‘Love & Hip Hop’ star Tammy Rivera accuses CVS employee of racial profiling
The wife of rapper Waka Flocka Flame shared a series of videos in which she alleges she was racially profiled in Atlanta.
Tammy Rivera, one of the stars of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, shared a series of videos in which she alleges an employee at an Atlanta-area CVS followed her throughout the store, racially profiling her.
The videos were reposted by The Shade Room, and Rivera — the wife of rapper Waka Flocka Flame — was incensed in the first two videos, where she shared her frustration in the store, saying the employee followed her through several aisles and spoke to her in a disrespectful manner as she opened a package.
“Don’t do that,” Rivera repeated, saying, “It was the way you said it; you spoke to me like I was a child.”
She added that she was planning to buy a bonnet and hair oil and, in a later video, said that she purchased the items on a whim after intending to buy something to treat bug bites once she’d returned from a vacation in Belize.
Rivera noted that the CVS employee didn’t greet her or assist her, and said the employee asked her to leave the store. Rivera said she shops at that store regularly.
“I want to be treated like a human being; I don’t want to be treated like anything,” Rivera contended. “I believe you treat the janitor with the same respect you treat the CEO. That’s how I treat people in my everyday life, and I just want to be treated the same.”
Fans of the reality star are split on Rivera’s take on the incident. One wrote on Twitter, “Tammy Rivera opened a package in the store before buying it and got mad when an employee questioned her. That’s not racial profiling.”
Some are calling on the retail pharmacy to apologize to Rivera. CVS had not addressed the incident as of press time.
In 2015, singer Kelly Price accused CVS of racial discrimination after she was unable to fill a prescription for a post-dental procedure pain medicine. She alleged that the store didn’t fill certain prescriptions because of the area where it was located in Carson, California.
At the time, Price’s Facebook post was reposted by Straight from the A: “I was offended for anybody who lives in a neighborhood that may not be considered the upper echelon, where expensive homes are. Or where six-and seven-figure earners live.”
According to the report, CVS later apologized to the singer, stating that the store was not abiding by company policy. She shared afterward that she is hopeful for positive change from the retailer moving forward.
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