Walmart says it’s really, REALLY sorry for using the most inflammatory word in the English language to describe the color of a wig cap being sold on its website.
The controversy blew up on Monday morning when Twitter user Kwani Lunis shared a screenshot of the product page in which the cap’s color is described in detail.
As you can see below, Walmart is advertising that this item is available in “N-gger Brown.”
For real. It really did say that.
“Hey @Walmart what are you doing?” Lunis asked as a simple and understandable question as a caption to the photo:
Many others quickly took notice of the Walmart.com page, with author Roxanne Gay writing, “Oh @Walmart, why is this on your website? So far past unacceptable.”
Perhaps, you may be thinking, this isn’t Walmart’s fault.
Perhaps this is merely the name of the color.
Nope.
Comedy writer Travon Free Tweeted that he found the same cap for sale on Amazon and, “for context,” he pointed out that the description is “minus a certain word.”
Following the social media outcry, the racial slur was taken off from the description for the wig cap, which the site explains is sold by Jagazi Naturals.
However, astute Twitter users noted that the epithet was still listed further down on the page, even after Walmart looked into the problem.
Shortly thereafter, the store took the listing down entirely and said that the information for each product is “provided by manufacturers, suppliers and others, and has not been verified by us.”
It further said the following in a mea culpa released to The Huffington Post:
“We are very sorry and appalled that this third-party seller listed their item with this description on our online marketplace.
“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.”
This is not the first time Walmart has been at the center of a scandal, based on what it was selling or how it was advertising an item.
In December 2016, the retail giant got in trouble after third-party seller offered a mug reading “Got Retard?” on the website.
A mug saying “Got Hitler?” was also complained about and removed around that same time.
Then there was the way Walmart tried to cash in on 9/11 by hanging a banner that read “We Will Never Forget” above a display of soda cans on sale.
In this case, Ragan Dickens, Walmart’s national media relations director, says the wig cap was sold by a third party, NOT by Jagazi Naturals, the creator of the item.
Walmart is in the process of suspending their account and are further investigating the issue.
According to Walmart.com, the company explicitly prohibits third-party retailers from selling “offensive” products through its marketplace.
This includes products that display “vulgar language.
It also includes “products that either portray, glorify or promote in an insensitive way animal cruelty; any historical or news events; criminal or illegal activity; derogatory stereotyping based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or nationality; hatred; intolerance; natural or man-made disaster(s); tragedy; violence.”
