A viral TikTok shows “Be Colorblind” stickers that are allegedly sold at Dollar Tree, and many are accusing the company of perpetuating racism.
TikToker Emily (@almondpiss), who appears to work for Dollar Tree, posted a video of the sticker sheet on Friday. The brand on the packaging says “Crafter’s Square,” which is a trademark of one of the Dollar Tree’s subsidiaries, Greenbrier International.
The sheet features hearts, rainbows, and handprints in various skin tone colors, accompanied by phrases like “Making Magic Happen,” “Love,”—and, of course, “Be Colorblind.” Emily’s video currently has over 628,000 views.
Some commenters mistook the stickers as celebrating the medical condition of color blindness. But most—including Emily—saw the stickers as promoting the idea of not “seeing” race.
“Look, every day that I come to work I am fighting—literally fighting—the urge to not post about some stupid shit that’s happened,” Emily says in the video. “But I have to show you these stickers that they tried to get me to put out today.”
@almondpiss cassie energy #greenscreen #fyp #fypシ #foryou #foryoupage #racist #dollargeneral #familydollar #dollartree #racism #antiracist #disgusting ♬ original sound – emily
Many commenters were upset by the stickers.
“And during Black History Month?!” one user commented. “Who’s [sic] idea was this?”
“To be colorblind it means you don’t see POC for who we are,” another user wrote. “You don’t see our struggles, it’s ignorance to the real problem.”
Some thought the company had good intentions.
“I think they meant well,” one user commented. “They want people to accept all colors.”
“Pretty sure it’s prompting not seeing people based on color,” another commenter wrote, and Emily made a follow-up video disagreeing with this point.
“The amount of privilege that you have to have to be able to walk through life ‘being colorblind, ‘not seeing color,’” Emily says in the follow-up video.
@almondpiss Reply to @celestejayne19 baffled absolutely baffled #fyp #fypシ #foryou #foryoupage #yt #whiteprivilege #racism #racist ♬ original sound – emily
Emily goes on to call out the company for producing the stickers.
“This is a billion dollar company. This went through multiple people before it was released to the store,” Emily says in the video. “And they have no problem defending this behavior because you don’t understand because you don’t have to understand.”
This isn’t the first time someone took to social media to critique these stickers. Last July, Reddit user u/ads273 posted the same stickers in r/UnintentionalRacism.
“Random stickers at the dollar store not exactly sending the best message,” the post’s title reads.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Emily (@almondpiss) via TikTok and Dollar Tree via email.
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