Black Executives Are Sharing Their Experiences of Racism, Many for the First Time [View all]

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Mr. Witherspoon, senior vice president of operations at Target Corp, had just returned from an early-evening jog and was loading the dishwasher when he noticed flashlights in his window. His heart began racing, until a floodlight switched on. Four police officers were standing in his backyard. When Mr. Witherspoon reached for his window to talk to them, three pointed guns at him. He told the story of the incident, which happened in 2008, at a meeting with about 200 fellow Target executives earlier this month.

“I was standing behind my kitchen sink with my hands up,” he recalled. “It was prompted by a neighbor saying there was a suspicious black guy running through the neighborhood,” he said he later found out.

Mr. Witherspoon, 46, a former Navy officer with an M.B.A., wanted his co-workers to hear directly from someone they know. “The education, the degrees, the fact that I’m a veteran—none of it matters,” he said. “I’m a black man and someone could perceive me as a threat.”

More..

https://www.wsj.com/articles/black-executives-are-sharing-their-experiences-of-racism-many-for-the-first-time-11593182200 (subscription)

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I suppose it never dawned on the police that a "suspicious black guy" would be washing dishes at home..