A Taranaki woman is demanding retailers stop racially profiling people after she says she experienced it herself at a Spotlight store.
Last Sunday, Te Waka McLeod drove half an hour to the arts and crafts store in New Plymouth to get some patterns to make some clothes.
As she made her way around the shop with the patterns, McLeod said was told by one of the workers she wasn't allowed to walk around with them.
Instead, McLeod said she was asked to write everything she needed on a piece of paper.
"I was only ten steps away from the counter and was only getting zips, hooks and shoulder pads, nothing I wanted to steal," McLeod told Newshub. "I did not realise what was happening until the worker kept taking the pattern off me every time I put it on the counter to go grab something else."
She said she wanted to call the worker out on their behaviour but "didn't have the energy to say something".
"It was a Sunday afternoon and all I wanted to do was sew," McLeod said.
She said she left the store in tears after the incident and decided to post about it on Facebook, where she expressed anger and frustration.
"It's either my skin colour, my tāonga, my shoes, my untucked white shirt or my moko or all of the above," McLeod said in the post.
"Do I look like a criminal and if I was a criminal would I go to Spotlight and steal patterns? NO!"
McLeod told Newshub she posted about the incident on Facebook to raise awareness.
"People think Māori make this sort of stuff up, so I wanted to post about it to prove it," she said.
Mcleod said this isn't the first time she has been racially profiled in New Plymouth.
"I am not even acknowledged when I walk into the high-end stores there so I stopped shopping there."
Although Mcleod was devastated about how her trip to Spotlight went last Sunday, she wants people to learn from it.
"Don't do this again, people should not be judged by the colour of their skin or what they look like."
McLeod wants people to "cut it out and stop ignoring the issue".
Spotlight New Plymouth has been contacted for comment.
