Last edited Wed Oct 23, 2013, 01:50 PM - Edit history (1)

1. What kind of an asshole buys a $349 belt?

2. What kind of asshole calls the cops on somebody for buying a $349 belt?

3. What kind of assholes arrest somebody for buying a $349 belt?

I wouldn't, but I'm not going to criticize him...he's 19, works and goes to school.

The answer to your other 2 questions are huge, racist assholes.

I had hoped that triviality of question #1 would be sufficiently self-evident to stand in stark contrast to questions 2 & 3.

...I think you're being a bit harsh on the young man.

When I was 19, I spent a summer doing temp work in NYC. It was the first time I lived away from home, and I stayed in a cheap room, and I had some spending money. One of the very first things I spent that money on was a small leather purse that cost $80. That was a lot of money then, very similar to buying a $349 belt nowadays.

Since then, I have not been the kind of person to buy expensive handbags. But whenever I find myself asking what kind of person does buy expensive handbags (and I do find myself asking that, from time to time...), I remember myself as a young woman, looking at all the fine leather items in that store, and being irresistibly drawn to that handbag.

Well at least no one arrested me for it.

And it's sad but unsurprising that he was singled out because a black male making a high-price purchase on a credit card is an automatic alarm bell for a certain type of personality.

...and I did recognize the point you were making, and that #1 was more of a rhetorical device than your actual opinion of the young man. It just seemed worth pointing out that buying a $349 belt is not that horrible.

I'd like to see a picture of it, though.


To paraphrase a comedian from years ago, if I paid $349 for a belt, you can bet that it's the only thing I would wear, to make sure that people notice it.

...you for thinking he's an a**hole for buying a $349 belt, or me for chalking it up to youthful folly. These days, young people do seem to put a premium on expensive brand-name items, and I do disapprove, so I guess our outlooks aren't really that different. My only issue was calling him an a**hole, but again, clearly you were going for a rhetorical effect.

So I guess it doesn't apply to him.

If he kept it is he still an asshole.

Oh never the fuck mind.

Very easily pushed.

are a relatively good investment of clothing dollars because they last so long.

I have a black leather clutch purse that I paid WAY too much for over 30 years ago when money was very tight (school loans, car loan, entry level income), but I bought it to KEEP, and if I was lucky, use until I died. It's looking like that will happen.

I knew quality, and I knew I wouldn't get that sort of sale price on an item I REALLY liked for a very long time. It's a Philippe. Don't know if the company is around anymore, but that gorgeous leather handbag was worth every dime I paid.

I've seen women do that kind of stuff frequently (even college age women)...Money is relative to some people...Isn't there some famous high-end joint in NYC that sells an $80 cheeseburger? What kind of person pays $1.5 million for a new car??

Questions 2 and 3; the answer is the same -- People who racially profile...

I'd buy it...

Just saying.

Thats your first fucking question?

Shame on you

The kid was big time discriminated against and you call him an asshole.

WTF

I have replied more expansively elsewhere in-thread.

You called him one right here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3907344

You post a bikini of Halle Berry in order to proclaim your outrage at a "hottest celebrities" thread, but because you missed the point of my post--which most other people have grasped pretty readily--you think that I'm confused.

1. What kind of an asshole buys a $349 belt?

2. What kind of asshole calls the cops on somebody for buying a $349 belt?

3. What kind of assholes arrest someobody for buying a $349 belt?

Please explain question one?

You called the kid an asshole and now you're trying to pull the comment out of your ass.

Most readers were able to understand this pretty readily.

Are you an asshole for missing a glaringly obvious rhetorical point? No.


But it is curious that you harp on this one issue as if you simply can't see past it.

That shit better be endorsed by Batman himself.

But hey, if he wants to pay that much for a belt, that's his call.

.. it ^^^^^

You've got spending options.

In California, not having a car is not much of an option.

$$$$$$

1: Youngsters that don't have a lot of other responsibilities and people that have never had to learn the value of a dollar (the privileged)

2: Racists, ageists and ignoramuses (although they are often one in the same).

3. See answer 2.

Unbelievable.

NYPD and Barney's stepped in it big time.

police are in trouble for making the stop period, it was a legal purchase, once the card was accepted in full for payment....Where were the store dicks? Who signed the complaint?

(in essence) working for Barneys? For example, check out the bolded part of the article... Gee, I wonder if the NYPD would ever be found in plain clothes 'periodically visiting' a store in Queens or Harlem with a similar issue? Somehow, I doubt it.

would be to see more civil lawsuit awards that cost municipalities millions of dollars.

I am so tired of this. Again and again these monsters let their masks slip and reveal their true purpose. I apologize to Mr. Trayon Christian, on behalf of his fellow Americans.

Bingo!!!!

The hidden layer of racism....you have no RIGHT to have what we have.

That is what really happened! UGH.

Oh, I don't know. Let's say Barney's actually trained its employees to behave professionally and pay them a living wage. Cause you can be pretty sure that this retail worker at an upscale store wasn't raking in the big bucks.

But instead of doing that Barney's is going to pay maybe a half million dollars hourly for the two hours this former Barney's customer spent in lock-up.

Training and $40 vs. untrained racist and $1 million (or so).

Was it a MasterCard? Priceless.

Then they earn a commission on top of that. A "counter manager" who could be a cashier or a manager of a men's accessories counter makes 20/hr.

Training is very important and so is a live able wage which those numbers don't represent especially in NYC.

their hobby
they paint them, they buy and sell them on ebay

mind you not over 300 bucks at one time
but over time---damn

my youngest flips a bunch of burgers to afford it

but at the end of the day

it is his money

Probably had an ulcer after seeing the front page of the Daily News.

but so many others cannot come to grips with their not-so-subtle racism.

then emerged from bankruptcy in 1999.

The store has changed hands twice which is obviously from bad management, but they're harassing
a black kid for splurging.

Funny, the criminal pointing finger at the innocent to create a diversion.

and the CUSTOMER is the criminal ???

When they wouldn't show her (the black woman) the $12,000 (I can't remember how much it was; I just remember it was a lot; maybe it was $36,000) handbag.

If your face is black, you are immediately under suspicion, whether you are a 19-year-old engineering student or one of the richest and most famous women in the world.

This is a special kind of discrimination. I grew up in postwar America, during the Civil Rights era. I remember as a preteen when the rabbi of the temple we went to came to tell us kids about the experiences he'd just had marching next to MLK in Selma. And he told us to remember one thing, as members of a group that had been discriminated against: no matter what kind of discrimination you thought you faced (redlining, job discrimination, and other forms of discrimination were still prevalent in US cities and towns), you were still privileged as "white-looking" Americans. Black youth our age could never mask the color of their skin, and that would be an ever-present mark for bigots to discriminate against, every day in every way. He wanted us to feel what that was like.

Nothing's changed much since the early 1960s. (I take that back, a lot has changed, but remnants of this kind of discrimination are still widespread in our society.)

Yes, the racist stereotyping is similar, but nobody at the shop in Switzerland called the police about the matter. This young man was actually arrested here - despite the fact that the sale was made (which means his debit card account had the funds to cover this purchase).

If he signed for it, as the article indicates, then they likely (but not definitely) ran it as a credit card rather than debit. That means a customer could potentially lack sufficient funds yet still complete the transaction depending on the time of day (around 19:00, apparently) and other factors.

Of course, that absolutely doesn't explain why the cops were so quick to track him down and pounce on him like that.

I think not.

I think not.

The question was whether or not the transaction verified the funds in his account, and it was asserted here that he used his debit card.

If he had to sign for it, it's more likely that it was processed as a credit card transaction.


That doesn't say anything at all about the obvious racism in this case; it simply examines the mechanics of the transaction.

If not...your point is moot.

You seem to thnk that you're zinging me with the fact that they called the cops on him because he's black, but reply #44 states outright that the mechanics of the transaction are independent of that fact.

In short, I already made the point that you're trying to make now.

Tough week for retail racism.

i will never set foot in that place.

... to run the card as a debit? Probably not. Which makes it their problem.

And it could be that the DIDN'T want to run it as a debit to get a signature, thinking they had snared a dangerous belt thief.

I'm pretty sure the clerk that rang up this transaction is looking for another job.

I've been to lots of stores that don't offer debit as an option, requiring signatures for every transaction. They might have run it as credit simply because that's how they do it.

He had his ID and produced it. If the name was the same as on the debit card WTF???

When I was that age, waaaay back in the early 80's, all I wanted on EARTH one Christmas was a Gucci purse. It didn't have to be a big one, it just needed to be GUCCI! It was exciting as anything to get my hands on that bag. Young people are into fashion, everything is fresh and new. They don't have the thoughts I now have like "yea, I remember when that was in style about 20 years ago". The world is so new it is all really important to get little pieces of it's shine.

A college kid that wants something that looks really cool is hardly new. Unfortunately neither is disgusting racism.

WTF???

this happened in the northern state of New York? I've been led to believe things like this only happened in the racist south.






Yeah, it's sarcasm.

NYPD screwed up.

Sad, but that's the state of things in this country. smh