|
The
company said on Tuesday it will no longer display the
Mississippi state flag in its stores while the state debates
whether to make changes to its design after it drew opposition.
The Mississippi Baptist Convention, with over 500,000 members at
more than 2,100 churches, called on state leaders to adopt a new
flag, saying lawmakers have a moral obligation to remove the
emblem from the state flag as it "hurt and shamed" many people.
"While the issue continues to be discussed, we've made the
decision to remove the Mississippi state flag from display in
its current form from our stores," a Walmart spokesman said.
In the ongoing global ant-racism demonstrations, protesters have
demanded that authorities take down monuments, emblems and
statues honoring pro-slavery Confederate figures and the
architects of Europe's colonies.
The protests have spread since an unarmed Black man, George
Floyd, died after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly
nine minutes while detaining him in Minneapolis on May 25.
Separately, social media users complained over links to products
like an "All Lives Matter" shirt for sale on the Walmart Canada
site.
The company said the product was shipped and sold by a third
party seller and that it was being looked into.
Walmart added it was reviewing items in its "third-party
marketplace" with variations of the phrase 'lives matter' to
ensure compliance with "terms and conditions".
"This item is sold and shipped by a third party seller and is
currently being looked into", Walmart Canada said.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru;
Editing by Sonya Hepinstall & Simon Cameron-Moore)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
