Retail ****** in South Africa

Retail ****** - or simply the business of retail?

Retail ****** is real in South Africa. It happens everyday to black people.

The retail chains will want you to believe that there is no such thing in South Africa, yet their prejudicial practices evinced in the differential treatment of shoppers at stores that serve either majority black or majority white customers, are patently ******.

Section 9 (the equality clause) of the South African constitution, which stipulates that no one may unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on grounds including race, ethnic and social origin, colour, and that ************** on one of these grounds is unfair, and thus ********, is violated by South African retailers every hour of the day, and they get away with it. That would mean the retailers also get away with transgressing Section 1, which deals with human dignity, of the constitution.

Woolworths When the Maponya Mall store opened in 2007, Woolworths, one of the anchor tenants, did have security personnel at the time who demanded, as is general practice at Soweto Malls and stores opened by major retailers in the historically black township, that shoppers, who are almost entirely black, present purchase slips at the exit point of the store, until for one reason or another, after a while, the store halted the practice altogether. It is most likely that the exit purchase slip check policy was s****ped because shoppers complained that it was humiliating and the Maponya Mall store had to halt it entirely, though it still occurs occasionally. Yet, you would find no evidence of such a practice ever implemented at stores such as Hyde Park Corner or Sandton City where the majority of regular shoppers are likely to be white.

Verily, you would be hard pressed to find any store that attracts a majority of white shoppers who are white where there has ever been any policy that requires shoppers to present a purchase slip upon exit from the store. Two questions beg: Why was the practice implemented at the Maponya Mall store, and why was it later discarded?

Yet, to this day, Woolworths Maponya Mall security personnel still check trollies and parcels of incoming and outgoing customers which never happens at Woolworths Hyde Park Corner.

The differential is the race or social class of the shoppers. In a word, ******.

PnP PnP stores at Maponya and Jabulani malls in Soweto still have a standard practice for shoppers, who are mainly black African, to present a purchase slip or receipt to security personnel, who occasionally rummage through the shopping bags to ascertain if the purchase slip matches the products or items in the shopping bags, and to sign off as authentic. This practice is not implemented by the grocer at stores under the same PnP brand at the Hyde Park Corner and Sandton City malls.

The differential is because the shoppers at the Hyde Park and Sandton City stores are likely to be white and Indian, and are historically the wealthiest races in South Africa because apartheid laws favoured whites and Indians more than Africans and Coloureds, whereas, the shoppers at Maponya Mall and Jabulani Mall are mainly Coloured and black African customers, who are historically the most impoverished strata in South Africa.

In other words, race still decides economics in South Africa, as has been the case in the past, hence the differential treatment of various races of shoppers, irrespective of the constitutional imperative of treating different races the same, much as we accept that in a capitalist country with a cartel (oligopolistic) retail sector, a store in Hyde Park Corner will likely be be more posh than a store at Maponya Mall. But, should economics decide fundamental respect for human dignity?

The bigwig-windbag executives and managers of the retailer, may well claim that there are greater numbers of shelf items lost due to pilferage at stores in Soweto than stores in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. This would be a ****** insinuation that only black Africans and Coloured folk *****, such that they have to be incessantly subjected to such humiliating and certainly unconstitutional practices as if their human dignity which enjoys constitutional protection matters not, and only the human dignity of whites and Indians matters, because they do not *****.

To add insult to injury, here is a sordid daily practice at the Maponya Mall PnP Hyper store. Because all shoppers are prohibited from entering the store with their knapsack or shopping bags from other stores, they are compelled to leave them at the parcel counter which then presents them with an actual numbered shopping basket that is not meant for shopping but that they carry around with them as proof that the relevant shoppers left their bags at the parcel counter, and upon presentation of this shopping numbered basket back to the parcel counter operator, the shopper is then given back their belongings. This practice is ****** because it debases the person of the shopper on the basis of their race, and is humiliating. And, you should see the Maponya Mall PnP queueing railings that look as though they were designed for cattle to be led through a dip tank or a culvert. Shoprite Checkers Checkers stores at Sandton City Mall and Emmarentia, where shoppers in the majority are white and Indian, do not have the dignity-impairing practice of every shopper presenting a purchase slip to the security personnel upon exit, or security personnel who then rummage through their shopping bags and plastic packets to verify if all the items were bought and not pinched, and of course, the humiliation that comes with it all. But the exit check of purchase slips is in full force at Shoprite Jabulani Mall and Eyethu Lifestyle Centre branches in Soweto where the shoppers are largely black Africans. Again the question is, ‘Why the difference?’ Certainly the argument about minimising pilferage holds no water. This is blatant ******.

Clicks The same racial differential persists at Clicks stores at the Maponya Mall and Jabulani Mall, but not at the Clicks stores at the Hyde Park Corner and Sandton City. Once again, why is there a differential in the treatment of customers who shop at Hyde Park Corner Clicks and those who shop at Maponya Mall or Jabulani Mall Clicks? Is it their race? The majority of Hyde Park shoppers are white and Indian. The majority of shoppers at Maponya Mall and Jabulani Mall are African and Coloured. Go figure.

The General Trend Other retail brands, namely, Game, Mr. Price, Truworths, Cambridge, Food *****s, West Pack, (at the Eyethu Lifestyle Centre branch) and many other smaller grocers and retail chain stores that have these plainly ****** practices in place, are practicing retail apartheid. The claim that these clearly ****** differentials are in place to the intent stem losses caused by pilferage, a cheap load of blarney, blether and bosh.

It may also well be the case that black people in general, are too lax about the violation of their human dignity, because, how black people can allow such blatant violation of their dignity and reward these retailers for it, befuddles the mind.

This calls for a class action of no less than ZAR20 billion against the relevant retailers for violation of constitutional rights and impairment of human dignity for so many years since the constitution was promulgated on December 10, 1996. Such class action is imperative. __________________________________________________________________________