DECATUR, Ala. — Aaron Browder, a graduate of West Morgan High School, was turned away from a Decatur Wal-Mart jewelry counter this Sunday because his school’s mascot, the Rebel, is controversial and “a symbol of racism.”
“I just stood there and thought, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Aaron Browder said in an interview with the Decatur Daily.
“We didn’t even know how to react,” Brenda Browder, Aaron’s mother, said in the same interview. “We stood there looking at each other in complete disbelief, and then we just walked away. It took a while for the anger to set in.”
Aaron wanted to get “West Morgan Rebels” engraved on the ring, the school’s mascot on one side of the ring and either the school’s crest or an ROTC design on the other side. Both Aaron and his mother said they had no plans of putting a Confederate flag on the ring.
“The whole experience is disappointing,” Aaron added. “To be told that my school is racist and controversial is an insult to me, and it’s an insult to my school pride.”
Wal-Mart joined many other national companies, including Target and Amazon, in the prohibition of the sale of Confederate battle flags and items with Confederate symbols after the AME Church Shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.
According to Morgan County School Board Chair Billy Rhodes who contacted a company representative, “She told me they are not allowed to special order anything with the Confederate flag on it. Wal-Mart has this policy, and the people who work there are doing what they’ve been instructed to do.”
A spokesperson from Wal-Mart, Erin Hofmann, said she is “looking into the incident and would be able to provide more information at some point.”
The shift-manager of the Decatur Wal-Mart said Tuesday he was not aware of the incident.
“We will look around at other places to see if we can find something affordable,” Brenda Browder said. “I may have to save up for a few months to be able to afford it, but I’m going to get my son a ring.”
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