Walmart’s decision to celebrate Black History Month by stocking its shelves with mostly gangsta rap DVDs has been assailed by irate critics.
African Americans are demanding an explanation as to how the international retail behemoth could possibly consider gangstar rap as paying homage to Black History with DVDs like Ice Cube’s The Player’s Club and Tupac Shakur’s Thug Angel.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Walmart rejected a particularly uplifting and star-studded documentary, For the Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Patriots, that details the history of blacks in the military. The documentary was made by Frank Martin and is hosted by Halle Berry and features the likes of John Travolta, Danny Glover, Angela Bassett, the late Ossie Davis and the late Walter Cronkite.
“To not include that but to include the gangster rap things just seems crazy to me,” Martin told the Sun-Times. “It just defies logic. At a time when we need to influence young people with positive things, why would they not carry this amazing story?”
Martin has financial incentives to see his DVD on the shelves of Walmart, the world’s No. 1 retail conglomerate. It calls into question whether Martin challenged Walmart’s Black History offerings prior to this year. Still, Martin’s documentary took a decade to complete and painstakingly details the still little-known heroics of black soldiers. African Americans fought in every one of this country’s wars, in every theater of war, and had to endure worse and more humiliating treatment than America’s enemies despite their displays of patriotism.
Walmart said their decision to stock certain products is based on price, sales and release date. The retailer didn’t specify which criteria Martin allegedly did not meet.
–terry shropshire
