‘It’s okay to be white,’ cards stuffed in diaper boxes assure Target customers
Tad Russell went to his local Target to pick up diapers for his newborn daughter. He grabbed a big box of Pampers and took it home, WRCB reported. But when he started pulling them out of the box, he noticed something strange: a laminated note.
“It said ‘It’s okay to be white,” and I looked on the back and it was just five or six websites that I recognized the language that was used from the Charlottsville incident late last year,” he told the station, referring to the “Unite the Right” rally of August 2017 in which a protestor was killed.
Russell isn’t alone. The Anti-Defamation League tracked at least two other incidents of similar cards being found in boxes of diapers from Target, and many others have found and posted photos of them to Twitter.
Just opened a box of @Pampers from @Target and found some knuckle-dragging racist slipped this card into the box. BOLO for regressive charlatans. (The reverse had links for fascist, neo-nazi, and alt-right sites. Though that must mean all 3 are the same thing) pic.twitter.com/uFuGVRRcjx
— David Tad Russell (@DavidTadRussell) March 25, 2018
You know America is in trouble, when White Nationalist propaganda is being found in boxes of Pampers purchased at Target in Virginia. Baby diapers? WTF?? pic.twitter.com/xUR3eddMfh
— Amy Moro #RESIST (@AmyMoro) March 7, 2018
@Pampers @Target I've now heard that two moms have found these in their diaper boxes from Target. What is going on? There is white supremacist info on the back. #racism #target #pampers pic.twitter.com/kd6Apf85wM
— Lacey Hopkins (@laceyhopkins) March 24, 2018
@Target My girlfriend found this card in a box of Pampers Diapers she bought in the Fredericksburg, Va Target pic.twitter.com/5JgcKFqh0C
— Justin Deavers (@JFKforgot2DUCK) March 21, 2018
The cards have the phrase “It’s okay to be white” on one side, and on the other list eight web addresses for white supremacist and far-right websites, including the neo-Nazi websites The Daily Stormer and (now mostly defunct) Traditionalist Worker Party.
After beginning an investigation, Target informed Buzzfeed and others that it had identified and fired the employee who it says stuffed the cards into the diaper boxes.
“After being made aware of the situation, we immediately launched a thorough investigation to address the concerns and put a stop to it,” Target spokesperson Joshua Thomas said. “We have identified the source, and given this is a violation of our policies and our commitment to inclusivity, terminated the team member,” the statement said, as reported by Buzzfeed.
Fliers with “It’s okay to be white” have been found all over the country since 2017. Internet culture website KnowYourMeme traced the genesis of the fliers to the troll-haven 4chan.com and found that it was less an attempt to create racial acceptance and more an attempt to stoke racial division.
Posted images show forum users planning to distribute the fliers across campuses on Halloween in order to bait “media and leftists” into “frothing at the mouth.”
The stunt led to an enormous spike in search traffic for the phrase and reports in the Washington Post and other outlets. Fox News personality Tucker Carlson went on TV to defend the signs.
Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told AdWeek the diaper cards were “a very strange way for whoever the person is who did this to try to spread the message of this movement.”
As for Russell, the man who found one of the cards in Tennessee, all he wants is to sit down with the person responsible and have a conversation. “I really hope that they can know that there are good people out there that will care enough to talk with you,” he told WRCB.
This story was originally published April 11, 2018 at 1:37 PM with the headline "‘It’s okay to be white,’ cards stuffed in diaper boxes assure Target customers."