RACIST KAREN AT GTA WALMART (165 N Queen St.)
My partner (M40) and I (F35) went to Walmart tonight because we were planning a cute evening together making pasta from scratch. We’re both people of colour, but we have been fully Canadian since we were children — we have both lived in Canada since the age of 3. This was just supposed to be a completely ordinary grocery trip to buy ingredients for dinner.
We were looking for tomato paste. The store seemed to be out of the tube version, so while my partner stayed in the canned-food aisle looking, I went over to the International Foods aisle to see if there was another option in the Italian section.
I was looking at some cans in the Caribbean section because, from a distance, a few of them looked like they might be tomato paste. I walked closer and realized they were actually canned mackerel.
There was another woman in the same section with a stroller. She was black, in her 20s or 30s, and the child was a fair skinned boy that was maybe between 6-12 months. She had been looking at drinks/juices. She then stopped what she was doing, crossed her arms, and seemed to want to move her stroller past me, so I moved back and out of the way.
Except she didn't move.
She just stood there looking at me.
I eventually moved back toward the shelves because I wanted to look at the cans, and she started asking me why I was looking at those items.
I told her that it was none of her business what ingredients I was looking for and that the aisle was for everyone.
My partner then came down the aisle, and I started explaining to him in our language what had happened. We walked back toward the Caribbean section because he also initially mistook the mackerel cans for tomato paste.
He said something along the lines of, “People are weird” in English. She apparently could imply that we were talking about her and started smiling/laughing. Just fixated on me and not minding her own business.
We then realized that the section across from the Caribbean foods was actually the Italian section, which was exactly where I needed to look.
My partner went back to the original canned goods aisle to keep looking for the regular tomato paste, while I stayed in the Italian section in the International Food aisle to see if there an option there.
At this point, I was nowhere near blocking her. The area was basically empty.
She then came over to me, parked her stroller directly in front of me and again acted as though I was preventing her from getting through.
I told her I was looking at the products and that she could simply go around me. And glanced at all the free space.
She then asked me:
**“Why are you looking in the Italian section?”**
I said that I like Italian food.
She responded:
**“You're not even Italian. Why are you looking here?”**
A Walmart employee came over because he could sense that there was tension. I told him that she was harassing me. He tried to get me to move and de-escalate the situation, but I told him I wasn't going to move because I hadn't done anything wrong and she was repeatedly approaching me and questioning me.
He asked if I wanted security called.
I said yes.
Then my partner came back and saw what was happening.
At that point, she started saying things to us like:
**“Why are you here? This is the Italian section.”**
And then:
**“You’re not even from this country.”**
**“Go back to where you’re from.”**
That was the point where it became very clear to me that this wasn't simply some bizarre disagreement about who was standing where in an aisle. She was specifically questioning why I was in certain cultural sections of the store and then telling me to go back to wherever she believed I came from.
What made the whole interaction even stranger was that before my partner came back, she kept saying things like **“no one listens to me”** and **“I want my voice to be heard,”** which seemed completely disconnected from what was actually happening.
My partner responded to her by pointing out that she was also a person of colour, and she responded that she was Italian - which, even IF she is half Italian, she looks fully black.
Two Walmart security employees eventually came over. They were regular Walmart employees rather than actual security guards, but they stayed with me and the situation finally stopped.
As she eventually walked past us, she had this smug smile on her face. I actually managed to get a picture of that moment.
I'm still sitting here thinking about how bizarre the entire interaction was. I went to Walmart to buy **tomato paste** and somehow ended up being questioned about why I was looking at Caribbean food, why I was looking at Italian food, whether I was Italian, whether I belonged in the country, and ultimately being told to **“go back to where you're from.”**
Has anyone else experienced something like this at Walmart? I'm honestly still trying to process how a completely ordinary grocery trip escalated into this.