'Racist' Soap Dispenser Only Works for People With White Skin?
The Internet is currently up in arms over a video over a "racist" soap dispenser that didn't recognize black skin. The bizarre dispenser at a bathroom hotel refused to give out hand soap to a user with a dark complexion. A video was uploaded by a certain T.J. Fitzpatrick to prove his point.
Fitzpatrick, an African-American guest at a sci-fi convention at Marriott Atlanta, tried to use a soap dispenser in the hotel and realized it didn't recognize black skin. When his friend Larry, a white guy used the same tap, the soap readily spilled. The friends were heard laughing all throughout the video.
"I wasn't offended, but it was so intriguing, like 'Why is it not recognizing me?'" T.J. said. "I tried all the soap dispensers in that restroom, there were maybe 10, and none of them worked. Any time I went into that restroom, I had to have my friend get the soap for me," he added.
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The YouTube video went viral and got three million views, along with a slew of comments. Some of these comments were racist and derogatory like, "We all know black people don't actually wash their hands anyways," and "Soap dispenser is for human not monkeys or sub-humans."
Richard Whitney from tech-company Particle offered a couple of explanations for the anomaly. He said that a "racist" tap will only give out soap to people with white skin thanks to "discriminative" LED sensors that work by refraction of light. With this, dark colored skin sometimes won't "trigger" a response.
It is also possible that the sensor only picks up hand movements at certain angles. A closer look at the video shows Larry's hand is closer to the tap, almost touching the nozzle until foamy soap spilled on his palm, whereas T.J.'s hand was farther from the motion sensor.
