The biggest US trader Walmart stopped the sales of All Lives Matter T-shirts in reaction to the incident. The $20 T-shirts that read “Blue Lives Matter” and “Drunk Lives Matter” caused a controversial situation in the US. All the sales of “All Lives Matter” products are entirely stopped on their website too. A third party brand exposed named “Old Glory” selling the $20 T-shirts through Walmart website. These shirts contain different phrases like “Blue Lives Matter”, “Police Lives Matter”, “Irish Lives Matter”, “Homeless Lives Matter”, “Drunk Lives Matter” as well as “All Lives Matter”.
Walmart faced criticism for selling the T-shirts that carry the discrepancy of the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. Social media users very angrily posted about the world’s biggest retailer for apparently “mocking” the Black Lives Matter moment. This moment was symbolized to call to action against racism and police about the killing of Black people in America. This slogan was used first in 2012, after the contentious killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. After that, “Black Lives Matter” has become a countersign for the protestors countrywide. It became more and more popular after the repercussion of George Floyd’s killing by the police in Minneapolis in June 2020.
Walmart dot com and Walmart Canada was selling these T-shirts online as a third party was using these platforms. In an interview, Walmart said, “It stands against any form of prejudice or discrimination. We encourage listening, seeking to understand, and embracing individual differences. Today, our third-party marketplace has several items with variations on the phrase’ lives matter.’ We will recapitulate to review those items to guarantee acquiescence with our terms and conditions.”
People started tweeting about the shirts that support xenophobia. A twitter user named Kate Udle posted a picture with “All Lives Matter T-shirt” with a comment “Are you kidding me @walmartcanada??? Disgusting. Do better.” Another popular tweet noted was with the question to Walmart expressing his disappointment, “Why to make it easier for the racists to get their clothing?” After all these social media reactions, Walmart released a statement that said they would investigate the situation and all the third-party sellers.
But after seeing the concerns of customers and employees, Walmart announced that they would stop the selling of products by the third party on their platform. Here we go with the company’s statement, “We fundamentally do believe that all lives matter and every individual deserves respect. However, as we listened, we came to understand that the way some, but not all, people are using the phrase ‘All Lives Matter’ in the current environment intentionally minimized the focus on the painful reality of racial inequality.”
After last week’s news, the company has decided to remove the Mississippi state flag, which features an affiliated logo in its store. Mississippi officials recently elected to eradicate the logo.
