Yesterday, Twitter user Kwani Lunis asked a good question:
And it wasn't bad enough that the 'n-word' was in the product description on the first page, but it was also in the more detailed product description.
It was even in the URL, something a simple filter would have prevented.
Today, Walmart is falling all over themselves apologizing and wondering how it could be possible that the terrible N-word landed in a third-party seller's description of a product intended to protect hair extensions.
“We are very sorry and appalled that this third party seller listed their item with this description on our online marketplace,” spokeswoman Danit Marquardt wrote in a statement. “It is a clear violation of our policy, and has been removed, and we are investigating the seller to determine how this could have happened.”
Well, gosh golly gee, Walmart! It took me all of 5 minutes to check out HOOGO, Inc, which is incorporated in Nevada, but whose California corporate status is "forfeited" because apparently they haven't paid their sales taxes.
They're also suspended from the coupon affiliate website iCodes, which looks like it operates under a far smaller budget than WalMart.
The owner of HOOGO, Inc. is a Chinese national by the name of Yanzhi Luo, who also has an account on Amazon under the name "coolpanda", whose listings do not include anything particularly controversial and certainly not racist. Amazon does screen their third-party sellers, though, and appears to have a filter on URLs so they're not permitted to contain racist epithets.
It took me longer to write this up than it did to do that research, and I don't have anywhere near the resources as WalMart, so forgive me if their vapors over how a third-party seller's listings could POSSIBLY have landed on their website don't impress me.
Do better, WalMart, or just admit your owners are a bunch of racist right-wingers who have no problem with that word.
