Hobbycraft refused to sell paint to black man as ‘he may use it for graffiti’
Louis Gray says he was racially profiled after trying to buy spray paint to make over his son’s bicycle helmet
Louis Gray says he was racially profiled after trying to buy spray paint to make over his son’s bicycle helmet
Sounds like they shouldn't sell spray paint at all if they're so concerned about graffiti. How many other products of theirs could be used for vandalism? Maybe the safest option is to go out of business entirely.
As long as we are doing this we really should ban white people from buying or selling mortgage backed securities. We have a dataset and 100% of the time mortgage backed securities and whites cause crime.
Inb4 JP Morgan Chase buys the Lakota tribe
Mother fuckers....
Seconded
Even if he was, are you paid enough to care?
Racists would pay to do a racism.
Some people want to power trip off the tiniest bits of control they have.
Edited--Misread your intent, I think.
Misread your intent, I think. I hope.
Spray-paint tends to be solvent-based, and spraying it onto a helmet can fundamentally compromise its structure/strength.
Please don't ever use solvent-based stuff on multi-layer plastic helmets, for sake of your brain, who needs that helmet to work properly, when one gets slammed into the asphalt/concrete.
Please.
That seems a bit unlikely. The solvents quickly evaporate off. Unless you are soaking it in solvents, there won't be enough to cause any relevant effect. Meanwhile the helmet is exposed to UV light on a daily basis, which will also degrade it over time.
You are also not going to burn from briefly touching laundry detergent, but keeping lots of it on your skin would be a problem.
Those motherfuckers made his four-year-old cry.
I hope corporate throws the book at them.
Nope.
In an email later sent to Gray, Hobbycraft said they were continuing to investigate. “We would one again like to apologise for your recent experience in our store,” the email said. “We hae a zero tolerance approach to racism … and this is not how we want any of our customers to feel."
“Your situation involved the purchase of age restricted product which requires age verification, meaning all colleagues are trained to ask for ID should they believe the customer is under the age of 25. As you were unable to share ID with our colleagues, they were unfortunately unable to authorise the sale.”
As a general reminder, if you have fallen and the helmet took the impact, replace the helmet. If your helmet has been damaged through other means, replace it. They are not meant to be reused after keeping your brain within its skull.
Just like hardhats, you want to inspect them frequently and there is a good chance they have expiration dates. I would be cautious painting them as the chemicals may damage the integrity of the helmet, especially the foam. We always just covered them in stickers. When in doubt, check with the manufacturer.
Yeah, styrofoam dissolves if you try to spray paint it so this seems like a terrible idea anyways
Because white people never graffiti anything. Uh huh.
I'd be thinking of buying some spray paint from this guy and then using it to vandalize his building
If you buy it somewhere else, you could still carry out your plan without giving that store any money.
Writer and shop owner never been to Europe, it seems.
Especially to Belarus.
For context Belarus literally means white russia. It's a country in Europe.
At my place, there's an artshop that has a metal fence around a spray cans and markers section that can only be opened by asking the staff. You know, not car paint or usual permanents, but specialized stuff branded exclusively towards bombing walls and tagging surfaces, like Montana. I was surprised why they even sell them if they think they are connected to crime and are afraid they are first targets to be lifted. I thought about buying them, but the whole procedure was so embarrassing and they were so overpriced. Them and Hobbycraft staff probably think they solved the graffiti problem, won the battle against the hydra of crime by that. They haven't mistaken that much in their lives. Nor in Louis case, that'd hopefully lead to consequencies, nor in mine leading to many acts of silly vandalism. Fuck them UwU
I've never been in a spray paint section at a store where people hadn't opened the cans and painted all over everything. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
Have they used the wrong picture?
How is he black?
Or under 25 for that matter? Mf's hairline is as bad as mine.
Knew a dude in HS who by 23 had hair worse looking like that
Reasons as he gave them:
Russian genes
Bald parents
Wayyyyyyyyy too much cocaine
Bald by 23, balding at 14.
Germanic ancestry, I guess.
Dad has great, luscious and full white hair. Mom has plenty of hair, but HER dad was bald.
No cocaine, though I have smoked pot since 16, doubt it's related
Yeah, but the law is that they have to card if the person "looks" under 25, and it's only under 16 that they have to refuse to sell to. He absolutely does not "look" 25, and I think you could make a case that no reasonable person would suspect that someone with a receding hairline is under 16 where they'd have to refuse service, or even under 25 where they are supposed to ask for ID.
If you read the article, the alt text says that's him and his son. There's also a link to his Twitter account.
I read it, but it is The Grauniad. They're not exactly known for proof reading.
He's from Staines.
He is a light-skinned black man, you can put away your Pantone reference materials, calipers, or whatever other race science tools you're employing here.
Not that this wasn't racism, but if you are going to request ID for a product, don't put an age limit. Don't make the poor clerks have to decide that crap.
I'm sorry sir, we only card if we think you are under 60.
This. The people were few and far between that got vitriolic about that, but it was enough to make you not want to do the work anymore..
Fuck Hobbycraft! And fuck Putin!
What's the point in burying the fact that he didn't have ID. You could argue they carded you because you were black but not refused service.
You need Id to buy spray? What kind of stupid shit is that? How would they know it was you even if they have your id? It seems like they'd just go after all the black people who bought spray when something gets vandalized.
What a stupid country you live in, I can't imagine getting carded for buying art supplies. If you're worried it's gonna be used for crime, don't sell it.
Yeah! Why do you need ID to buy a canister of pressurized flammable gas that can also get you high?
When I worked retail, we were required to ID for gas dusters as well. We also had people come in and request that we put members of their family on a "No sell" list for gas dusters too. That was always sad.
Ad revenue
This is the UK if yall were wondering. Still super strange, youd think theyd have had a black customer before.
I'm not saying he deserved this treatment, but I am saying he admits to wearing Yeezys in 2024 while working as a "DEI manager."
There's a photo of this guy in the article. He looks white. Maybe the lighting in the photo is way off, but I have a hard time believing that they profiled him based on his appearance.
Edit: The photo in the article is a good representation of his appearance. Here's another one.
Dude is literally the same color as I am, a light-skinned Black person, going by the picture, and yes, I’ve had clerks follow me in stores and white women clutch their purses when I pass, and every man in my family, all of whom are that color, have a “being pulled over by the cops” story, so I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to do here.
The store is saying he was challenged for not having ID, as a challenge 25 thing.
So forgetting the colour of his skin, do you think he looks 25 or over?
That picture doesn't look like "a white guy." You might not be sure he's Black, but he definitely looks "of color," at least. Enough for racism to play a part in the interaction.
Remember he just claims that they racially profiled him, he has no evidence of it other than they stopped him. They claim it was because they have a policy that they don't sell to anyone who looks under 25 without an ID...he's 32, not sure if I think he looks under 25, although I could easily see someone not having a good grasp on this and not being sure. It's not like he looks old.
His complaint is also that he brought in his grand father (lol) and they sold to him without an issue. Well, duh, I'm sure someone much older him doesn't look potentially under 25.
