While at the Water Tower Mall, Dr Carla Hightower saw a group of six male teenagers minding their business.
“They stood out because they looked so good. There were a large number of them, and they were so stylish, calm and mature,” Hightower says.
Soon after, she saw the mall security guard escorting the teens out of the building. The guard told her that she had no idea if the boys did anything wrong, reports the Chicago Sun Times.
Instead of letting things be, Hightower decided to explore it further as something told her that it was a case of racial profiling.
She was right.
The manager told her that they threw out the teens because they were loitering and ‘chasing girls’.
She escalated the issue further to the Water Tower Place management, General Growth Properties, accusing them of unfairly discriminating black teenage boys ‘based on their race.’
Her actions received the immediate response from the company’s executive vice president, human resources and communications, Kevin Berry.
Berry apologised to the six teens.
“I would say to each of them that we are … very sorry about what happened to you. It was wrong.”
It is not the first time such an incident has happened. In 2017, a group of black teens were banned from the Castleton Mall because of the colour of their skin.
