Walmart came up with a business strategy selling a special red velvet flavor cheesecake ice cream to celebrate Juneteenth. But the netizens find it a very insensitive and cheap move to use Juneteenth just for marketing a product.
The controversy started when Walmart launched that flavor with a Juneteenth trademark saying, “Share and celebrate African-American culture, emancipation, and enduring hope.” However, the tactic didn’t work as they thought it’d be.
A photo of their new swirl red velvet cheesecake as a flavor for Juneteenth month ice cream blew up on social media. Because of all the negative responses they had to take those out of stores because of all the hate they are getting.
Not only are those ice creams off shelves now but also the company had to give an apology saying, “However, we received feedback that a few items caused concern for some of our customers and we sincerely apologize”.
Netizens tweeted, “they’re trying to bastardize the meaning of Juneteenth with Pan African & Ethiopian flag colors, exploiting Native Black Americans history by trying to capitalize financially off of our ancestors’ fight! Look at what Walmart and other corporations are doing”.
Someone bashed Walmart with a tweet saying, “In keeping with American tradition, Walmart celebrates Juneteenth by using black culture to make white folks rich.”
Well-known comedian Kevin Frederick also called out Walmart on a viral Tiktok video for commercializing federal holidays which is meant to commemorate the freedom of enslaved African-Americans.
On social networking sites, people were calling out Walmart for copying the flavor from a Black-owned company Ice-cream called Cremalicious red velvet cheesecake. Because of the obvious similarities in both flavors.
Liz Roger, the owner of Cincinnati, came up with Creamalicious in the first place. According to mobs, instead of stealing the flavor, they should have promoted the original small brand available in Target.
As this was a completely insensitive way to show respect to Juneteenth, some Twitter handles were showing disappointment saying that they could support Juneteenth by paying the Black workers a bonus.
The whole point of celebrating June 19th is lost under Walmart’s greedy move to make business out of people’s emotions. As Juneteenth symbolize the emancipation of the black people who suffered slavery in America.
Because of all these conflicts they took all the red velvet cheesecake Juneteenth Ice-creams from all shops with a proper apology for exploiting this meaningful holiday of June 19th.
Let’s rewind a little bit. This is not the first time that any company faced backlash for their insensitive approach to Juneteenth. Similar event happened last year also.
In Atlanta, an Ikea store drew negative attention for launching a special menu having fried chicken and watermelon on Juneteenth. The black workers found it offensive and insensitive.
They thought it would be wise to come up with an ice cream flavor for celebrating Juneteenth. But it just fueled up a controversy that leads Walmart to face extreme hatred due to their insensitive business strategy.
