Walmart is apologizing for a product description on its website that uses the "n-word" to describe a hair net listed for sale on its site.
The product, a Jagazi full cap hair net, was listed on Walmart.com Monday morning, with the racial slur used for the color description. Instead of "brown," the site showed it as "n-----brown."
The listing was active on both Walmart's main website and its mobile site, according to several people who screen-grabbed the image and shared it on Facebook.
Walmart pulls down listing, apologizes
By mid-day Monday, Walmart pulled down the offensive post. The Jagazi hair net was still available for sale in several other colors, but not in brown.
Walmart Director of Corporate Communications Danit Marquadt issued the following statement to WCPO.com:
“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.”
Jagazi, the British maker of the hair nets, is also reacting with outrage. The company has posted a note at the top of its website saying:
"We woke up this morning to the news that someone has used our name JAGAZI to list an item. Please beware that we are reporting this to as many people as we can and trying to get all the listings pulled down..... sorry for all the distress this has caused. We are feeling the pain here as well."
Walmart noted that the listing was from a third-party vendor, not the store itself.
Store officials have no idea if it was deliberate, meant to be a joke, or something a writer had used internally, never intending it to be published.
The store intends to get to the bottom of it as quickly as possible, knowing the impact bad PR can sometimes have.
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