Sephora to close all stores Wednesday for diversity training after incident with SZA

Sephora will close all stores, distribution centers, and corporate offices on Wednesday for diversity training. This comes just weeks after Grammy-nominated singer SZA was racially profiled in a store.

On April 30, Grammy-nominated singer SZA tweeted that she had been racially profiled at Sephora — a company that she had once worked for.

Sephora apologized to the singer, saying in a statement:

"“You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores,”. Over a month later, Sephora announced that they would be closing all 400 US stores, including distribution centers and corporate offices, for diversity training on June 5th.”"

While Sephora is insisting this is for their “We Belong to Something Beautiul” campaign, I have no doubt this is partially in response to what happened with SZA.

This isn’t the first time a large company has closed for much needed diversity training. A little over a year ago, Starbucks closed its US stores for diversity training. In 2019, it is not a good look for any company or person to profile someone simply based on their race. The “We Belong to Something Beautiful” campaign is designed to empower people to make the world a better place, in but so many words.

While racial profiling should never happen, Sephora is actively attempting to stop any further instances of this happening. Time will only tell if it works, but a quick glance through Twitter shows this isn’t the first time racial profiling has happened at Sephora.

Others noted that a company shouldn’t use sudden bad press to do diversity training — it should just be done. Personally, I’m inclined to agree. Why wait to do the right thing?

What do you think? Will you still be shopping at Sephora? Let us know in the comments below!