I’m a 45-year-old black man who stands 5’9 with a slim build weighting 175pds with a bald head and beard. Basically, I thought for the most part I didn’t look like a book thief. I currently work with adults with disabilities and my client who likes to read books, so I thought Politics and Prose was a safe and welcoming environment, but I was wrong. Shortly after entering Politics and Prose I started to be followed throughout several aisles of the store. Initially when I noticed the young lady was in every aisle, I was on myself. First thought “I hope she does think I’m following her” then when I move to another aisle, and she follows me at that time I realizes what I was going on. At that time, I stop and asked the women was she following me. She said no, as her mask cover her mouth and you could only see her eyes, her eyes told the truth, she looked a little shock that I ask her this question after catching her following a black man around a bookstore to make sure he does steal. Should I be flattered because a white person thought a black man was going to steal a book, since the saying goes “if you want to hide something for a black man put it in a book”. However, I’m not shocked this incident happened. Even though this goes against Politics and Prose mission statement, who has been in business since 1984 not 1894, I guess things haven’t changed. For any critics you can pull the video it happens 8-21-23 between 6pm to 7pm at the Connecticut Ave location.

I'm interested in attending a book signing, but I'm wondering how these events are run. At other signings I've attended, the bookstore passed out numbers in the order you got there (and these were limited, so depending who the author was, you needed to get there early!). Since you can pre-buy online and request a ticket, I'm wondering if the tickets are numbered in any particular order? Trying to determine if it will be worthwhile for us to travel the 1.5 hours there (and not arriving until close to event time) or if more tickets get handed out than time available for signing.