Walmart pulls baby onesie from its stores after Indigenous backlash

Walmart has removed a controversial baby onesie, which read “I still live with my parents” alongside images of tipis, from its St. Catharines, Ontario store after its message attracted criticism online.

The onesie may have been a joke, but those who saw the clothing item in the store weren’t laughing.

The onesie hit a particular nerve due to the fact Indigenous children are disproportionately taken into state care in Canada versus non-Indigenous children. Living with their parents is a luxury that many Indigenous youth cannot afford.

Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day tweeted that the item was “tasteless, rude” and that it “exudes corporate arrogance.”

The photo was originally posted on Facebook on July 12 by a Walmart customer.

Walmart isn’t the only one — Old Navy sells a similar shirt — but Walmart has been quick to react.

Joe, an assistant manager at the Walmart in St. Catharines, who would not give his last name, confirmed the onesie was on sale at that store. He said a customer had confronted a manager and the onesie had been removed from the store.

“We have taken the product off the floor until they can deal with their corporate affairs office,” he said, and directed VICE News to call corporate affairs for any further questions.

The graphic on this item does not represent Walmart’s beliefs and has no place in our stores,” Anika Malik, senior manager of corporate affairs told VICE News in an email. “We are removing the product immediately and sincerely apologize for any unintended offence this has caused.”

She added that the product will be removed from all Walmart Canada stores where it is sold.

The customer later posted on Facebook, “Much respect to the store manager for removing an entire rack of them.”

Walmart sells other baby onesies with the words “I still live with my parents,” minus the tipis, as a joke. But this one in particular appears to have made it onto the Walmart racks without anyone in the company considering how it would be received.

For at least 30 years, Canada’s child welfare system has been called “broken” by Indigenous advocates.

Aboriginal children younger than 14 made up 7 percent of all children in Canada in 2011, but they accounted for 48 percent of all children in foster care, according to Statistics Canada. Just last week, VICE News reported on the staggering over-representation of Indigenous youth in the child welfare system.

Many First Nations people who grew up in the foster care system say they lost their connection to their Indigenous culture. It’s for these reasons that the child welfare system has been accused of carrying on the wrongs from Canada’s residential school system, which removed Indigenous children from their homes, subjected them to assault and sexual abuse, shaved their long hair and forced them to assimilate into European culture with the stated purpose to “remove the Indian in the child” — a practice that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded was cultural genocide.