to show me the footage that apparently incriminated me.”
Redman continued to explain the incident in follow-up tweets.
“Even after the search, the person who claimed to have seen me — in person [and] on the security camera — stealing the eyelashes and chucking the box down refused to [apologize] or acknowledge the mistake. No remorse or concern for the distress this caused me,” she said.“The manager, a white man, claimed it wasn’t a racial thing, but I was the only Black person in the store, and I didn’t even go into the cosmetics area!”
Many social media users quickly jumped to the customer's defense, condemning the pharmacy for the alleged incident.
"I am disgusted by your employees @Dischem Neighbourhood-Square. Those involved need to be fired for not taking precautionary and adequate measures. Im sure you have a code of conduct policy when it comes to these kinds of situations. Those employees failed you," one user tweeted.
"Second incident I’m hearing in 2 weeks, the other one was of a young black boy who was falsely accused of stealing a lip balm at Canal Walk and was searched but his white friends weren’t," another Twitter user alleged.
The company responded to the allegations, saying it doesn't condone discrimination or racism.
“Hi, Tina, thank you for reaching out to us, and we are saddened to hear of your experience with our Neighbourhood branch. Kindly note that we do not discriminate by race, nor do we condone racism. We would like to look into this,” Dis-Chem tweeted.
Following the incident, Redman claimed security informed her that they had made a "big mistake" after reviewing the footage. In response, Dis-Chem said "security in our stores is owned and operated by an independent company. The matter has been escalated to the senior management of this company for a thorough investigation.”
Redman is seeking a written apology because the alleged incident “was violent and can’t be taken lightly.”
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