Leona Lewis shared in an overwhelming video how she felt when the manager of a London store asked her and her father to leave. The facts happened a few years ago, when she had just won the X Factor. The singer wanted to fit out her new apartment and had entered "this lovely little store" not far from her record company. “I didn't realize it at the time, but all the other customers were white. My father and I were the only black people, ”she says in her video.
Quickly, the store manager started observing them, then cursing them, telling them that they were "not allowed" to touch the objects. “My father and I did not understand. We looked around, everyone was taking things to assess them, "said Leona Lewis, who then asked why they were not allowed to do like the others. The tone then rose. "I opposed her, because being targeted with my father gave birth to this rage in me," she added, adding that at the same time, the other customers said nothing and left . The singer and her father finally left the store when the manager threatened to call the police.
Stop being silent
Once in their car parked nearby, Leona Lewis' father decided to return to the store with his daughter's album. “He came back with the manager who apologized for not recognizing me in my everyday clothes. My heart stopped. I said to him, "You are racist! You are a racist. You targeted me and my father! You wanted to kick us out of your store because of our skin color. "She tried to deny, saying," I was just scared, I thought you were going to steal something. " And that's what racism is. It is this conditioning, like what blacks steal, or that we should be afraid of, that people of color will do something wrong, "said Leona Lewis.
And to add: “The other people in the store, who left because they felt that something was wrong, said nothing. And because they said nothing, the situation worsened. We found ourselves alone with this woman who was getting more and more agitated and thought that they were leaving because my father and I were a problem, while they were leaving because they were disgusted by her behavior. But they didn't say anything. To those who keep quiet, if you are one of those people who leave because "It's disgusting but I'm not going to spoil my day", you have to stay and say it's bad. When I see these messages asking not to remain silent and denounce racism, it is real. You have to speak, you have to stand by us and you have to recognize that it exists. When you refuse to recognize it, you minimize our suffering and our humanity. "
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