There is zero way to know for certain there wasn’t. Based on the story as it’s been told by this young lady there would be nothing more than a suspicion.
I’d like to trust her account and that if she suspected it was because of the color of her skin she’d have stated so. She states she was shamed for dressing provocatively. Nothing more.
It’s Woodland Mall, more than it’s Kentwood or Kent County or West Michigan*.
Back in the day, Woodland Mall ruled. And the competitor across the road – upstart Eastbrook – was little better than Rogers Plaza (locals and ex-pat Grand Rapidians will get the comparison). Over time, Woodland lost its very traditional anchors – Sears, JC Penney, Excelsior Buggy Whips, etc. – while Eastbrook picked up new up-and-comers like an Apple Store. So Woodland felt lottsa pressure to hang onto what little it had…
Then a couple of years ago, Woodland decided it was losing neighboring rich-white-housewife-from-Amway-land business due to dangerous black teenage boys lawlessly roaming the environs. (To be clear, nothing ever happened other than the typical bits of shoplifting.) So the mall seriously beefed up security presence.
As you would expect, the kids responded by creating a new game: Antagonize the Mall Cops Just Short of Being Kicked Out. The mall doubled down, and now there’s usually a couple of Kentwood cops hanging around as well.
Haven’t talked with the folks I know who work there about this incident, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this gal was either playing the game and pushed one too many buttons, or just took the heat for some mall cop getting wrong-footed by someone near her.
*Not that West Michigan is totally cool for minorities, but most of the trogs are the rural working class and the gated community suburban worrying class.
I say this is bullshit, there’s younger girls that wear much more scandalous clothing
my younger sister (14) said " i hope its fake news " 
She’s 20 years old and female; I’d say the odds of her ‘playing the game’ are pretty low.
The odds of her catching some backlash behind what other young people have done in name of amusing themselves are probably better.
Again, here’s an interjection from an actual person of color who’s personally dealt with both flagrant and subtle bigotry my whole entire life:
I’m not saying it’s automatically ‘a race thing’ based solely on the limited info given; but considering the area where this happened, and that the woman in question says other females were dressed similarly but were not penalized makes me have to wonder just what it was that made security single her out from everyone else.
I’d be remiss if I failed to even consider the possibility that racial bias may have played a role in this story.
Since the whole thing started with an anonymous complaint call, there is even not a bad chance that one of the other young people was having a joke at her expense. (“Heh heh, can we get someone thrown out of the mall for wearing a Disney shirt?”)
Ok, I’ve cleaned this out again.
Let’s please try and keep things civil, especially in the absence of specific information regarding the motives of the authority in question.
That’s also possible, if not necessarily very probable.
You’ve obviously never been a mischievous adolescent boy.
Kind of a dumb prank.
… Which makes it believable
Those flats are scandalously clashing with the rest of the outfit!
As much as the conservative media would have us think otherwise, this is the case. Everything in M. Atwood’s novel, which was written in the 1980s, was based on actual events in human history. Sure, she combined them all into her own special dystopian hell, but the restrictions and other actions foisted upon women were all drawn from actual historical events
THIS ON CRACK. It’s not about the personal or the place. Privilege is systemic. It ain’t about you personally or where you are from. Trust, I live in Alabama and the “but there are good people here too!” doesn’t fly.
Hence, the usual reply in the US, “but there are wonderful people here!” It’s not an attack on you personally or where you are from. It’s much, much more systemic than that. These things are culturally constructed in ways that even those of us who are aware can’t always parse. I feel like a broken record with every, single, response to “not all are x, y, or z.”
One of the most amazing conversations I’ve ever had was with a POC friend of mine. After one of the police shootings (maybe Ferguson?), she told me about “the talk” she’s had with her son, who was, BTW, 12 at the time, the same age as my son and they are friends. The “talk” consisted of how he should ever react if he was approached by the police. I was at once utterly ashamed and aghast. Of course, being who I am, I went and did research. This is no small thing, as POC know, but those of us who enjoy privilege do not: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/opinion/a-conversation-with-my-black-son.html?_r=0
To deny that race has something to do with an incident like this is akin to denying that many, many parents of children of color feel the need to have such talks.
People, it is real and it is now.
For reference, here’s the mall’s website, which spells out it’s code of conduct.
https://shopwoodlandmall.com/tools
For the record it, currently, has one entry concerning attire…
“4. Appropriate attire, including shirts and shoes, is required. Clothing with inappropriate words, phrases or graphics is not permitted and is subject to mall management approval.”
Not a single word of this would apply to what she’s wearing. This isn’t just a bunch of bullshit, here’s hoping she has grounds for a costly lawsuit. Fuck that mall.
pardon me, but you are showing too much skin of the wrong color.
~or~
pardon me, but you are showing too much skin of the wrong gender.
I, like you, fear it was likely both…smdh.
“Heil Trump!”
“Heil ihn doch selbst, wenn du denkst da sei was zu retten.” antwortete der deutsche Psychiater seinem amerikanischen Kollegen.
'Macht Amerika wieder gross!'
That’s just gross.
‘Fuhrer’ has never been a German word. The correct contemporary form would be ‘Trumpenführer’.
In all seriousness, current Germany, with all its flaws, stands out in the current world like one of its few beacons of stability, reason and sanity. I really mean it.
Contemporary Germany has Mutti Merkel. Nobody but Murdoch press or maybe the Sultan of Turkey or some other Fuhrer would be disconnected enough to compare her to Schicklgruber.
Maybe it would be okay to allow for the English-speaking world to use the misspelling of ‘Fuehrer’ as a diminutive term to describe all the ‘strong leadership’ wannabehitlers everywhere.
Explains why the weather was so hot.
dutch person?
Not most places that I have been and if that were the case in a shopping mall the mall would be negligent if it failed to clean it up promptly.
In general if I want to go barefoot I am the one taking the risk, the mall need not forbid my barefootedness, it should instead forbid the breaking and scattering of beer bottles.
Yes I am white, and you make an excellent point - I may not see it, I can only go on my experience. I grew up in a very small, very rural, and very conservative town about 50 north of Grand Rapids, which was also home to a single black man. He was actually one of my father’s best friends, and being single was a frequent dinner guest. Many people in the city pointed to him as proof that, once again they were better than everybody else because ‘look, we let a black man here - he gets to shop and eat in our restaurants and everything!’. But then I saw that change when first Jim became my Little League coach and half my team disappeared. Then he married a single mother (also black) from a medium sized city about 30 miles away, and suddenly having three “of them” in town was too much, and life became more difficult. Jim (and my father) both worked for a very enlightened business owner, who responded by giving Jim the transfer that he wanted, but also promoted him to a major division of the company.
So I’m not unfamiliar with prejudice up close, but my whiteness certainly means I’ll never grasp completely what it means to experience it. I’ve never been pulled over by the police for looking suspicious. I’ve never been followed around a store to make sure I didn’t steal anything. But the point I hoped to make was that, in my experience, not everybody in conservative, dutch West Michigan is like that. Even though we may not experience it, whities like me can empathize, and we can try to make a difference.
