Is a picture of a sign that said "Due to Dishonesty self-checkout is CLOSED. Sorry to all the white people" real? No, that's not true: The original picture of a sign taken at a Dollar General store said "Sorry to all the honest people." Edited versions of the image circulating on social media swapped out the word "honest" for "white."
An example of the edited image appeared in a post on X (archived here) published on February 11, 2025. This is what the edited image looked like:
(Source: x.com screenshot taken on February 11 at 10:06:20 2025 UTC)
The original photo has been online at least since January 15, 2014, when it appeared on the x.com account of user @lumin8 (archived here):
Self checkout is not profitable 😂 pic.twitter.com/DGS1BieSQk
-- James Cameron I want to follow you on Blue Sky (@lumin8) January 15, 2024
The same day that post appeared the photo was picked up by The U.S. Sun, which wrote a story about it (archived here) saying the photo was related to the closure of self-checkout kiosks at Dollar General:
Dollar General has plans in place to ditch the self-checkout kiosks.
The store announced at the beginning of December that they would be investing an extra $50 million into labor by the end of 2023.
It plans to shut down all of its self-checkout systems to help boost sales and slow down theft rates at its stores.
The story did not mention race as a factor in the decision.
