Is Wayfair Using Furniture for Child Trafficking?
About a year after being accused of selling furniture to ICE detention centers, e-commerce site Wayfair is in another controversy.
Boycott fast furniture
Wayfair, the e-commerce website beloved by millennials on a budget who don't want their apartments to look just like IKEA showrooms, is no stranger to controversy.
Last summer, employees of the company organized a protest after allegations surfaced that Wayfair had sold $200,000 worth of furniture to border detention facilities. Now, Wayfair is being suspected of trafficking missing children in their furniture.
Threads on Reddit and Twitter pointed out that Wayfair had listings of storage cabinets and pillows being sold for thousands of dollars–with names that correlated to those of missing children. One example is a $13,000 storage cabinet called the Yaritza Storage Cabinet; last month, a 16-year-old girl named Yaritza Castro went missing from Connecticut. Screenshots indicate that multiple, nearly-identical cabinets were being sold for jarringly high prices under different female names.
"Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection? Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it's true," a Reddit user by the name of PrincessPeach1987 posted in a subreddit dedicated specifically to conspiracy theories. People in the responses generally agreed; before long, the topic had reached the masses on Twitter, sparking a nationwide conversation.
While Wayfair boasts a vast array of sellers on their website, the brand of the cabinets—WFX—is a trademark of the company itself. While these cabinets were all being sold for over $10,000, similar cabinets on Wayfair typically go for prices between a few hundred dollars and $1,000. Furthermore, some Reddit users pointed out that searching the SKU number of the cabinets in question pulls up photos of minors.
"There is, of course, no truth to these claims," Wayfair responded in a statement to Newsweek. "The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced. Recognizing that the photos and descriptions provided by the supplier did not adequately explain the high price point, we have temporarily removed the products from site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point."
Since Wayfair has been accused of selling to detention centers, the ties between children at detention centers and human trafficking is no coincidence. Over the last decade, there have been staggering numbers of sexual abuse claims filed by people in immigration custody, with very little investigation.
Under President Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy starting in spring of 2018, thousands of migrant children have been separated from their families. During a hearing in April 2018, Steven Wagner—a top official with the Department of Health and Human Services—said the Office of Refugee Resettlement was "unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 [unaccompanied migrant children]."
Expectedly, this sparked an even larger backlash—especially considering that Trump's zero-tolerance policy explicitly targeted the Mexican border, and Mexican and Latin American women and girls are at a disproportionately high risk of sex trafficking in the United States.
The Redditor who started the thread about Wayfair told Newsweek that she has been "involved in a local organization that helps victims of human trafficking," which has led her to be "suspicious most of the time now." According to information obtained by ChildrensRights.org, sex trafficking is one of the world's fastest-growing criminal industries, generating an estimated $150 billion per year.
Due to the increased vulnerability of being separated from parents, children in the foster care system are at the highest risk of child trafficking—a statistic that could very well ring true in ICE's detention centers.
The jury is still out on whether or not this conspiracy theory is true, but if you needed another reason to boycott furniture retail giants and resort to your local Craigslist, this one is as good as any.
Liam Neeson Admits to Wanting to Kill a "Black Bastard" in an Act of Revenge
The interview went in an unexpected direction.
Liam Neeson
Thoughts and prayers to Liam Neeson's publicist who is undoubtedly dealing with the consequences of Neeson's wildly problematic Independentinterview. The purpose of the interview was to discuss Neeson's upcoming movie Cold Pursuit, an action thriller (obviously) about a snow plow driver who goes after the drug dealers he believes killed his son. When the interview turned to the subject of revenge, a clear theme in the movie, Neeson said, "There's something primal – God forbid you've ever had a member of your family hurt under criminal conditions," he continues. "I'll tell you a story. This is true."
He then went on to relate a tale from many years ago, when he learned that a woman close to him had been raped. All she knew about her attacker was that he was a black man, leading Neeson to roam the streets for weeks afterwards, carrying a "cosh" (a stick-like weapon) hoping to meet a man who fit the description, get into a fight with him and, ultimately, kill him.
"She handled the situation of the rape in the most extraordinary way." He said, "But my immediate reaction was...I asked, did she know who it was? No. What colour were they? She said it was a black person."
He continued, "I went up and down areas with a cosh, hoping I'd be approached by somebody – I'm ashamed to say that – and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some [Neeson gestures air quotes with his fingers] 'black bastard' would come out of a pub and have a go at me about something, you know? So that I could kill him." At this juncture, we recommend picturing the faces of the journalist who was expecting a tepid movie promotion interview, and Liam Neeson's costar, Tom Bateman, who was also present but likely recognized that nothing he could say for the remainder of the interview would have any consequence whatsoever.
Neeson went on, "It took me a week, maybe a week and a half, to go through that. She would say, 'Where are you going?' and I would say, 'I'm just going out for a walk.' You know? 'What's wrong?' 'No no, nothing's wrong.' It was horrible, horrible, when I think back, that I did that," he says. "And I've never admitted that, and I'm saying it to a journalist. God forbid."
Echoing the primary sentiment of the world at this moment, Bateman said, "Holy shit."
But Neeson wasn't done yet, "It's awful. But I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, 'What the fuck are you doing,' you know?"
"I come from a society – I grew up in Northern Ireland in the Troubles – and, you know, I knew a couple of guys that died on hunger strike, and I had acquaintances who were very caught up in the Troubles, and I understand that need for revenge, but it just leads to more revenge, to more killing and more killing, and Northern Ireland's proof of that. All this stuff that's happening in the world, the violence, is proof of that, you know. But that primal need, I understand."
What was said in the remainder of the interview feels pretty irrelevant, given that Neeson had just admitted to once wanting to kill a "black blast are." While it's undoubtedly productive for white people to engage with and acknowledge their own implicit biases and past racist behavior in an effort to change for the better, this was not a harmless admission of past non-PC statements. This was an admission of plans to commit a hate crime, treated as though it was a harmless anecdote.
Yes, Neeson's intention in telling the story was clearly to acknowledge the poisonous nature of revenge, but the ease with which he shared it suggests a man who considered himself already forgiven by the public for his appalling confession. He told it as though it were relatable and understandable, using racially-charged language ("what color were they") but not necessarily acknowledging the obvious racist implications of the story. Even when he expressed regret for his intentions, he didn't specifically recognize the racism in his anger being aimed at any and all black men because they happened to share a skin tone with the man who assaulted his loved one. Instead, he ultimately related the story to the troubles of Ireland, a seemingly unrelated comparison. If Neeson's problematic interview shows us anything, it's that there is still a long way to go in terms of finding ways to have productive racial discourse. Acknowledged racism is not excused racism.
Brooke Ivey Johnson is a Brooklyn based writer, playwright, and human woman. To read more of her work visit her blog or follow her twitter @BrookeIJohnson.
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