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 four-year-old. I was refused service as I may be about to undertake an ‘incidence of graffiti.’.”
Gray described feeling a burning anger inside after the confrontation as he felt compelled to remain compliant during the incident to avoid escalating the situation in front of his young son.
“All I was thinking was, don’t bite, don’t do anything, Parker is watching. I had to be quite passive and permissive, but my insides were absolutely raging.”
The company’s front office vowed to investigate the incident, but officials did not indicate whether any disciplinary actions would be taken.
Following the racially charged incident, staff members said they informed Gray about a new store policy called “Challenge 25” that requires anyone under age 25 to show ID when purchasing age-restricted items such as knives, aerosol paints, or helium.
But Gray rejected that explanation, saying he noticed the manager and another employee tracking his every movement throughout the store while he shopped.
“It was the way they were looking at me; I knew it was because I was Black and not my age; if you have a protected character, you just have a sense for these things. I felt they were trying to justify their biased behaviors and found Challenge 25 as a way to justify their actions.”
In England and Wales, it’s illegal to sell spray paint to anyone under 16.
But Gray questioned the store’s extraordinary actions to monitor him, which he felt had nothing to do with his age, but everything to do with racial profiling.
“They said to me, ‘You could be a mystery shopper trying to catch us out,’” Gray said. “But the shop is on a retail park you have to drive to, and I was with a big four-year-old – who looks six, who was telling them he just wanted to paint his helmet. I haven’t been IDed anywhere for at least eight years.”
Gray called for Hobbycraft to apologize and implement bias training for its employees, adding that he won’t be shopping at the store again anytime soon.
Later, Hobbycraft sent an email to Gray, saying the chain maintains a “zero-tolerance approach to racism” and emphasized that “this is not how we want any of our customers to feel.”
“We are so sorry to hear about Louis’ experience in one of our stores,” a Hobbycraft spokesperson said in a statement. “This is absolutely not the service we expect to deliver, and we are looking into this as a matter of urgency.”
In a bit of irony, Gray marked MLK Day on social media last month by sharing a colorized photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1958 arrest for loitering outside the Montgomery, Alabama, courthouse. At the time, two white officers bum-rushed the civil rights leader as he showed up for the arraignment of his friend and partner, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy.
“Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals,” the caption declares.
