Written by: Stewart
On October 22nd 2015 Samantha Grant was shopping for a winter coat and ventured into the Queen West Aritzia in Toronto, Ontario. While in the store, Grant was unable to find a coat in her size on the rack so she asked a store employee to help her find the appropriate size. Grant then overheard the employee say that she didn't know why she was helping Grant find a coat as she probably wouldn't be able to afford the coat because she was Black.
The employee's remark shocked Grant and she left the store. When she arrived home Grant wrote to Aritzia and described what had occurred. After getting no reply from Aritzia for several days Grant and some friends decided to publicly send tweets to the company's twitter account describing the incident and requesting a reply. Grant then received an email reply from Aritzia and the company replied publicly to the comments on twitter. As a result the store has decided to do a number of things which includes "conducting ‘one-on-one meetings’ with staff at its Queen West store". Grant was scheduled to meet with Aritzia's vice-president of retail on October 30th and hopes to continue pressuring Aritzia into taking the proper steps "to make sure that no one else had to feel that pain that I felt that day."
The employee's remark shocked Grant and she left the store. When she arrived home Grant wrote to Aritzia and described what had occurred. After getting no reply from Aritzia for several days Grant and some friends decided to publicly send tweets to the company's twitter account describing the incident and requesting a reply. Grant then received an email reply from Aritzia and the company replied publicly to the comments on twitter. As a result the store has decided to do a number of things which includes "conducting ‘one-on-one meetings’ with staff at its Queen West store". Grant was scheduled to meet with Aritzia's vice-president of retail on October 30th and hopes to continue pressuring Aritzia into taking the proper steps "to make sure that no one else had to feel that pain that I felt that day."
Grant's story is not unique and reminds me of a recent report in which a muslim woman, Asma Al-Shawarghi, from Montreal was told to "go back to your own country" by a Costco employee while she was shopping with her two daughters (coincidentally also while buying a winter coat). Not getting the desired response from Costco, Al-Shawarghi decided to turn to the CBC to report on her story in addition to filing complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission.
These are two of a great number of examples showing the ability that social and traditional media has to give average people the power to be fight back against injustices committed employees of large companies or by the companies themselves.
The use of media as a means to fight against injustice is not without its drawbacks. First, as is often pointed in the comments under stories, tweets, or posts about topics such as these, the people making the claims could be lying. In the two stories that I described above some critics thought the women were simply lying about their stories in hopes of getting free coats. It is always possible that when people share claims like these in the media that they lying but I would argue that the fact that the stories are in the media would make people less likely to lie. Once a story is shared online it can't be taken back. If it is later found out that the complainant made up the story there is the likelihood of a backlash against the complainant. The fear of getting caught in a lie may prevent some from making up stories.
One other drawback with this method of obtaining justice is that the story is in the hands of the court of public opinion. Many people who share these stories about being insulted at the hands of a company are further insulted by the commenters themselves. This is exactly what happened to a friend who shared this story about her experience while traveling on a Toronto city bus. The majority of the comments she received were supportive but she did receive several which attacked her character and motives.
Despite these two flaws social and traditional media are a great resource for regular people who are wronged by corporations or institutions. While not a perfect system it gives some power to regular people and provides them with options to use in addition to turning to the police or Human Rights Commissions. Most often the people in these situations just want a well deserved apology and to be sure that what they went through won't happen to another person.
Hey you leonix tech bloggers!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, this is really interesting. I recall reading about the first story you presented about Samantha Grant. It is sad that this sort of thing is still so common. That being said, ignoring it would mean that nothing would change, so I believe that it is important we acknowledge them as you have in this post.
It is interesting that you talk about the use of social media as a means of justice for those who have been wronged. Often social media forums are talked about in a very negative light as people hide behind the anonymity it provides in order to harass and demean others (often far worse than we ever hear of in the non-online settings). That being said, I can see that social media seems an appropriate method for getting your story out there in order to make change happen. Certainly as was demonstrated in Samantha Grant's case where her first action, contacting Aritzia directly did not receive any response. The negative online pressure is absolutely an effective means of forcing the hand of corporations and government to take action through internal investigation and appropriate actions following their findings. If anything I feel that this is more effective than going to the police or companies such as the Better Business Bureau where they may focus on other cases first.
Do you think that this sort of social justice is becoming more common? that people are turning to social media in order to make change on their own terms? As well, you mentioned that there is a fear that is present online that people share this stories falsely for personal gain, is there actually any truth to this? Has there been a case where this has actually been recorded?
I personally have never heard of such a claim. More often than not I hear a case such as Samantha's come up and it seems to be true as the company then takes actions to fix their internal problems.
Altogether this is very interesting and I do like that you acknowledge that despite not being a perfect system, social and traditional media are great resources for regular people to make change.
Thank you for sharing!
-Ian