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Retail News: NBA Player Accuses Jeweler of Racial Profiling October 21, 2015 (0 comments)
Whitefish Bay, WI—Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers, an upscale jeweler and Rolex dealer, was publicly accused of racial profiling on Monday when employees refused to admit John Henson, a center for the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team. The incident stemmed from a misunderstanding about the car Henson was driving. Henson vented his outrage online, which was picked up by national media.
The misunderstanding was simple: Henson’s vehicle—part of an endorsement agreement the ballplayer has with a local Chevrolet dealer—looked very similar to one that had been suspected of casing the store a week earlier.
According to a local television report, the jeweler had been the victim of two robberies in the past two years. About a week before Henson’s visit, employees had begun to suspect the store was being cased again. Several suspicious phone calls had asked about merchandise in stock and store closing hours—a pattern consistent with casing—and plainclothes officers parked across the street had observed a black Chevrolet Tahoe with dealer plates carrying four individuals behaving in a suspicious manner. Calls to the dealership confirmed the individuals were not affiliated with the dealer and that the plates were stolen. The police told the jeweler to call if they saw the car again.
Henson’s vehicle—also a Chevrolet with dealer plates—aroused suspicion and the jeweler called police, who questioned Henson about his vehicle. It was quickly determined to be an unfortunate coincidence, but by then the damage was done.
Henson’s detail of the incident on his Instagram feed went viral. Meanwhile, Tom Dixon, president of Schwanke-Kasten, met with Henson the following day to apologize in person for the misunderstanding. He posted an apology on the store’s blog as well.
In part, Dixon said, “Racial profiling is never acceptable. I appreciated the opportunity to personally meet with John Henson this morning to look him in the eye, shake hands, and apologize. No one should ever have to experience what he experienced...We believe that everyone—professional athlete or not—deserves to be treated with dignity and respect."
“He was sincere in his apology,” Henson said of Dixon, and acknowledged how prior incidents sparked the jeweler’s reaction. He praised Dixon in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal for taking ownership of the situation and working to make it right.
"I might have a watch and we might not be talking about this. It's one of those things that could have been prevented. The owner took ownership of what he needed to do to fix his polices, and I'm happy to hear that," he told the paper.
Still, he said, an apology didn’t make what happened right, and the Bucks’ coach, Jason Kidd, concurred.
"It's a great life lesson for everyone," Kidd told the paper. "For our young team, for our city, for our state; it's something for us to learn from. Everybody makes mistakes; nobody is perfect. For the owner to come and apologize to John, personally, was a step in the right direction. It's an issue worldwide, not just here in Milwaukee. We have to do a better of job of addressing it and also learning from it. Our guys here have learned a life lesson at a very young age.
"We see it on TV every day. Then, when it hits home to one of our family members, it becomes real. It's nothing new; it just happened to a member of our family. It's a lesson learned for everybody. How do you digest it and how do you learn from it? I thought John did a great job this morning in the meeting."
Henson, meanwhile, told the paper that businesses profiling all blacks as criminals “is a real issue,” and told the paper he plans to work to raise awareness of it.
Read more here, here, and here. Click here to read president Tom Dixon’s letter on the store’s website.