A viral post of a white man allegedly tossing aside the belongings of several Black female gymgoers has sparked debate on gym etiquette and entitlement.
It was another day at the gym for Inemesit Graham, who had been lifting weights and running laps with five other Black women.
But an encounter with an unidentified man left the group shaken and worried he’d make good on his threat to call the police.
In her Oct. 10 Instagram Reel, Graham, who is a personal trainer in Canada, said she first noticed the man when he “forcefully” pushed past one of her friends to grab dumbbells.
But it wasn’t until later, when she returned from running the track, that her blood started boiling.
The group found their personal belongings that they left on benches, tossed around the gym.
She wrote: “One woman’s towel was beside the trash can. One woman’s water bottle had been broken, and water was spilled all over the floor. Our bands were thrown on the floor, and all the weights. Our sweaters were on the floor.”
She described how the man moved a bench press that previously had their belongings on it to the middle of the room to lift weights. When the group confronted him about overstepping boundaries, he brushed them off, saying it was a public space.
Graham decided to move his weights out of the way. “At that point I figured, cool, we can all move things. He stood up and proclaimed we were being ‘violent’ and ‘aggressive’ and that he would ‘call the police,’” she alleged. “He walked away and called staff.”
An employee she described as “Indigenous” tried to run interference, but the man allegedly mocked the employee before leaving.
Unfortunately, a lot of people online are finding fault with Graham and her friends.
“Not your space if it’s a public gym, and it’s equipment you’re not using, so…” wrote one person on her Instagram post, which had nearly 2,000 comments at press time.
Graham chimed into the comments section herself to share that the man doesn’t know their names, and she felt the weaponization of police was simply an empty threat.
Negativity isn’t all that she has received.
A lot of support came through, from people who said race played a factor — and those who didn’t.
One wrote: “I’m a poc and I see how some white people seem to have victim mentality and form a hivemind over one individual’s wrongdoings and defending their ego. Even if it’s not racist, it’s basic gym etiquette to ask to use the weights or take turns… both ways, he’s wrong.”
Echoing several comments, another wrote, “Y’all showed incredible restraint and dignity in a situation that never should have happened.”
