We see you, Amazon.
When your retail product
has lost Walmart ...
As of Monday afternoon, Walmart.com carried the Confederate flag as well as attire featuring the flag's design, such as T-shirts and belt buckles.
"We never want to offend anyone with the products that we offer. We have taken steps to remove all items promoting the confederate flag from our assortment -- whether in our stores or on our web site," said Walmart spokesman Brian Nick. "We have a process in place to help lead us to the right decisions when it comes to the merchandise we sell. Still, at times, items make their way into our assortment improperly -- this is one of those instances."
Sears and Kmart are similarly removing Confederate flag merchandise, though they didn't have nearly so much of it as Walmart. CNN tried unsuccessfully to get comment from Amazon and eBay, both of which probably need to be commenting in the near future:
Amazon.com lists pages of Confederate flag-related merchandise, ranging from the flag itself to folding knives, T-shirts, blankets and even shower curtains.
eBay also carries the Confederate flag and accessories such as handbags and jewelry. The online auction site's "offensive material policy" bans the sale of items that "promote hatred or racial supremacy including historic and current items."
As interesting as it would be to watch eBay try to square that policy with having Confederate flags for sale, in a world where Walmart has taken the flag off its shelves, it would be a lot better if eBay and Amazon both just followed the lead of Walmart and Sears.
10:02 AM PT: eBay issues a statement saying "We have decided to prohibit Confederate flags, and many items containing this image, because we believe it has become a contemporary symbol of divisiveness and racism."
12:01 PM PT: And Amazon follows suit.
Wed Jun 24, 2015 at 9:55 AM PT: Not a question of selling flags, but BMW issued a statement in support of Gov. Nikki Haley's push to take the flag down.