Whites-Only Soap Dispenser? Videos Of ‘Racist’ Soap Dispenser Go Viral: Black Man’s Hand Vs. White Man’s Hand
From the archive: published Sep 6, 2015, 11 years ago. Details may have changed since.
A new set of videos is going viral. According to YouTube’s most popular 200 videos uploaded recently, the video from Whites Only? by Teej Meister is number 12 on the list. Indeed, published to YouTube on September 2, the “Whites Only?” video has gained more than 2.26 million views within a few days. In the video, a black man can be seen placing his hand beneath the automated soap dispenser — one of those with a sensor behind a black glass. However, it won’t dispense soap for him.
Next, a white man places his hand beneath the soap dispenser, and it unleashes a foaming stream of soap. The duo repeats the experiment, with the black man once again placing his hand beneath the dispenser and getting no soap. Once again, when the white man places his hand beneath the soap dispenser, he gets soap. The YouTube description explains that the controversial soap experiment took place during the 2015 Dragon Conference at the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, which is listed as one of the host hotels for the Dragon Con.
When the original viral video was met with an array of comments, the same YouTube user posted another video, titled “Whites Only – Part Two,” to prove that the same soap dispenser did the same thing, and that he did hold his hand close to the sensor, but showed that it didn’t dispense soap to the black man.
Published on September 3, the video titled “Whites Only – Part Two” is also going viral, and explains why the follow-up video was published.
“Did it again for all the haters lol. It does not like me!”
Although certain reports claim that the soap dispenser melee was all a hoax, such as reported by Metro, others aren’t so sure, especially those who have had personal experience with soap dispensers that react in the same way. Such as at rest stop areas, whereby the attendants have noted that even wearing black or dark-colored clothing can sometimes make the automated dispensers not recognize the fact that a person is standing there, waving their hands and trying to get soap. In that instance, it has been recommended to block the black-colored clothing with a lighter-colored object to see if the sensor will recognize the person and dispense soap.
Whether the fact that some soap dispenser sensors haven’t been created or calibrated to recognize darker colors makes them racist or not remains to be seen.