Louis Gray says he was racially profiled after trying to buy spray paint to make over his son’s bicycle helmet
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
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.
Those motherfuckers made his four-year-old cry.
I hope corporate throws the book at them.
Arguing with staff until your son cries because you don’t have ID on you generally makes me think of you as an asshole.
Yeah, you’re right. People should just accept racism in order to teach their child the lesson that racism against them is acceptable.
I’m an anti racist skinhead who’s also worked in retail. I’m not at the point that I accept that this wasn’t a tantrum, but I accept there might be discriminatory elements. I don’t really know how carding works in the UK, but in the US if someone asks you’re not getting service if all you’ve got on you is your cell phone.
They didn’t sell to him because he doesn’t have am ID, nothing about his skin color. Same goes with alcohol bud
Clearly you didn’t read the article
Some people just like the taste of boot
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.”
Always believe corporations.
Corporations aren’t people. But they are fucking liars.
Absolutely right. (Sorry if my sarcasm wasn’t obvious.)
25? Sounds arbitrary enough to not be mentioned in laws. How good consumer protection in UK? Can you file for age discrimination?
25? what an arbitrarily high age limit. It’s probably law, not company policy but even then.
They probably need to be 18. 25 is just what you should look to be over if they can skip asking for ID. When I worked at a bar we were told if the person looks under 35 you have to ask for ID to prove they are 21.
this seems to be on point. https://www.businesscompanion.info/en/quick-guides/underage-sales/aerosol-spray-paints even recommends challenge 25.
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.
So you would encourage people to spray paint their helmets? Weird hill to die on
Where did i say that? Between “Don’t do this, it is lethally dangerous” and “it is a great idea, you should definetely do this!” is quite a large gray area.
Is it even gray?
“Too much water is bad for you.”
True statement, like “spray paint will eat your Styrofoam”
Misleading though cause no one is talking about spray painting sttyofoam
Helmets are basically medium density styrofoam with a plastic cover. You ever spray painted styrofoam? It melts INSTANTLY …
And you spray on the hard plastic cover, not the styrofoam itself
I’m not here to tell you what to do but most regular consumer grade helmets I’ve seen would be hard to spray the outside without hitting the foam especially near the vents… Foam which, once again, melts INSTANTLY when spray painted. Foam which is also basically the whole protective value of the helmet.
Anyways I’m sure there are helmets where it’s possible to spray paint without damaging the foam. Or you could do a good job taping. Or you could shrug at the hopefully minor foam damage. Many helmets never have to protect your head so you might be lucky there too. All I’m saying is that there are good reasons to say “don’t spray paint helmets” as general good advice.
Pretty easy to avoid if you use tape.
Helmets are usually polycarbonate and the common solvent in spray paint is xylene. Xylene causes extreme degradation in polycarbonate. If you don’t know if the helmet and the paint are compatible, it’s not safe to paint it.
Thank you. That is more specific than “plastic+solvent=bad”
That’s not how helmets work. The outer shell certainly helps mitigate bumps and bangs, but what really protects your head is the styrofoam inner that compresses like an airbag upon impact.
No it’s both. The outer shell deforms before breaking and then the foam absorbs the rest of the impact.
Dude there are many different helmet designs, with both thick and thin plastic covers. In a practical day to day use case, the plastic shell is there for appearance as well as protection for the primary means to prevent damage to the foam core of the helmet. The foam is no good if it gets damaged the first time you accidentally drop it on the pavement.
I’m sure it can play some role in protecting your head, but it’s main purpose is to keep the foam on your head on one piece in case of an accident.
Because white people never graffiti anything. Uh huh.
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.
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.
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
He’s from Staines.
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.
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.
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.
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?
He looks like he’s probably at least 25 but if I could get in trouble for being wrong, I think I would card him.
And would you additionally say that "We can’t serve you, you could be doing graffiti with this” as was claimed in the article?
Maybe, if he asked me why I wouldn’t sell him the spray paint without seeing his id. In that case, it would be an explanation of why the id-check policy exists, not an expression of my belief that he looked like a vandal. (Although by that point, I would suspect that he might be up to no good specifically because he was refusing to show me his ID.)
But you would sell it to an ID-less older white guy no problem, as they did? This guy does not look like he’s 25 or under.
I had a noticably receding hairline before I was 25. I’d sell to someone who looked old enough to be his dad without needing id, but if I could get in trouble for not carding someone I should have carded, I wouldn’t bet my job on the fact that he isn’t an older-looking 24.
I do, but making a big deal over his white grandad not getting carded is a bit much for me.
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 “being pulled over by the cops” story, so I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to do here.
You sure you aren’t just looking for any tiny problems in the world to blame on your skin color? I swear people are always looking for ways to be a victim.
did you really just “racism exists? are you sure?” someone?
Please try be a serious person.
I never once claimed to be a “victim,” so don’t put words in my mouth. But racism is real and it happens, no matter how much some folks really want to pretend it’s just folks looking to be “victims.”
Man shut the fuck up. Just because the USA was able to pretend we thought people who looked like that were white to steal physicists from Iran for a little bit, doesn’t mean he is white passing. Also notice the guy’s hairline is clearly that of a dad, why would you card him. Fuck off idiot
As an old white lady myself I’m disappointed in you, trying to find any tiny excuse to deny the racism that’s all around you in our world.
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.
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…
It’s extra awkward when you accidentally tell the customer why you didn’t card them. They’ll say “hey, why didn’t you card me?” And you can’t respond with “we only card if you look like you’re under xx” cause that’ll send them straight to the burn ward
I’m sorry sir, we only card if we think you are under 60.
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
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.
It’s definitely one of the lamer stories about racial profiling, assuming that’s even what happened here. And when they say the white grandfather didn’t get carded… How often do grandfathers get carded?
Ad revenue
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.
You’re just adding to my point. These rules are only there for “lower class” people. I live in an affluent area and you can get that shit at the dollar store around here, nobody ids you. That shit is easy to get anywhere, and if you’re so worried, don’t sell it.
As a person of color who grew up in an affluent white area, I also grew up very aware of how I was looked at and treated in contrast to my peers, I got used to certain looks and questions when entering a store.
Now that I’m an adult I don’t deal with that shit. I bought like 10 cans of spray paint last week for work, and if anyone had asked me for Id or asked what I needed it for I would have told them it was none of their damn business
Its been like that for a while. Anything that you can huff basically.
Removed by mod
You bring up a valid point that I never thought about.
I always needed ID to buy spray paint - I’m also brown. I was into graffiti (not the tagging but the social rights kind) and my after school program taught it.
Makes me wonder if all this time, it was discrimination.
FWIW, I’m about as white as they come, and I’ve probably been carded more in my lifetime to buy spray paint than I have for alcohol.
It’s pretty standard practice in my area. Maybe it’s different in other places, or from one store to another, but most places around me seem to err on the side of carding everyone.
What you said for me seems to be discrimination.
I just assumed the card everyone.
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 mine leading to many acts of silly vandalism. Fuck them UwU
I see someone moved to UK. Congrats on not not dying in trenches for Putin’s yacht!
I’ve got wierdest downvote on comment congratulating with not killing and not dying. What a time to be alive.
You can never tell why they start to occur, but once they occur, they grow like fungies after a rain. Good thing is that they mean nothing.
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.
Hardware store near me taped contractor paper to the floor so give people a place to test out. They replace it once it gets too many layers.
That’s a great idea
This is the UK if yall were wondering. Still super strange, youd think theyd have had a black customer before.
Fuck Hobbycraft! And fuck Putin!
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.”
Both of those things tell me his isn’t buying the paint for graffiti.
What if there’s a synagogue in the area?
I hope he takes this as a teachable moment that anti-racism includes not supporting racism ❤️
Oh wow. The same person who thinks electing Trump will save Gaza also condones vandalizing innocents. Colour me shocked.
Lul, what? Talk about a reading comprehension fail.
i feel like people will spray paint all over the store now…
I hope people will.
I want. But I’m on the other side of bathtub.
