Dear Fellow Consumer,
I am writing to apprise you of an undesirable situation occurring at Walgreens #3239, 1 S. E. Third Avenue in Miami at approximately 7 p.m. the evening of January 3rd, 2021, which poignantly contradicts the denunciation of "hatred, racism, stereotyping, and bigotry in any form" issued by Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina on May 31,2020 https://news.walgreens.com/press-releases/general-news/a-message-from-stefano-pessina-to-our-customers-team-members-and-communities-across-america.htm. This particular malfeasance occurred exactly three years and three days to the date of the last time I entered this location or patronized any Walgreens, due to a 2018 encounter detailed subsequent to this electronic mail.

Nonetheless, please know that posterior to that instance of discriminatory harassment and racial profiling, I was exhorted by several managerial and executive parties within this establishment to give this chain ‘another try'. After three years, one ongoing global public health crisis, countless lives lost, a purported shortage on shoelaces at what appears to be a national level, and domestic and international turmoil related to matters of race, law enforcement, and social justice, these factors converged for me to do just that—with a striking, and ominous, similitude of results meriting unbounded ignominy.

When I entered the foregoing Walgreens location on January 3rd there were two employees at the register close to the entrance—one an older woman whose hair appeared to be died blonde, and another who was younger with dark hair. Both of these women appeared to be Hispanic or Latina. They were ringing up customers during my ingress; each eyed me and offered no greeting, welcome, or any other acknowledgement of my presence.

I ambled the length of the store and perused perhaps two aisles prior to finding items pertaining to shoes. As I discerned this section, I heard a sound close enough to catch my attention, despite the music I was listening to ("A Prayer for Everybody", ironically enough) in my portable player. To my considerable disconcertment, the darker haired woman had suddenly appeared perhaps two feet from my right leg and was feverishly taking items off the lower part of the rack and replacing them, seemingly at random. This occurrence was startling enough to enthrall me for perhaps 15 seconds, during which time she rifled through these products at a rapid velocity.

Despite her propinquity, which was close enough to touch me, this employee remained reticent, as though ignoring me.

I found the abruptness of her appearance, the expedience of her actions, and taciturn nature more than a little unsettling and antipodal to a normative shopping experience—as well as eerily similar to my previous visit to this store when, without provocation, I was followed around it. Consequently, I engaged her by remarking "fancy meeting you here," and bantered with her about her vocation.

Perhaps a minute passed in this way until, as I anticipated, as soon as I left that aisle, she did too. Whatever task she had contrived in order to monitor me evidently wasn't as worthwhile as ensuring that I, while in the store, remained in her purview. She moved to the end of the aisle and watched me leave as she spoke into a mobile communication device; I conjectured her conversation pertained to my location in this establishment. I headed up an aisle towards the egress, disturbed that I wasn't deigned worthy of talking to or assisting yet warranted, purely based on my arrival, exceedingly close scrutiny and pursuit wherever I happened to be in these quarters.

She walked up a different aisle to the front of the store, at which point I turned around and walked up the aisle she did. When I reached the front she was ringing up a customer and the blonde woman was clutching a mobile communication device while she was about to traverse the aisle I was originally walking up—until she saw me come up another aisle, then no longer went anywhere. My pursuers, it seemed, had shifted, but the pursuance persisted.

It was obvious I was the sole target of these employee's attention and was considered polemical or a threat requiring excessively close trailing and supervision—yet not greeted, assisted, or acknowledged as all customers should be, especially since there were no more than five consumers in the store at this juncture. It was disenchanting, choler-inducing, and saddening that after being urged by the powers that be to give both this chain and this specific location another opportunity and, having few other expedients to find shoelaces (which this store didn't contain), my experience paralleled my previous one, resulting in a personal reaffirmation to no longer patronize Walgreens.

Before leaving I harangued the dark haired employee for stereotyping me, racially profiling me, failing to assist me, shadowing my movements, and harassing me about the store solely based on my intractable physical appearance. This misadventure confirms that:

I was justified in initially vowing to discontinue patronizing this establishment,
all the managers and executives who attempted to dissuade me, implying my 2018 encounter was aberrational and had been remediated, were markedly incorrect,
and most of all, there is something severely perverse about this particular Walgreens location which, I implore you to consider, is likely indicative of this establishment as a whole.

It is far from coincidental that following three years' time I endured, for all intents and purposes, the exact same experience as that which initially drove me from being a lifelong Walgreens customer, which I had loyally patronized since pubescence. It is not mere happenstance, but rather some systematic practice occurring at this location to subject men (and likely women) of African descent to such behavior, forsaking their access to service, civility, or common courtesy as consumers, viewing them as liabilities or hazards instead of customers, and treating them with a marked variance from how other customers are routinely received.

Consider the energy, resources, and orchestration required for this undertaking on January 3 and for any other day when others who don't inform you of such maladjusted actions endure similar pernicious subjugation. Imagine how this dark haired woman must have stared at the store's mirrors, eschewing her other responsibilities, in her vigilance to track my location. Envision her changing course in her pursuance, as I searched for shoelaces that she or the other employee refused to direct me to, while monitoring me. Consider the sanctioning of her action on behalf of the older employee who was likely the on-duty manager. This confluence of events doesn't occur haphazardly, certainly not over a period of three years in which I underwent the exact same experience at the exact same location.

Please also know I entered well over half a dozen retail locations in the downtown Miami area, from Ross to establishments at Bayside such as Footlocker and Champs, prior to accessing Walgreens this evening. I was amiably greeted, assisted, and even advised of other potential locations to get shoelaces by each of these retailers. This fact is further testament to the pervasive debauchery governing the practices at Walgreens #3239, the perfunctory nature of whatever remedy was posited as redressing my previous debacle there in 2018, and the manifest unfairness and duplicity routinely utilized by those that work and train others there.

Walgreens should be extolled for its efforts to counteract stereotyping and bigotry by unlocking beauty products frequented by those of African descent, which it announced in June of 2020 https://www.businessinsider.com/walgreens-cvs-to-stop-locking-up-black-beauty-products-2020-6. However, employees such as those mentioned in this letter, their behavior, managers, and champions within this organization who not only support but countenance such chronic, discriminatory actions undermine all of the values espoused by Mr. Pessina, and those of this organization as a whole.

As indicated in my previous correspondence in 2018, I refuse to become inured to another's shortcomings, and certainly won't spend any money to do so—and will adamantly beseech my friends, family, and whoever will listen not to do the same, either.
Sincerely,
Mr. Harassed

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