Hey
students, see if you can figure out what's wrong with this scenario:
You click over to Wal-Mart's site to purchase a copy of the Planet of the Apes TV series on DVD. You click on the DVD and are given a list of similar movies as recommendations. Oddly enough, all the movies feature African-Americans. It seems this bit of covert online racism set off some backlash recently, which isn't difficult for Wal-Mart to conjure up since most people don't need much recourse to hate the mega-chain. The company itself issued an apology, but it still remains unclear as to just why it happened in the first place. The company says it was promoting films with African-Americans in honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, but that doesn't quite explain this incident.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-07-2006 @ 4:27PM
Ape Man said...
This story is just pathetic. First off, anyone who finds themselves offended by anything remotely connecting African-Americans and apes needs to look in the mirror. To most non-hypersensitive or latently racist freaks, the connection just doesn't occur to them.
Second, Planet of the Apes address themes of slavery and humanity. The fact that it is recommended (by a computer, don't forget) in connection with a Martin Luther King, Jr. movie is not much of a stretch to begin with.
Third, Amazon thinks I'd like 3 Ninjas. Automated recommendations stink in general, and there is about a zero chance that someone manually entered a connection in the database that would have caused this.
I don't think the particular incident needs to be explained so much as it needs to be explained why so many people in the 21st century think African-Americans are somehow related to apes and are on the lookout for incidents to decry involving it to prove they're not racist. It's a lot like the ultra-militantly homophobic guy being a closet homosexual.
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