Six black Australian teenagers have accused Apple of racism after they were told to leave a shop in Melbourne because staff suspected they might shoplift.
The schoolboys filmed the incident at the Highpoint store and uploaded it to Facebook. The video has been widely shared, with many calling it a blatant case of racial profiling, The Guardian says.
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"These guys [the security guards] are just a bit worried about your presence in our store," an employee can be heard saying in the video. "They're just worried you might steal something."
To which one of the boys replied: "Why would we steal something?"
The teenagers, who were all Year Ten students at Maribyrnong College, later returned to the store with their head teacher and received an apology from staff.
Mohamed Semra, one of the boys involved, said they were satisfied with the response. "They apologised, so we're chilling, no need to take it further," he wrote on Facebook.
Another boy, Maboir Ater, said it was not the first time he felt he had been racially profiled. "It's because we're teenage boys, but also because we're black teenagers," he told ABC News. "They see us and think of all the stereotypes."
Australian solicitor Sophie Ellis said such incidents are not uncommon, with young men of African descent 2.5 times more likely to be stopped by police. She said the boys involved in this case were "incredibly brave" and were lucky that they had been able to film the incident.
"One of the really insidious things with racial profiling is that it's extremely hard to prove," she said. "It's really powerful that these young people have been able to record that interaction."
