March 7, 2025 • 21 mins
Host Dr. Vanessa Tyler talks with investigative reporter Marjaan Sirdar about his examination into Target's DEI rollback. Marjaan uncovered an even deeper plol that involves Target and it's unfortunate connection to Minneapolis law enforcement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Target is the Target, for some.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Reason, didn't understand that its decision was not only offensive,
but it's bad for business.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Making Target pay by not paying them an economic boycott.
Protesters fed up with companies like Target rolling back DEI
Civil rights attorney Nakima Levy Armstrong says Target made a commitment,
a promise, then ripped it up and tossed it away.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
But instead they acted cowardly and they made the decisions
a bow down to the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Some have a real problem with Target, and this was
before it's DEI rollback.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You know, when I heard about the DEI rollback in
the boycott, it made me think, you know, there's so
much more harm that Target has done to our communities
that really folks need to know.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
About what you have to hear the story behind Target.
Listen now in black Land and now as a brown person,
you just feel so invisible where we're from. Brothers and sisters.
I welcome you to this joyful exaya. We celebrate freedom.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I know someone heard something and where we're going. We
the people means all the people. The Black Information Network
presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler. Many of us
already made up our minds about shopping at Target. Turns
out their abrupt change in their DEI policy is not
the deeper reason why some say we should have never
(01:40):
been shopping there. Who knew about Safe City All investigative
reporter Verrjon Sdar found out something that could prevent black
people from ever shopping there again.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Verrjon, welcome, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Why should black people be outraged at Target?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Target deserves a lot more scrutiny, mostly for its surveillance
policing partnership that began more than two decades ago here
in Minneapolis, and it spread through over two dozen cities
across the United States. And you know, this surveillance partnership,
it targeted black people, especially black youth.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
How exactly does this program run? You go into the store,
they got your picture on carery. They probably do like
a face recognition. What's going on?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You know?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
So it began with you know, Target trying to prevent
shoplifting in its stores, But what had happened was Target
it ended up creating surveillance programs in cities across the
country where it does business, and the surveillance expands far
(02:51):
beyond the store. Here in downtown Minneapolis. For example, Target
donated a network of security cameras to the City of
Minneapolis to monitor the downtown district where its global headquarters
are located, and so throughout Safe Cities with what they
call Safe Cities, that's the name of the surveillance project
(03:13):
that was started by Target. Throughout you know, the cities
across the US to participate in the program. Target has
donated you know, everything from security cameras to weapons and
equipment for police as well as here in Minneapolis, it funds,
(03:37):
It has funded the County Attorney's office as well as
the City Attorney's office to go after and prosecute some
of the lowest level offenders in in our city.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That's the sound of a flash mob tearing through and
tearing up a norstrum, shoplifting everything inside. But investigative order
Marjan Sardar says, what Target does is really not about
stopping theft.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
You know, the stories about organized retail crime also deserve
more scrutiny. You know, so Target has been they've been
using that narrative for more than twenty years, you know,
really blasting at organized crime. But as I examined, you know,
(04:27):
pill back some layers to see what's really going on.
There's really been no solid evidence that this has been
a problem like the media has portrayed. And so what
what we've seen is Target was shuttering its stores because
of low foot traffic. You know, Target expanded its operations
(04:49):
in the early two thousands to urban cores. You know,
historically Target has operated in the suburbs and exerbs. You know,
in the early two thousands, it decided to expand, and
it's its business model in trying to partner with cities
in downtown's especially to to create an urban shopping experience
(05:14):
for its suburban base. And and in most recent years,
Target has opened up little boutique retail stores in and
trendy urban communities. So for example, here in Uptown Minneapolis,
which is kind of a hipster neighborhood, it opened up
(05:35):
a small retail boutique and it shuddered. I think it
was the year before last, not because of retail theft,
but because of low sales. And what we saw is
around the same time, this this narrative or this crime
panic really started to increase, and you heard retailers Target,
(05:59):
Walgreens and others really start to cry about organized retail crime.
While Target has claimed that it has lost more than
a billion dollars annually to theft, and the math is
just not mathing when we break that down, and you know,
(06:21):
we divide a billion divided by Targets two thousand stores,
that amounts to a half million dollars annually per store,
which if we break that down further, that's over fourteen
hundred dollars a day. And it's just these numbers are
incredible because when we look deeper, shoplifting amounts to according
(06:46):
to the data, ninety three billion dollars a year nationally.
That's amongst all retailers. So Target is claiming it has
more than one percent of all shoplifting happening in its stores.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
He is really issue with Target is deeper.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well. Target has some of the most sophisticated surveillance technology
in the world, more sophisticated than your local police department.
They built crime labs, one here in the Twin Cities
and another in Las Vegas that they open up to
law enforcement. And as as I dug further into the program,
(07:23):
you know, it really wasn't about public safety at all.
It wasn't really about public safety. Downtown Minneapolis is actually
one of the safest neighborhoods throughout the city. And it
was it was really about rebranding. It was about revitalizing downtown.
You know, as in the early two thousands, many cities
across the country where we're trying to revitalize and grow
(07:46):
the population and grow the tag space, and so Minneapolis
was a part of that trend. In order to do that,
they believe that they needed to really kind of clean
up the downtown and get rid of homeless populations, vagrancy
street populations, black youth hanging out in downtown so they
(08:08):
can attract their suburban base right. Target has always been
known for having a white suburban base that really makes
up the bulk of its customers. And on top of that,
as I mentioned, they moved their global headquarters to downtown Minneapolis.
And so what they were really doing is they were
trying to recruit you know, what they call young urban professionals,
(08:32):
which is really just code word for young white suburbanites
who are often recruited to fill the jobs at these
Fortune five hundred companies. And in order to make them
comfortable working in downtown and moving downtown, they needed to
get rid of black youth particular and homeless populations.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Investigative reporter Merjan Sdar says what people need to know
besides targeting those hanging out on public streets, that sophisticated
surveillance is targeting you too.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
According to a Target executive, it's data analytics on its
customers is its most important asset. So what Target has
been doing for you know, decades now is they've been
compiling files on anybody and everybody that steps foot inside
their stores, including your children, anybody and everybody who visits
(09:33):
Target's website online. They compile information with data that they
buy and collect from other data brokers. They take you know,
video surveillance of their parking lots, they take pictures of
your license plates, and they keep all that in a file.
In fact, there's a story that was reported more than
(09:56):
a decade ago in the New York Times about how
Target know so much about you that they knew a
young girl, fifteen sixteen year old girl was pregnant before
her parents did because of her shopping patterns. Target has
been at the center of many class action lawsuits of
(10:16):
people who are suing them because of their data privacy
violations and you know, sweeping They collect sweeping data not
just from its surveillance cameras in their stores, but surveillance
cameras that they've set up in communities along with any
(10:41):
in every data that they can find about people. So yes,
Target has massive dossiers on millions of people, hundreds of
millions of people throughout this country.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Are other stores doing the same type of surveillance.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Walmart also has sophisticated surveillance systems. But Target is really
in a class of its own. Target trains police, Target
trains FBI, They train law enforcement officials across the world
in surveillance and forensics. I mean, like I said, they
opened up state of the art crime labs here in
(11:21):
the Twin Cities in Las Vegas, and they give free
access to law enforcement to use their crime labs. And
it's one of the few crime labs that is internationally accredited,
which means that Target can also go and testify in
court against criminals because they have this accreditation. And they
(11:44):
hire forensic specialists and video analysts in the whole nine.
So the FBI, federal law enforcement, local law enforcement frequently
tap Target to do this kind of work.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
He says, no surprise, who is most targeted black people.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
That's right. And so what we saw here in Minneapolis
was there was a program that grew out of Target's
Safe Zone surveillance initiative. In the program, it was called
the Downtown one hundred, and so on its face, the
Downtown one hundred is a list of the top one
(12:24):
hundred offenders in downtown Minneapolis. And so listeners might say, well,
that's not a bad thing, right, we should we should
go after these folks. And as you know, as we
dig a little bit deeper, what I found was the
top so called one hundred offenders were actually it was
actually a list compiled of people who had the most
(12:48):
contacts with police, meaning they didn't necessarily get arrested or
receive citations. But you know, they were on this list
because of you know, police police harassment, and police targeting them.
And what we saw was this list was you know,
almost all black.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So you mean they weren't shoplifting, They just had constant
contact with police.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Exactly, and and and many of them were shoplifting, don't
get me wrong, but not everybody on this list were shoplifting.
And it wasn't about violent crime at all. Right, So
this was this whole program was started to go after
the lowest level offenders, and it was based on the
broken windows theory, which is an old, old theory created
(13:35):
by law enforcement that said, if we if law enforcement
targets the most low level infractions and communities which don't
even register as crimes. Right, we're talking about violations or.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Or violating on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Exactly, violating city ordinances, so littering, even jaywalking, graffiti, stuff
like that that that you wouldn't typically go to, you
would get a ticket. So the whole program was designed
to target those because the theory said that if if
you go after the smallest infractions, it could prevent violent
(14:13):
crime and greater atrocities. Well, the broken windows theory has
been debunked as racist by scholars such as Michelle Alexander
who wrote the book The New Jim Crow, as well
as others, and it's never been proven to do what
they say it does.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Which was the justification for stopping frisk exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
And so what ended up happening here in Minneapolis was
we saw Minneapolis police using stop and friss techniques, you know,
to target what they called undesirable populations. So we're talking
about black youth. We're talking about, you know, vagrants, homeless
populations in downtown, the people that were really messing up business.
(14:59):
These popular were bad for business, and they were preventing
target suburban shopping base from coming downtown and spending its money,
and they were frightening. You know, the people that Target
were recruiting to work at its headquarters in downtown. And so,
you know this Downtown one hundred list, what it led
(15:21):
to was another list called the geographic restriction list or
the geo restrictions and so the geo restrictions list is
a list that police and prosecutors keep and it's essentially
a list, a banishment list. So if you end up
on the geo restriction list, it means you've been trespassed
(15:43):
from being downtown period. And again it's not based on
it's not necessarily based on the most arrests or the
most citations. The basis of this these lists are police contacts.
So if if you know you've been loitering outside of target,
which means you're just standing around hanging out, you know,
(16:06):
you could you could be targeted by police, you could
be cited, and you could end up if if a
number you know, if you end up with a high
number of contacts by police, you could end up being
banished from downtown Minneapolis. And so what we saw was
the Geo restriction list, just like the Downtown one hundred list,
was all, you know, majority black, almost all people of color.
(16:30):
It was it was said that three quarters of the
people on the Geo restriction lists were black, another ten
percent American Indian. Almost everybody on the list were people
of color. Stores have every right to have surveillance cameras
in their stores and you know, security or if they
want a partner with law enforcement, they have every right
(16:52):
to do that to prevent shoplifting. What they don't have
a right to do is to spy on you and
your children while you're shopping. What they don't have a
right to do is use their sophisticated technology their cameras
to really gather sweeping information on its customers. So, for example, Target,
(17:14):
their cameras and their stores can see the time on
your watch, theirs. Their cameras can see the credit card
numbers on your credit card when you're checking out. Right,
they have casino style surveillance technology, and so Target has
every right to protect its assets, to protect its merchandise.
(17:37):
But so do you, the customer. You have every right
to protect your assets, and your assets are your data.
You know a lot of people, you know, they believe
that once Trump came into office, you know, that was
it for DEI. These corporations are bowing down to the administration.
And what I really want people to know is they
(17:58):
have it backwards. It's really it's the corporations that came
in with Trump that first of all put him in office,
then came in and began gutting government services in programs
and policies that people have fought hard for years and
decades to put in place. So it's not Trump rolling
(18:20):
back the deis. Really it's the corporations telling the government,
pressing the government, pressuring the government to roll back these deis,
and then having Trump in his administration take the fall
for it.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Right, because nobody even asked these companies to do it.
They just hit it automatically.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
That's right. Well, well I would push back. I would
say Target was actually forced to do it because it
got busted, and it's it's racist hiring practice scanned.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
No, No, I'm talking about the DEI rollbacks.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Nobody asked them to do it.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You know, it's the corporations that they didn't want these
programs in the first place. Right, They were doing it
to stave off looming boycotts. Right. So when Target, you know,
when they were caught more than a decade ago, almost
a decade and a half ago, uh, with their race
based hiring practices, people were were gearing up to boycott Target.
(19:16):
So so in order to stave that off, you know,
they had to they had to create some of these policies.
So so Trump and his right wing administration, you know,
being back in power, gave corporations like Target the excuse
to roll them back.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
An idea on you.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I'd go on, all right, what's your name, Jeorge? I
was like, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Target is headquartered in the very city where George Floyd
was murdered under a white CoP's knee. So the commitment
here was supposed to stick, prompting the extra outrage by
protesters at Target.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Many of us were regular Target sho before they made
their announcement, and many of us were stunned that Target
one of these companies that stepped forward in the aftermat
of the Miniapolis police killing of George Floyd and how
to just make the decision that they were going to
(20:19):
invest more in diversity, equity and inclusion after that significant tragedy.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
We thought that they would hold a line. There is
more than loitering harassment, but a Target link accusing Target
of putting a black man behind bars for life.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
A young man named Marii Ali who was wrongfully incarcerated
in large part thanks to Target, who they're two of
their forensic specialists testified in court using junk science to
link him to a triple homicide that he did not commit.
He was only fifteen years old when he was locked up,
(20:55):
snatched from his family and his community, incarcerated for life.
He's in prison now doing the life sentence for crimes
that he did not commit.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
The story of Mahdi Ali still in prison for more
than half his life that's coming up. Listen to part two.
Blackland has reached out to Target for comment so far
and no response. Also read more of Merjan Sadar's excellent
reporting on Unicorn Riot dot Ninja. I'm Vanessa Tyler. Listen
(21:25):
and subscribe to Blackland. A new episode drops every week.
Target is the Target, for some.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Reason, didn't understand that its decision was not only offensive,
but it's bad for business.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Making Target pay by not paying them an economic boycott.
Protesters fed up with companies like Target rolling back DEI
Civil rights attorney Nakima Levy Armstrong says Target made a commitment,
a promise, then ripped it up and tossed it away.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
But instead they acted cowardly and they made the decisions
a bow down to the Trump administration.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Some have a real problem with Target, and this was
before it's DEI rollback.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
You know, when I heard about the DEI rollback in
the boycott, it made me think, you know, there's so
much more harm that Target has done to our communities
that really folks need to know.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
About what you have to hear the story behind Target.
Listen now in black Land and now as a brown person,
you just feel so invisible where we're from. Brothers and sisters.
I welcome you to this joyful exaya. We celebrate freedom.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Where we are.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I know someone heard something and where we're going. We
the people means all the people. The Black Information Network
presents Blackland with your host Vanessa Tyler. Many of us
already made up our minds about shopping at Target. Turns
out their abrupt change in their DEI policy is not
the deeper reason why some say we should have never
(01:40):
been shopping there. Who knew about Safe City All investigative
reporter Verrjon Sdar found out something that could prevent black
people from ever shopping there again.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Verrjon, welcome, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Why should black people be outraged at Target?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Target deserves a lot more scrutiny, mostly for its surveillance
policing partnership that began more than two decades ago here
in Minneapolis, and it spread through over two dozen cities
across the United States. And you know, this surveillance partnership,
it targeted black people, especially black youth.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
How exactly does this program run? You go into the store,
they got your picture on carery. They probably do like
a face recognition. What's going on?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You know?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
So it began with you know, Target trying to prevent
shoplifting in its stores, But what had happened was Target
it ended up creating surveillance programs in cities across the
country where it does business, and the surveillance expands far
(02:51):
beyond the store. Here in downtown Minneapolis. For example, Target
donated a network of security cameras to the City of
Minneapolis to monitor the downtown district where its global headquarters
are located, and so throughout Safe Cities with what they
call Safe Cities, that's the name of the surveillance project
(03:13):
that was started by Target. Throughout you know, the cities
across the US to participate in the program. Target has
donated you know, everything from security cameras to weapons and
equipment for police as well as here in Minneapolis, it funds,
(03:37):
It has funded the County Attorney's office as well as
the City Attorney's office to go after and prosecute some
of the lowest level offenders in in our city.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
That's the sound of a flash mob tearing through and
tearing up a norstrum, shoplifting everything inside. But investigative order
Marjan Sardar says, what Target does is really not about
stopping theft.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
You know, the stories about organized retail crime also deserve
more scrutiny. You know, so Target has been they've been
using that narrative for more than twenty years, you know,
really blasting at organized crime. But as I examined, you know,
(04:27):
pill back some layers to see what's really going on.
There's really been no solid evidence that this has been
a problem like the media has portrayed. And so what
what we've seen is Target was shuttering its stores because
of low foot traffic. You know, Target expanded its operations
(04:49):
in the early two thousands to urban cores. You know,
historically Target has operated in the suburbs and exerbs. You know,
in the early two thousands, it decided to expand, and
it's its business model in trying to partner with cities
in downtown's especially to to create an urban shopping experience
(05:14):
for its suburban base. And and in most recent years,
Target has opened up little boutique retail stores in and
trendy urban communities. So for example, here in Uptown Minneapolis,
which is kind of a hipster neighborhood, it opened up
(05:35):
a small retail boutique and it shuddered. I think it
was the year before last, not because of retail theft,
but because of low sales. And what we saw is
around the same time, this this narrative or this crime
panic really started to increase, and you heard retailers Target,
(05:59):
Walgreens and others really start to cry about organized retail crime.
While Target has claimed that it has lost more than
a billion dollars annually to theft, and the math is
just not mathing when we break that down, and you know,
(06:21):
we divide a billion divided by Targets two thousand stores,
that amounts to a half million dollars annually per store,
which if we break that down further, that's over fourteen
hundred dollars a day. And it's just these numbers are
incredible because when we look deeper, shoplifting amounts to according
(06:46):
to the data, ninety three billion dollars a year nationally.
That's amongst all retailers. So Target is claiming it has
more than one percent of all shoplifting happening in its stores.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
He is really issue with Target is deeper.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Well. Target has some of the most sophisticated surveillance technology
in the world, more sophisticated than your local police department.
They built crime labs, one here in the Twin Cities
and another in Las Vegas that they open up to
law enforcement. And as as I dug further into the program,
(07:23):
you know, it really wasn't about public safety at all.
It wasn't really about public safety. Downtown Minneapolis is actually
one of the safest neighborhoods throughout the city. And it
was it was really about rebranding. It was about revitalizing downtown.
You know, as in the early two thousands, many cities
across the country where we're trying to revitalize and grow
(07:46):
the population and grow the tag space, and so Minneapolis
was a part of that trend. In order to do that,
they believe that they needed to really kind of clean
up the downtown and get rid of homeless populations, vagrancy
street populations, black youth hanging out in downtown so they
(08:08):
can attract their suburban base right. Target has always been
known for having a white suburban base that really makes
up the bulk of its customers. And on top of that,
as I mentioned, they moved their global headquarters to downtown Minneapolis.
And so what they were really doing is they were
trying to recruit you know, what they call young urban professionals,
(08:32):
which is really just code word for young white suburbanites
who are often recruited to fill the jobs at these
Fortune five hundred companies. And in order to make them
comfortable working in downtown and moving downtown, they needed to
get rid of black youth particular and homeless populations.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Investigative reporter Merjan Sdar says what people need to know
besides targeting those hanging out on public streets, that sophisticated
surveillance is targeting you too.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
According to a Target executive, it's data analytics on its
customers is its most important asset. So what Target has
been doing for you know, decades now is they've been
compiling files on anybody and everybody that steps foot inside
their stores, including your children, anybody and everybody who visits
(09:33):
Target's website online. They compile information with data that they
buy and collect from other data brokers. They take you know,
video surveillance of their parking lots, they take pictures of
your license plates, and they keep all that in a file.
In fact, there's a story that was reported more than
(09:56):
a decade ago in the New York Times about how
Target know so much about you that they knew a
young girl, fifteen sixteen year old girl was pregnant before
her parents did because of her shopping patterns. Target has
been at the center of many class action lawsuits of
(10:16):
people who are suing them because of their data privacy
violations and you know, sweeping They collect sweeping data not
just from its surveillance cameras in their stores, but surveillance
cameras that they've set up in communities along with any
(10:41):
in every data that they can find about people. So yes,
Target has massive dossiers on millions of people, hundreds of
millions of people throughout this country.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Are other stores doing the same type of surveillance.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Walmart also has sophisticated surveillance systems. But Target is really
in a class of its own. Target trains police, Target
trains FBI, They train law enforcement officials across the world
in surveillance and forensics. I mean, like I said, they
opened up state of the art crime labs here in
(11:21):
the Twin Cities in Las Vegas, and they give free
access to law enforcement to use their crime labs. And
it's one of the few crime labs that is internationally accredited,
which means that Target can also go and testify in
court against criminals because they have this accreditation. And they
(11:44):
hire forensic specialists and video analysts in the whole nine.
So the FBI, federal law enforcement, local law enforcement frequently
tap Target to do this kind of work.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
He says, no surprise, who is most targeted black people.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
That's right. And so what we saw here in Minneapolis
was there was a program that grew out of Target's
Safe Zone surveillance initiative. In the program, it was called
the Downtown one hundred, and so on its face, the
Downtown one hundred is a list of the top one
(12:24):
hundred offenders in downtown Minneapolis. And so listeners might say, well,
that's not a bad thing, right, we should we should
go after these folks. And as you know, as we
dig a little bit deeper, what I found was the
top so called one hundred offenders were actually it was
actually a list compiled of people who had the most
(12:48):
contacts with police, meaning they didn't necessarily get arrested or
receive citations. But you know, they were on this list
because of you know, police police harassment, and police targeting them.
And what we saw was this list was you know,
almost all black.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So you mean they weren't shoplifting, They just had constant
contact with police.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Exactly, and and and many of them were shoplifting, don't
get me wrong, but not everybody on this list were shoplifting.
And it wasn't about violent crime at all. Right, So
this was this whole program was started to go after
the lowest level offenders, and it was based on the
broken windows theory, which is an old, old theory created
(13:35):
by law enforcement that said, if we if law enforcement
targets the most low level infractions and communities which don't
even register as crimes. Right, we're talking about violations or.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Or violating on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Exactly, violating city ordinances, so littering, even jaywalking, graffiti, stuff
like that that that you wouldn't typically go to, you
would get a ticket. So the whole program was designed
to target those because the theory said that if if
you go after the smallest infractions, it could prevent violent
(14:13):
crime and greater atrocities. Well, the broken windows theory has
been debunked as racist by scholars such as Michelle Alexander
who wrote the book The New Jim Crow, as well
as others, and it's never been proven to do what
they say it does.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Which was the justification for stopping frisk exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
And so what ended up happening here in Minneapolis was
we saw Minneapolis police using stop and friss techniques, you know,
to target what they called undesirable populations. So we're talking
about black youth. We're talking about, you know, vagrants, homeless
populations in downtown, the people that were really messing up business.
(14:59):
These popular were bad for business, and they were preventing
target suburban shopping base from coming downtown and spending its money,
and they were frightening. You know, the people that Target
were recruiting to work at its headquarters in downtown. And so,
you know this Downtown one hundred list, what it led
(15:21):
to was another list called the geographic restriction list or
the geo restrictions and so the geo restrictions list is
a list that police and prosecutors keep and it's essentially
a list, a banishment list. So if you end up
on the geo restriction list, it means you've been trespassed
(15:43):
from being downtown period. And again it's not based on
it's not necessarily based on the most arrests or the
most citations. The basis of this these lists are police contacts.
So if if you know you've been loitering outside of target,
which means you're just standing around hanging out, you know,
(16:06):
you could you could be targeted by police, you could
be cited, and you could end up if if a
number you know, if you end up with a high
number of contacts by police, you could end up being
banished from downtown Minneapolis. And so what we saw was
the Geo restriction list, just like the Downtown one hundred list,
was all, you know, majority black, almost all people of color.
(16:30):
It was it was said that three quarters of the
people on the Geo restriction lists were black, another ten
percent American Indian. Almost everybody on the list were people
of color. Stores have every right to have surveillance cameras
in their stores and you know, security or if they
want a partner with law enforcement, they have every right
(16:52):
to do that to prevent shoplifting. What they don't have
a right to do is to spy on you and
your children while you're shopping. What they don't have a
right to do is use their sophisticated technology their cameras
to really gather sweeping information on its customers. So, for example, Target,
(17:14):
their cameras and their stores can see the time on
your watch, theirs. Their cameras can see the credit card
numbers on your credit card when you're checking out. Right,
they have casino style surveillance technology, and so Target has
every right to protect its assets, to protect its merchandise.
(17:37):
But so do you, the customer. You have every right
to protect your assets, and your assets are your data.
You know a lot of people, you know, they believe
that once Trump came into office, you know, that was
it for DEI. These corporations are bowing down to the administration.
And what I really want people to know is they
(17:58):
have it backwards. It's really it's the corporations that came
in with Trump that first of all put him in office,
then came in and began gutting government services in programs
and policies that people have fought hard for years and
decades to put in place. So it's not Trump rolling
(18:20):
back the deis. Really it's the corporations telling the government,
pressing the government, pressuring the government to roll back these deis,
and then having Trump in his administration take the fall
for it.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Right, because nobody even asked these companies to do it.
They just hit it automatically.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
That's right. Well, well I would push back. I would
say Target was actually forced to do it because it
got busted, and it's it's racist hiring practice scanned.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
No, No, I'm talking about the DEI rollbacks.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Nobody asked them to do it.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You know, it's the corporations that they didn't want these
programs in the first place. Right, They were doing it
to stave off looming boycotts. Right. So when Target, you know,
when they were caught more than a decade ago, almost
a decade and a half ago, uh, with their race
based hiring practices, people were were gearing up to boycott Target.
(19:16):
So so in order to stave that off, you know,
they had to they had to create some of these policies.
So so Trump and his right wing administration, you know,
being back in power, gave corporations like Target the excuse
to roll them back.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
An idea on you.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I'd go on, all right, what's your name, Jeorge? I
was like, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Target is headquartered in the very city where George Floyd
was murdered under a white CoP's knee. So the commitment
here was supposed to stick, prompting the extra outrage by
protesters at Target.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Many of us were regular Target sho before they made
their announcement, and many of us were stunned that Target
one of these companies that stepped forward in the aftermat
of the Miniapolis police killing of George Floyd and how
to just make the decision that they were going to
(20:19):
invest more in diversity, equity and inclusion after that significant tragedy.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
We thought that they would hold a line. There is
more than loitering harassment, but a Target link accusing Target
of putting a black man behind bars for life.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
A young man named Marii Ali who was wrongfully incarcerated
in large part thanks to Target, who they're two of
their forensic specialists testified in court using junk science to
link him to a triple homicide that he did not commit.
He was only fifteen years old when he was locked up,
(20:55):
snatched from his family and his community, incarcerated for life.
He's in prison now doing the life sentence for crimes
that he did not commit.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
The story of Mahdi Ali still in prison for more
than half his life that's coming up. Listen to part two.
Blackland has reached out to Target for comment so far
and no response. Also read more of Merjan Sadar's excellent
reporting on Unicorn Riot dot Ninja. I'm Vanessa Tyler. Listen
(21:25):
and subscribe to Blackland. A new episode drops every week.
Host
Vanessa Tyler
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