A woman shows racist paintings and figurines she saw at an Alabama estate sale.
In a TikTok posted yesterday by Kennedy Synclaire (@shopsecondhand), Synclaire shows what was being sold at an estate sale in Alabama she attended.
Alongside portraits of former presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, racist paintings of Black people holding watermelons and minstrel figurines and dolls were on sale. Synclaire’s video also shows a white woman holding and smiling at one of the figurines.
“Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I walked into at this estate sale,” Synclaire wrote in her video’s overlay text.
In the caption, she said that none of the items shown in her video were included in the sale’s previews on EstateSales.net, a site used to find local estate sales.
“Never get too comfortable living in Alabama,” she wrote in her caption. On Tuesday, Synclaire’s video had over 6.5 million views.
@shopsecondhand Weekly reminder to never get too comfortable living in Alabama. NONE of that was shown in the previews on estatesales.net, i was shook // #thrifttok #shopsecondhand #estatesale #thriftvlog #estatesalefinds ♬ I Got 5 On It – Tethered Mix from US – Michael Abels & Luniz
In a follow-up video, Synclaire says that the preview on EstateSales.net showed American flags, farmhouse objects, and cowboy boots. She said she was exploring the house to see what else was for sale, and she froze when she saw the racist items and that her fellow shoppers were buying them.
“I was shook,” Synclaire says. “These people were like ransacking this house for this stuff… There’s no way I’m in 2023.”
Synclaire, who is Black, also says that she’s familiar with the woman who was hosting the sale and wished that the woman had told her the sale wasn’t a safe place for her.
She bought purses, belts, and a pair of shoes from the sale—all of which she says should have been free “for the amount of trauma [she] went through.”
