Walmart pulls out boots from online space, ‘KKK’ was engraved on each shoe

New Delhi: Walmart has removed a pair of boots from its online marketplace since it was established that the boots violated the company’s “prohibited product policy,” according to the retailer. Offered by a third-party seller on the company’s Walmart Marketplace, the pair of boots were emblazoned with the letters ‘KKK’ on the tongue of each shoe.

‘KKK’ is commonly associated with the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. The Ku Klux Klan commonly referred to as the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist group whose primary targets have often been African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Catholics. They were also against immigrants, leftists, homosexuals and atheists.

The company has not been able to ascertain why the USD 50 boots had the letters engraved on them. The third-party seller appeared to be a company called “Harsuny,” and the footwear was listed as only “Men’s Tactical Military Hiking Ankle Boot Outdoor Trekking Shoes,” according to a screengrab of the item’s listing shared by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It was CAIR, that reportedly brought the issue to Walmart’s notice late last week.

Walmart has said that the item has been removed from its website over the weekend. The shoes were never offered for sale in-store, a company representative said.

“This item was listed by an outside third-party seller and removed because the item is inconsistent with our values and violates Walmart’s prohibited product policy,” a Walmart spokesperson said in a statement.

“Like other major retailers, we operate an online marketplace that allows third-party sellers to offer merchandise to customers through our e-Commerce platform. We have a process in place designed to prevent third party sellers from offering inappropriate items on our platform. Still, at times, inappropriate items make their way onto our platform,” the statement read.

“We are reviewing how this happened and will apply what we learn to further improve our rules and processes to prevent the sale of inappropriate merchandise.” The matter was initially reported by Business Insider earlier this week, CAIR issued a press statement thanking Walmart for removing what CAIR called “oddly/poorly named ‘KKK’ boots” from its platform.

This is not the first time an item from one of Walmart’s third-party sellers has come under the scanner. In recent years, the retail giant has removed T-shirts joking about lynching of journalists, according to the Associated Press, as well as a graphic tee reading, “I’d Rather Be Snorting Cocaine Off a Hooker’s —,” Mashable reported.

The retail giant had also once removed a third-party seller’s online listing for a mug playing on the “Got Milk?” campaign slogan, albeit with “milk” replaced by a slur for people with disabilities, Grub Street reported.

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