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How Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Sears Took Down the Confederate Flag

posted by takyon on Wednesday June 24 2015, @11:00PM   

HughPickens.com writes:

In South Carolina, the governor has called for the Confederate flag to stop flying over the capitol. The governors of Virginia and North Carolina quickly declared that they would remove the flag from state license plates. Meanwhile, several of the country's top retailers -- including eBay and Amazon -- announced in quick succession that they would stop selling Confederate flag merchandise. Now MJ Lee reports at CNN that the debate over the Confederate flag is the most recent and vivid illustration of how changes in the business community can influence and pressure politics. "What you are seeing is a broad, acknowledgment across both the consumer, the political and the business community that that particular emblem is no longer part of something that should be a state-issued emblem," says GOP strategist Scott Jennings.

Walmart, Amazon, eBay and Sears announced within the span of one day that they would ban the sale of Confederate flag merchandise from their stores, saying they had no intention of offending customers. As Walmart CEO Doug McMillon put it, the decision was straightforward: "We want everybody to feel comfortable shopping at Walmart." Corporate and business leaders say that the abandoning the flag is a step towards inclusiveness for a region that has long struggled to shed negative images. "The business community -- they have a lot of say and power all over the country, whether it's on religion or ethnicity or LGBT issues," says Ralph Northam. "When you're running a business, you have to have the doors open and welcome diversity."

takyon: Alabama Governor Orders Removal Of Confederate Flags From Capitol
'Dukes of Hazzard' toy car General Lee loses its Confederate flag

Note: These moves are in response to the events in Charleston.

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Original Submission

• Re:Confederate Flag Re:Confederate Flag (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:54AM

  by TheRaven (270) on Thursday June 25 2015, @08:54AM (#200851) Journal

  I don't think that there's much debate over the fact that the south wanted slavery. The debate is over the degree to which the north was opposed. A lot of people in the north were at least as racist as those in the south, but the poorer ones didn't want slaves lowering wages (and thought that it was much easier to compete with free black men, because no one would want to hire a black person if a white person was available). One of the reasons that the north decided to make slavery such a rallying call was that Britain was planning on entering the war on the side of the South, but this became politically impossible once the war was framed as being about slavery[1], because the British public was strongly opposed to slavery. It was also a great rallying cry for the troops - it's easy to believe that you have the moral high ground when you're fighting for the freedom of others. It was quite late into the conflict that this became the major issue though.

  [1] Slavery had previously been made illegal in Britain via a backdoor, where a judge ruled that since slavery had never explicitly been made legal (and constitutional law in the UK says that you have all freedoms that are not explicitly removed by statute law) then there were no slaves in Britain and anyone who arrived in Britain as a slave ceased to be so as soon as they entered British jurisdiction. Which made it slightly problematic for the slave traders based in Bristol...

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• Re:Confederate Flag (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @12:23PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @12:23PM (#200903)

  > The debate is over the degree to which the north was opposed.

  Yeah, we are debating whether or not the north were hypocrites! That is what's going on - a great big tu quoque.

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