A TikTok showing graphic T-shirts being sold at Target for Black History Month last year is going viral again and being ridiculed in the comments section.
The TikTok was posted by Karime Amador (@karime.amador) on Feb. 18, and shows people laughing at two mannequins and the shirts they’re wearing. “Look at this shit in target,” the text overlay reads before zooming in on what the shirts say.
“To My Black People, I Love You -mess,” says the adult mannequin’s shirt.
“racism tried to steal my joy. ha! tried,” says the children mannequin’s shirt.
As of Thursday, the TikTok has over 3.5 million views.
The adult shirt seems to be made by a brand named MESS in a Bottle, a Baltimore-based company started by architect and designer Kalilah Wright.
In a statement by Target in February 2021, the company sought to celebrate “Black voices heritage, ingenuity and creativity with our biggest Black History Month collection ever” by selling hundreds of items created by Black designers and businesses.
However, some people in the comments didn’t find Target’s message to be authentic and another way corporates co-opt social movements for a profit, like Kendall Jenner and Pepsi with the Black Lives Matter in 2017.
“Corporate pandering. They don’t actually care about racism, they just see an opportunity to profit from it. Wake up folks,” one commenter wrote.
“As a POC and have birthed 2 black sons, I think Target is trying too hard and doing too much. But I’m still shopping here,” another TikToker wrote.
Other people found the shirt to be “divisive.”
“What they don’t realize is that THIS kind of stuff is what racism is,” one TikToker wrote.
“It’s funny how these double standards are floated and sad that people try to cash in on socially acceptable racism,” another person wrote.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Target via email and Amador via TikTok comment.
Today’s top stories
| ‘Fill her up’: Bartender gives woman a glass of water when the man she’s with orders tequila shot |
| ‘I don’t think my store has even sold one’: Whataburger employees take picture with first customer who bought a burger box |
| ‘It was a template used by anyone in the company’: Travel agent’s ‘condescending’ out-of-office email reply sparks debate |
| Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online. |
