Walmart: Let Them Eat Cake!

Or Ice Cream. Or whatever.

PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.al.com/life/2022/05/walmart-pulls-juneteenth-ice-cream-after-backlash-we-sincerely-apologize.html

Marie Antoinette, rightly or wrongly, gets the blame for hearing that her subjects were hungry, having no bread to eat, and responding with a novel solution: “Let them eat cake!”

Today, ice cream is on the menu. Even better. Social media is awash in handwringing over Walmart’s abortive decision to market Diversity Ice Cream to the growing market segment of Juneteenth celebrants. The many thousands of social media reactions are intense, and all over the map, but consistent around one theme. It was a bad idea.

Here are some samples from LinkedIn.

• “…the most offensive part to me was seeing the ‘TM’ symbol next to the word Juneteenth.” — JD
• “Sadly, they can’t unring this bell. It should never passed the ideation phase.” — ST
• “These companies being performative has gotten out of hand.” — JR
• “Walmart [is] commercializing and exploiting Juneteenth by debuting a special edition ice cream and selling these stupid decorations…” — SH
• “I feel like it’s wrong, definitely, like fundamentally, right? Because it’s almost like they’re capitalizing on the pain and everything…” — YA
• “My jaw dropped when I saw the ice cream and party favors. Very disappointing and…