‘How can anyone sell that?’: Outrage over ‘offensive’ figurines at discount store
An Australian discount store has come under intense scrutiny over a series of figurines that were spotted on their shelves.
Hot Bargain was forced to apologise when an image emerged on Twitter showing a collection of shirtless Indigenous Australians holding didgeridoos and boomerangs.
Labelled “Australian Aboriginals”, the $3 items were spotted by Luke Pearson, the founder and CEO of Indigenous X, in Lake Haven Shopping Centre on NSW’s Central Coast.
“The perfect gift for white ppl (sic) who ‘love Aboriginal culture’ but would rather not interact with us in real life,” he captioned the photo on Twitter.
The image sparked fierce backlash among social media users, who labelled the depiction of Indigenous culture as “vile and offensive”.
“I thought we had moved on from this crap,” one person commented.
“WTF, how can anyone sell that?” another wrote.
“The tags says it all “Australian Aboriginals”, ownership right there,” one man commented.
A spokesperson for the bargain store told News Corp they had removed the product from their shelves and apologised for offending people.
“We definitely will get these products off the shelf ASAP. We got them from the supplier and didn’t think this would make people feel uncomfortable,” the spokesperson said.
