A British Black man shopping for spray paint with his 4-year-old son at a Hobbycraft store in Wales claims he was racially profiled and turned away after white employees baselessly asserted he would use the items for graffiti.
Louis Gray, who works as a diversity, equality and inclusion manager at Sport Wales, tried to purchase spray paint to customize his son Parker’s bicycle helmet with colors that matched the helmet of his sports idol, Fabio Wibmer.
As a paying customer, Gray didn’t anticipate any issues during a routine visit to the Harlech retail park in Newport on Saturday, leading to an unsettling encounter with the store manager at Hobbycraft, who told Gray, “We can’t serve you, you could be doing graffiti with this.”
The 32-year-old Gray walked away bristling from the episode of “shopping while Black” as his son Parker broke out in tears in the parking lot.
Gray immediately called his white grandfather, John, who arrived moments later and entered the store to purchase the spray paint, insisting it was for him all along.
The strategy worked.
Later, Gray expressed outrage on social media, accusing Hobbycraft of disrespecting “the Black pound.”
“Funny how, a white man came and purchased the paint, and did not get IDed,” Gray wrote on the social media platform X, in a post that has since been deleted. “He simply said ‘he’s not with me, I promise I’m over 16 and the paint is for me’. A white promise is held with higher regard than a Black promise? Is the Black pound not worth anything at @Hobbycraft??”
Gray suggested the store targeted him because of the way he was dressed.
“I was refused service because I am Black and wearing a Nike tracksuit and Yeezys [trainers],” he wrote, according to the Guardian.
“In today’s episode of wearing your Black skin in public I was racially profiled and refused service at @Hobbycraft — trying to buy paint for an arts and craft project with my…
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