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On Tuesday morning, I went to the store to collect my MacBook. There was a small queue and I joined; some of those standing in line had a sheet of white paper, the acknowledgement that the store gives when one hands in hardware for a job.
Each in turn went to the girl at the counter and was waved on to collect their goods, here or there. No great fanfare at all.
But when my turn came I was asked for identity. I must add here that I was the only non-white person standing in the queue.
It was 9.30am and at that time in the morning I am not a pretty sight. If you go to bed at 5am - that's normal for me - if you are unshaven, if you wear thongs, jeans and a T-shirt, you do stand out from the crowd at a place like the Apple Store.
But in my hands I had the same piece of paper as everyone else. That did not seem to matter.
But I'm a somewhat doughty character. I refused to give any ID and insisted on getting my laptop. Finally, the girl gave in and went and got my hardware. I then asked to see her supervisor.
After some delay, a guy and came over. Surprisingly the last time I had asked to see a supervisor at the store, a white man had been thrust forward. This time the man was of southeast Asian origin.
He asked me what was the matter. I asked him why I alone of all the people there had been asked to provide ID. He started babbling something about it being a policy to ask everyone for ID. Now I prepared to do many things that early in the morning but listening to high-grade BS is not one of them. I told him so and left the store.
It took me a few days to recover from this blatant discrimination. I then wrote to Apple, asking for their take on what had happened. There are four people who deal with media queries and I sent my query to each and every one of them.
None of them has bothered to even acknowledge my query, leave alone apologise. When one becomes the biggest technology company by capitalisation, there appears to be a certain degree of arrogance that accompanies it. A sense of being able to do anything and get away with it generally follows.
