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Child Item

T-shirt in Primark discontinued because of racist 'eeny meeny miny moe' message

DredFX

Now this rubs me the wrong way:

BBC

But now there's a backlash on social media, with some complaining it's an example of customers being "over-sensitive".
The T-shirt in question is licensed merchandise from The Walking Dead.
It features the rhyme "eeny meeny miny moe", which has a racist origin.

T-shirt

The tune has typically been used by children as a counting rhyme and some early versions of it included references to offensive terms for black people.
More related stories

Along with the words, the T-shirt also features an image of a baseball bat and barbed wire.

This image relates directly to the practice of assaulting black people in America - Ian Lucraft, Primark customer

The rhyme features in a scene in The Walking Dead when one character is deciding which person in a group they are going to kill.
"The T-shirt in question is licensed merchandise for the US television series, The Walking Dead, and the quote and image are taken directly from the show," Primark said in a statement.
"Any offence caused by its design was wholly unintentional and Primark sincerely apologises for this.
"Primark has removed the product from sale."

Customer Ian Lucraft, who complained about the top to Primark, and his wife Gwen had been in a Sheffield branch of the store when they spotted the item of clothing.
"We were shocked when we came face to face with a new T-shirt with a racially explicit graphic and text," he told The Sheffield Star.
"It was fantastically offensive and I can only assume that no-one in the process of ordering it knew what they were doing, or were aware of its subliminal messages.
"The graphic has a large American baseball bat, wrapped round with barbed wire, and covered with blood.
"This image relates directly to the practice of assaulting black people in America.
"It is directly threatening of a racist assault, and if I were black and were faced by a wearer I would know just where I stood."

So, a man who isn't even black finds a tacky t-shirt featuring a children's rhyme fantastically offensive. (Lovely choice of adverb there.)

I think he's right, because the fact that it is now commonly used by kids to choose between the last two players for a football match doesn't overturn its previous usage as a racial slur well over a century ago.

Ugh. Your thoughts?

EDIT: Easy with the spoilers, people. Not everyone has seen that all-important episode.

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Comments

Gatling

biko wrote: »

So, it's Negan in Walking Dead that is the racist now?
I knew it when he killed
Glenn!

Yes he showed hatred for someone living over the walking dead ,
bastard !

Yamanoto

super_furry wrote: »

Yes. As a child I was fully responsible for the culture of casual racism in Ireland in the 80s. Great call.

Blame it on the tasty treats.

lazybones32

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgoNSCgP6TA

Let's picket Lyons tea.

Irish Guitarist

Their clothes are made in sweatshops by people who are treated little better than slaves in cotton plantations were a couple of hundred years ago. The person in the story gives none of that a second thought but almost has a heart attack when he sees some 'offensive' words.

kunst nugget

biko wrote: »

So, it's Negan in Walking Dead that is the racist now?
I knew it when he killed
Glenn!

And he killed a ginger… although that's probably forgivable seeing as they have no souls.

kunst nugget

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

Their clothes are made in sweatshops by people who are treated little better than slaves in cotton plantations were a couple of hundred years ago. The person in the story gives none of that a second thought but almost has a heart attack when he sees some 'offensive' words.

Sweatshops sounds so coarse, I prefer to call them 'Magic Fabric Pixie Factories'! Makes all those great bargains seem even more fantastical!

Zaph

Yamanoto wrote: »

Blame it on the tasty treats.

The most disappointing of all the ice creams. Just a plain bar of vanilla on a stick, wtf was the point of that?

kunst nugget

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

i think that says more about you than the tshirt.

Yeah, we only picked teams for five a side in the local park if we were wearing our white hoods and had our burning crosses up…

It was a nonsense rhyme that we used to say without twigging what we were actually saying. It wasn't intentional on our parts to be racist as 4-5 year olds back in the early 80s.

I'll admit to wincing in anticipation of the 'n-word' when I heard my eldest saying it for the first time in and there being a huge sigh of relief when she said 'tiger'.

Boom_Bap

Zaph wrote: »

The most disappointing of all the ice creams. Just a plain bar of vanilla on a stick, wtf was the point of that?

That was how you knew you've been bad.
"You're getting a plain ice cream, your brothers are getting something with chocolate or sprinkles on it."

kunst nugget

Boom_Bap wrote: »

That was how you knew you've been bad.
"You're getting a plain ice cream, your brothers are getting something with chocolate or sprinkles on it."

All your brothers are getting Wibbly Wobbly Wonders because they're possibly gay but you're getting the Golly Bar because you're a total racist.

ohnonotgmail

kunst nugget wrote: »

Yeah, we only picked teams for five a side in the local park if we were wearing our white hoods and had our burning crosses up…

It was a nonsense rhyme that we used to say without twigging what we were actually saying. It wasn't intentional on our parts to be racist as 4-5 year olds back in the early 80s.

I'll admit to wincing in anticipation of the 'n-word' when I heard my eldest saying it for the first time in and there being a huge sigh of relief when she said 'tiger'.

On mature reflection perhaps it was a little harsh. besides, nobody back then was a racist. there was nobody to be a racist to.

TheChizler

Richard Hillman wrote: »

Primark are the worst party in all of this. They are pandering to and enabling these control freaks

They have so many products that it must be possible for someone somewhere to take offence to anything. Probably makes commercial sense to discontinue something once a complaint hits the media, rather than constantly defending themselves.

scamalert

I'll admit to wincing in anticipation of the 'n-word' when I heard my eldest saying it for the first time in and there being a huge sigh of relief when she said 'tiger'.
niger ?

kunst nugget

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Regressive left getting offended on others behalf yet again.

The guy that complained was a Methodist Minister. Are they regressive left?

'I heard you're a regressive leftie now, Father!'

kunst nugget

scamalert wrote: »

niger ?

Aye, that's it. I visited Niger once and got a bad dose of the scutters. Can't stand to even hear mention of the place now.

joeguevara

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

define "a little while". as a child growing up in the 70s the N word wasnt used.

Grew up in the 80s and it was used. But the reaction to the TShirt is way over the top,

DrPhilG

Zaph wrote: »

The most disappointing of all the ice creams. Just a plain bar of vanilla on a stick, wtf was the point of that?

Racist.

ohnonotgmail

Zaph wrote: »

The most disappointing of all the ice creams. Just a plain bar of vanilla on a stick, wtf was the point of that?

i love golly bars. the ice cream in them was always much nicer than the ice cream used in other bars.

Gatling

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

i love golly bars. the ice cream in them was always much nicer than the ice cream used in other bars.

Does anyone remember the black beauty icepop

ohnonotgmail

Gatling wrote: »

Does anyone remember the black beauty icepop

do NOT google "black beauty ice cream".

RWCNT

kunst nugget wrote: »

The guy that complained was a Methodist Minister. Are they regressive left?

'I heard you're a regressive leftie now, Father!'

Jesus was the original SJW.

dublinman1990

This story is bizarre. I felt it bordering on the extreme & unnecessary.

I didn't know that the T-Shirt was a reference to a TV show like The Walking Dead. But I knew that nursery rhyme had many different variations when I was told about it in school when a kid in the 90's. I would never for a second link the T-shirt to Black violence in America as your man may have referenced it either for research purposes or may have held a particular grudge against Primark for selling it to their customers.

Either way; it is a sad reflection of society that all people regardless of opinion get to lose out by seeing this needless crap happen in reality.

Coincidentally; there is a documentary called "Has Political Correctness Gone Mad?" in the UK on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight. We might give it a watch to see the more extreme end of PC Liberals going mad to end even more stupid ways of defeating ways of making sense with the world around them.

DEFTLEFTHAND

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I grew up in the 70s and it was.
Depends on where you were raised I guess, different places sang it... differently.

I remember my mother telling me that it was innocently used to describe a certain shade of brown in her locality. For eg she got an 'n brown' coat for her birthday one year. That's how she would describe it to her friends and no one would bat an eyelid.

A different time altogether. They'd no comprehension of the history of the term as they grew up in an era when Ireland was practically all white.

Zaph

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

I remember my mother telling me that it was innocently used to describe a certain shade of brown in her locality. For eg she got an 'n brown' coat for her birthday one year. That's how she would describe it to her friends and no one would bat an eyelid.

A different time altogether. They'd no comprehension of the history of the term as they grew up in an era when Ireland was practically all white.

Absolutely. My great aunt, who was born in something like 1902 had a black cat named N***** when she was a young woman, and that was apparently quite a common name for black cats at that time. But there was absolutely no racial implications to the name as far as she was concerned, it was just a name that a lot of people used.

FTA69

Zaph wrote: »

Absolutely. My great aunt, who was born in something like 1902 had a black cat named N***** when she was a young woman, and that was apparently quite a common name for black cats at that time. But there was absolutely no racial implications to the name as far as she was concerned, it was just a name that a lot of people used.

Yeah but it was casually racist like. Back then that attitude toward black people was so normalised and culturally acceptable then it wouldn't have raised eyebrows and maybe the person wasn't frothing at the mouth malicious; but using N*gger as a name for a pet is very much racist like; as you said the only cats and dogs that were called it were the black ones.

[Deleted User]

dublinman1990 wrote: »

it is a sad reflection of society that all people regardless of opinion get to lose out by seeing this needless crap happen in reality...

Could you set out the ways that society has lost out by not having Primark sell this particular teehshirt? I don't feel the loss myself, so I'd be interested to hear about your pain, or the loss felt by those you know. Thanks.

FTA69

Also I remember using the n*gger version of Eenie meenie back in the early 90s in school. Does anyone remember that Kia Ora ad that used to be on the telly? Jesus

DEFTLEFTHAND

FTA69 wrote: »

Also I remember using the n*gger version of Eenie meenie back in the early 90s in school. Does anyone remember that Kia Ora ad that used to be on the telly? Jesus

The one with the crows?

FTA69

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

The one with the crows?

Yep. That was fairly shocking for the 1990s like. How the f*ck did that one get made and signed off?

Zaph

FTA69 wrote: »

Yeah but it was casually racist like. Back then that attitude toward black people was so normalised and culturally acceptable then it wouldn't have raised eyebrows and maybe the person wasn't frothing at the mouth malicious; but using N*gger as a name for a pet is very much racist like; as you said the only cats and dogs that were called it were the black ones.

Of course it was racist, and by today's standards horrifically so. But by the standards of the time in 1920/30s Ireland it was just a word to describe something black. I doubt the word, or even the concept of racism was commonplace in the country at the time.

FTA69 wrote: »

Does anyone remember that Kia Ora ad that used to be on the telly? Jesus

How that ever made it onto the screens will always remain a mystery. That was first shown in 1982. Unbelievable that it was that recent.