Created: 6/10/2003 9:59:10 PM 
JACKSONVILLE, FL - All Manuel Lopes wanted to do was complete his home renovation. But an order he placed for carpet has now turned into a case of racial discrimination.
"I felt more shocked than anything else." Lopes said.
Lopes ordered his carpet and drapes from the JC Penney store in Orange Park, he said. When the representative was schedule to come to his home to take measurements, she called from a nearby store to say she was not going to make it.
According to Lopes when he asked her why and she said she was scared
Lopes says he was shocked as he lives in a nice neighborhood, on the river, even a Jacksonville Sheriff Office sergeant lives down the street.
Nationally, recent lawsuits against Macy's, Dillard's and J.C. Penneys are attracting new attention to racial profiling of consumers, something minority shoppers say has long been an unfortunate fact of life.
While the retail industry says profiling cases are isolated and the result of overly aggressive employees rather than company policies, minority customers complain they've been viewed suspiciously, sometimes refused service and falsely accused of shoplifting.
Consumers may have accepted such treatment as the norm in years past, said Jerome D. Williams, director of the Center for Marketplace Diversity at Howard University. But, increasingly, "people are tired of it," he said. "People recognize they have some legal rights now."
Jacksonville resident Paula Mays, 45, claims she was falsely accused of shoplifting, slammed into a wall and pushed to the floor after she exchanged a belt at a J.C. Penney store in Regency Mall. Mays sued the company in April in federal court, claiming her civil rights were violated.
"I don't think I ever would have been treated like that if I wasn't black," said Mays, 45, who was shopping with her teenage daughter. "I don't want anybody else to be treated like that."
Minority consumers, primarily blacks and Hispanics, have complained for years of mistreatment in hotels, restaurants, and a range of other stores. Denny's, a restaurant chain accused of making blacks prepay for meals, paid $54 million to settle a class-action lawsuit in 1994, and Adam's Mark Hotel settled allegations that its Daytona Beach hotel discriminated against black guests for $1.1 million in 2001.
According to a recent Gallup poll, half of U.S. blacks said they felt blacks in their community were treated less fairly than whites in stores and malls.
Williams and two other business professors found more than 80 consumer profiling cases filed in federal courts since 1990. Even more cases have been brought in state courts. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many have been filed by Arabs and Muslims, said Anne-Marie Harris, an assistant professor at Salem State College's School of Business, who is working with Williams.
Suits against Dillard's, Macy's and J.C. Penney were all filed within the last two months.
First Coast News contacted the Orange Park JC Penny Store. Our calls were referred to their head office in Texas. They have yet to return our calls.
Reported by Allison Vuchnich with text from the Associated Press
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