San Diego Johnny

Walmart Shuts Down Racist Website Product Suggestions

Welcome to those who have come to the site because of the Walmart story.  It was this blog that first broke the story. 

Update: Walmart has shut down a racist web suggestion part of their website, walmart.com. This "feature" was first reported here back in October and apparently my report has spread through the internet like wildfire, though apparently without attribution by being picked up on such sites as firedoglake and Crooks and Liars.

Latest update here.

Is Somebody at Walmart.com a Racist?

As a science fiction fan and owner of a satellite dish with a DVR, I often look at the upcoming shows for something to record. I found out that the Sci-Fi Channel usually plays episodes of the same science fiction series from 8 am to 4 pm Eastern time a few months ago. I've recorded episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica, Kolchak The Night Stalker, Time Cop, First Wave and most recently the little remembered 1974 television series adaptation of Planet of the Apes. I decided to try to see if one of my favorite sites for its great prices and service, Walmart.com, had the series available on DVD. When I searched for "Planet of the Apes" in the search area of the site, I was presented with three choices. The DVD set I was hoping for, a compilation of the Planet of the Apes movies and the unfortunate Tim Burton 2001 Re-make (known by some as "Aperaham Lincoln" for its ending). When I clicked on the television series DVD I was given choices of similar items to choose at the right of the screen . At first I thought, "oh, 'Introducing Dorothy Dandridge', maybe Roddy McDowell or one of the other actors was in this HBO Movie. That turned out not to be the case.
As I looked farther down the list, also "similar" supposedly is a documentary on the life and death of Martin Luther King, the arrow and hot link say that there are more items below.

When I clicked below I got a list of products already seen as well as "Unforgiveable Unforgiveable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson," a documentary on the first African-American heavyweight champion and "What's Love Got to Do With It?", a Tina Turner biopic, which are both apparently also similar to "Planet of the Apes."

In our nation's history and even to this day"yard apes" along with the equally offensive "porch monkey" are derogatory terms for black Americans and racists since the slavery days have attempted to sub-humanize slaves by comparing them to apes and monkeys. I am not the first one who will yell "racism!" when being given a set of circumstances to examine. As a matter of fact, I think at times that "the race card" is used too much in our society by such people as Jesse Jackson to perform shakedowns on individuals and corporations. In this case however given how different these items are, with their only link being that they are about black Americans and I have to wonder if a malicious coder or someone working at Walmart.com somehow linked these items together with the "Planet of the Apes." Given the history of racism and the civil rights struggle in our nation and especially in the South, where Walmart is headquartered, one would think that a multi-national concern like Walmart would be more cognizant about it's website and its content.

UPDATES:  Here and here in L'Affair Walmart: The Education of a San Diego Blogger