I told you, I paid for (beeping).
Sir, relax.
Last Summer, my family was racially profiled
at a Nike store.
Joel was buying our son, Samuel, his first basketball.
We left the store and I heard a commotion.
A white woman was approaching my husband,
being all aggressive and in his face.
I told you we bought it.
what do you need the receipt for?
Just show it to her.
Because we didn't have our basketballs out.
What are you talking about?
When I saw this woman,
I thought to myself,
what the hell is this white woman approaching
this black man on the street?
What does it say on there?
Anytime a white woman gets into a conflict
with a black man in public, it's not a good situation.
Then she flagged down police officers.
My reaction was, "what is going on?"
I have no clue what's going on.
You guys want to tell me what's going on?
This is ridiculous, yeah.
They walked up to him and said,
"give her that stolen ball."
Joel rolled the ball across the street
and threw the receipt.
After showing the receipt,
the officers gave us the basketball back.
So, now you can refund his money and I want an apology.
This is (beeping) ridiculous.
And it's profiling.
I told her I wanted to return that ball
and that I wanted to speak with her manager immediately.
(dramatic music)
Come to find out, the white woman was the manager.
I had posted that video and there
was about 500,000 views the next day.
You knew better, I told you I paid for that.
Back up, babe.
I was worried my husband would get tased
or shot by these officers.
I feel embarrassed.
This situation is something that I went to therapy over.
What that woman did to us could have ruined my reputation
and harmed my career.
I work with 99% white people across my career.
And none of them ever had this happen to them.
Growing up, I remember being called the N word
and I was abused.
I don't want that for my son.
(dramatic music)
Well, thank y'all for being here.
Did this woman follow you out of the store immediately?
I mean, we're seeing her here.
How far out of the store are you right here?
About a block.
I'd say a block.
Were you surprised?
I was...
Did you see her coming? Surprised, confused...
I mean, all the above.
So, let me answer your question.
It's hard to relive the moment, right?
But to answer your question,
did she follow us out immediately?
She had her, she was lock step,
followed us right out of the door.
And she started kind of aggressively coming towards Joel,
saying something loudly to him and distracted him
from walking with our son.
And our son was walking, you know,
without either one of us very close in the middle
of the intersection.
And it's not 10 feet from the store door,
front door to the intersection.
So it was, it was dangerous.
It put us in physical harm.
I mean, it was very, it was sudden.
And that's why I had to...
I didn't realize what was going on.
So I had to put my son down and he
actually started taking off.
While you know, this lady is throwing out lies,
saying I took a ball.
When the police got there,
what was the attitude that you got from them?
They did a horrible job at serving and protecting us.
You know, when the police officers came on scene,
they pretty much in their mind already knew
that we stole the ball.
They didn't come to us asking us how our evening was.
They pretty much acted out of hate because of the lie
that she told that we stole the ball.
When they approached, they didn't even say, you know,
"excuse me, sir, can I see that item?
We need to ask you a question."
They approached my husband and they said,
"give her the stolen ball."
In effect, they were stealing our property.
Wow.
She sicked those officers on us
and told them that we stole the ball
that we couldn't have stole
because obviously I didn't steal it,
'cause I had a receipt for the ball.
I feel like just lying to a police officer, you know,
could have got us killed.