A woman on TikTok is fed up with Target "mystery shoppers" following her and other Black customers around, so she took to the social media platform to put them on blast in a video she perfectly captioned:
"Enough is enough."
TikToker Keedy (@paykeedy) shared her experience from inside a Target store where she was attempting to browse while out shopping with her mother.
But she was unable to enjoy her trip to the retail chain because she was constantly being followed around, as—as she noted—she and other Black shoppers often are.
Of course, this is not an unusual experience for Black shoppers in America, but it is certainly an exhausting and obviously a systematically racist one.
Keedy's TikTok began with text overlay that read, "Target 'mystery shoppers' following Black shoppers" as she stood in the home decor section.
She first urged the company to "stop following us around."
"Target, we know they are mystery shoppers, and we would like for them to stop following us around the store."
“It is so annoying, coming in to literally just browse."
Keedy expressed her frustration that she feels forced to buy something every time she visits because she is always being watched.
"You cannot just browse as a Black person."
"You have to be able to, you have to go in the store to intentionally purchase something every time and that’s so exhausting."
She continued that she is all too familiar with their inherently racist system.
"We know there are three shoppers because you got a single man in the kids section so safe shopping for his kids."
"We all know that the dad doesn't even know who the kids' primary care physician is."
The TikToker urged once again:
"Stop following me."
"I'm going to confront you. I'm being honest."
Keedy then shared that she had no intention of buying anything as she went to Target with her mom, but couldn't even entertain the thought of browsing for fun because there were constantly eyes on her.
“Stop following us."
She then told Target who they should be looking out for.
"You wanna know who is stealing?"
"The little white teenager that coming up in here with no parents."
"They in the dressing room whispering and cutting off your security tags."
You can watch below.
Viewers of Keedy's TikTok shared their disappointment that her experience is sadly a typical one, and many Black women in the comments recounted similar experiences.
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And others agreed Target is watching the wrong people.
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Of course, Keedy isn't the first to document being followed around in a store, but it certainly doesn't soften the blow of what's actually happening.
Last month, a Black woman on TikTok confronted workers at Hobby Lobby who kept following her around, so she made them carry around all of her items.
You can watch below.
Another Black woman on TikTok tired of being harassed by these "shoppers" shared she turns the tables on them and begins to follow them around instead and "start touching what they're touching."
“You just stand two inches from them."
“They still don’t move, you start looking at the shelf they looking at. Start touching the product right next to what they touching."
"And don’t put it back neat.”
“Stack ’em up. Look at it. Put it back stupid[ly]. I bet you they leave."
While we definitely find humor in the ways these women have dealt with harassment from employees, it's a shame they have to come up with these strategies in the first place.
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