Wal-Mart apologized yesterday after its retail website directed potential buyers of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Planet of the Apes” DVDs to also consider purchasing DVDs with African-American themes.
The world’s largest retailer said in a statement that it was “heartsick” over the racially offensive grouping and that the site was linking “seemingly random combinations of titles.”
The mistake resulted from a well-intentioned effort to promote a DVD about the black leader, said Carter Cast, president of walmart.com, the online shopping arm of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
A business manager had grouped “Martin Luther King: I Have a Dream” with three other black-themed movies and assigned the package an overly broad category of DVD boxed sets, Cast said.