Orange, white, and blue bag pulled from shelves.
The retailer, Woolworths, this week apologized for stocking an ‘offensive’ bag. The bag had an orange stripe across the top, a white stripe in the middle, and a blue stripe on the bottom, making it reminiscent of the colours of the old South African flag.
The bag, which was designed in Australia but also sold in South Africa, was spotted by a member of Reddit. From there news of the bag spread to users of other social media platforms.
Woolworths pulled the bag from shelves and apologized for any offence it had caused to South Africans.
Panyaza Lesufi, the MEC for education in Gauteng, also took to Twitter to express his outrage. In a tweet he rejected Woolworths’s apology. He also said that Woolworths should not undermine ‘our collective power’ to take the ‘battle’ to the company. It is not clear what Lesufi meant, seeing as the company had already apologised and removed the bag from sale.