Is American Urban Culture Beyond Repair? Retail Reparations Pt. V

The store clerk confronts the mother and informs her that the child is holding merchandise she did not pay for.

“Excuse me, your child didn’t pay for that,” he explains politely.

Without missing a beat, the mother immediately gets aggressive.

“Whatchu talkin’ bout?”

“The thing in his hand. I didn’t charge him for it.”

“My baby ain’t gotta steal a motherf***in’ thing up out this motherf***in’ store!” the woman brazenly declares, as the robbery is in process in broad daylight with the unpaid-for product in her child’s hand while she presumably understands she’s being recorded.

She then launches into a loud and largely unintelligible tirade combined with theatrical gestures.

Related: Barbados PM Demands $4.9 TRILLION for Slavery Reparations, British Crown Seemingly Agrees

The scene intersects perfectly with two other themes we’ll be exploring coming up in “Is American Urban Culture Beyond Repair?,” which I may have to just turn into a Don Quixote-length book at some point due to the ample supply of material.

Those two other themes are: the learned behavior of criminality by children in the urban community, and the complete and total lack of any sense of shame (which progressive social engineers cultivate, seemingly intentionally.)

The problem here is one of maximum entitlement combined with zero sense of shame or social responsibility — a shamelessness that doesn’t exist in other parts of the world, where, of course, theft happens, but happens quietly, in the dark, with a sense of shame attached to the perpetrator, not executed in broad daylight with threats and accusations of racism or whatever hurled at anyone who might try to intervene, such as the proprietor of the establishment that is being burgled.

Shaniqua baby dindu nuffins pic.twitter.com/S0LguZePPF

— Machiavelli (@TheRISEofROD) July 21, 2025

Lest anyone take the individual incidents depicted here and in prior installments as anecdotes to claim that I’ve cherry-picked non-representative videos from X, just as anyone could with any particular demographic, per Statista, American blacks are overrepresented in terms of their share of the population in every single category of property crime, including shoplifting — and, in many cases, such as motor vehicle theft, wildly so.

Related: Black Actress Worth Estimated $12 Million Cries About Low Pay, Cites Racism

Just for fun, I prompted ChatGPT: “Why do African-Americans commit retail theft at higher rates than whites?”

Interestingly, and perhaps predictably, true to its programming, it did not outright dispute the premise, but led with the caveat “that question is sensitive, and it’s important to handle it carefully and accurately,” followed by a litany of excuse-making, such as bias in “law enforcement and reporting,” unemployment, and poverty.

None of the reasons included “because Democrats told them they literally could do whatever they want and blame it on slavery.”

Via ChatGPT (emphasis contained in original answer):

That question is sensitive, and it’s important to handle it carefully and accurately.

Short answer:
There is no biological or cultural trait that makes African-Americans more likely to commit retail theft. When differences show up in arrest or store-reported data, researchers overwhelmingly point to social, economic, and systemic factors, as well as bias in enforcement and reporting, rather than race itself.

Here are the main factors scholars discuss:

1. Poverty and economic inequality

Retail theft is strongly linked to economic stress, not race.

• African-Americans are disproportionately affected by poverty, unemployment, and wage gaps due to historical and ongoing discrimination.
• People under financial strain are statistically more likely to engage in survival-based theft (food, necessities).

When researchers compare people at the same income level, racial differences in theft shrink dramatically or disappear.

2. Over-policing and surveillance

African-American communities and shoppers are often watched, stopped, and reported more.

• Stores may monitor Black customers more closely (“shopping while Black”).
• This leads to higher detection and arrest rates, even if actual behavior is similar across groups.
• White shoppers are more likely to steal without being noticed or reported.

So statistics often reflect who gets caught, not who steals more.

3. Bias in data

Retail theft data usually comes from:

• Store reports
• Police arrests
• Loss-prevention records

These are not neutral measurements. If one group is surveilled more, they will appear more in the data.

4. Neighborhood conditions

Retail theft rates correlate with:

• Under-resourced schools
• Fewer job opportunities
• Higher cost of living relative to income

Because of segregation and historical policies (like redlining), African-Americans are more likely to live in areas with these risk factors.

5. Not all theft is the same

It’s also important to note:

• Retail theft by organized crime and employee theft (which cause most retail losses) are often not reflected in street-level arrest data.
• Employee theft is disproportionately committed by store employees, who are often white, but is less visible to police statistics.

6. What research does not support

Research does not support claims that:

• African-Americans are more prone to crime by nature
• Culture or values cause higher theft
• Race itself is a meaningful predictor once social conditions are accounted for

Those ideas are widely considered misleading or incorrect in modern social science.

Bottom line

When differences appear, they are best explained by:

• Economic inequality
• Unequal enforcement
• Bias in detection and reporting
• Historical and structural disadvantages

Race explains very little. Circumstances explain a lot.