Hannah Riley
Have you ever noticed which products are locked behind a case in the supermarket?
It’s usually hard alcohol, certain laundry detergents (because of the damn Tide Pod challenge), textured hair products, and certain makeup colors. Surprise, surprise, those certain makeup colors are shades for darker complexions.
Outrage has been raised about this in the past, (though some stores have ended the practice) but it’s typically shrugged off with excuses like “these products are only locked up in lower-income areas,” which doesn’t actually make as much sense as it sounds. Why would only the products for black and brown people need to be locked up in lower-income areas?
The problem goes deeper than locking up products. If there is more theft for items purchased by black and brown people, we should be asking ourselves why they are being stolen more (hint: it’s systematic inequality). If they’re not being stolen more, ask why people expect them to be stolen more (second hint: it’s racism).
Recently on Twitter, @jesusrodriguesb shared a picture of textured hair products locked up in a Walmart and it spawned a viral thread of people sharing “everyday racism.”
With over 180K retweets at press time, and 2500 comments, here’s how the thread is going down.
The thread begins…
And naturally, well-meaning people were confused at the outset, thus highlighting the problem:
@KyleSmeallie was quick to point out why the photos are so controversial:
And then the replies of more examples really started rolling in:
4. This classic from R/funny, honestly isn’t that funny when you think about it.
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People on Twitter happily shared their opinions, in what as a mostly civil thread (by Twitter standards, at least):
So there you have it. Have you seen examples like this?
