Primark pulls t-shirt in racist TWD merchandise

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Have you ever visited the Toy Museum in Bethnal Green? I often see it on the train into Liverpool St Station, and have wondered if they have evidence of our head-turningly bad stuff in the past. I quite fancy having a nose around.
I've been before when my children were small, so probably a good 10-15 years ago. I can't remember if they hid the unacceptable toys or not. I remember it being a 'proper' museum (not one those odd collections of someones personal ephemera that you can get in small towns) so I don't think that they would. It is probably worth another visit sometime.
 
The rhyme, or versions of it, seems to go back much, much earlier than black chattel slavery, so I imagine that the use of the n-word was relatively late, and explanations like the gangrened toe are a case of reverse etymology. When I was a child we always said "tiger" and I have since heard many variants, including the n-word. I'm not surprised if the n-word was more common in the UK, but may I point out that there was a time, not so far in the past (first half or so of the 20th century at least, if the British novels I've read from that period are any indication) when the word was often applied by a certain type of very prejudiced Englishman to anyone of color, so associating it directly with slavery seems like a big leap.

The baseball bat makes which word is meant in this case shockingly plain, so I think that withdrawing the shirt from sale was most definitely the right choice. However, I think that accusations of prejudice and ignorance should be kept to a minimum since where and when the rhyme originated and what the original words were are always going to be a matter for speculation.
 
In the version with the Tiger, was it still the toe being grabbed, or the tail?
 
To be fair, almost all reactions to this story elsewhere on this site and in the wider world are to decry the crazed political correctness that is destroying Western society, which I don't think is reasonable either.

One of the things that made me doubt my original reaction was the question of which versions were older -- e.g. if the tiger version was the original, then perhaps the n-- phase is just a temporary stage that the rhyme went through, not an intrinsically racist rhyme. And I think I read somewhere that tiger had been the original version, but the more I read, the more I come to doubt this.

I read this (though I haven't followed up the source):

Bolton in his 1888 work on children's counting rhymes collected about eighteen variants of "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo" (see pages 105-106). Of these, eight are included in Section 1—"Catch a n-- by the toe." Most of these were from the United States, but at least two were from the British Isles. Of these eight, five caught "a n-- by the toe" (No.s 600, 601, 602, 604, & 606); one "a negro by the toe" (No. 603); one "a baby by the toe" (No. 605); and one "a n-- by the thumb" (No. 607). Altogether Bolton collected more than 50 variants of "Enie, Meenie". Bolton states earlier in his book that the "n--" variant likely originated in the U.S. The use of "tiger by the toe" seems to be an adult adaption of the children's rhyme dating from the mid-20th century as it appears nowhere in Bolton's collection.

There's this too (she's doing a PhD on these kind of rhymes!): Losing Count

"In the canonical Eeny Meeny, “tiger” is standard in the second line, but this is a relatively recent revision. If it doesn’t seem to make sense, even in the gibberish Eeny Meeny world, that you’d grab a carnivorous cat’s toe and expect the tiger to do the hollering, remember that in both England and America, children until recently said “Catch a n-- by the toe.” The n---to-tiger shift is one of the rare instances where changes in the rhyme happen in such an explicit and pointed fashion."

There are, of course, many older versions in a whole range of different languages, but that doesn't mean that this particular rhyme was not used in the way some people seem to think it was. I wish I could find a proper source for it, though.

---

EDIT

The guy who asked for it to be removed said (among other things):

“...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.’”

Which suggests there's a history I don't know (yet).
 
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I'm pretty sure we used "piggy" (UK, born 1967), which makes sense with "squeal", if not "toe".
 
I was born in 72 and when we used it we knew it was N-word but it was often changed to something else. I can't actually recall what we said but it wasn't tiger.
I'm from the US, and born in 1971. It was never the N-word at any point in my childhood.

I think TWD is an American program, and the catchy and useful random selection rhyme has been cleaned up for much longer in the US than in England. I recall a Monty Python episode with the N-word - I think the use of the word in the UK was much more casual much later than in the US. So while you guys were using the racist rhyme much later than was common or polite in the US, mainstream America and the TWD folks have no connection to its purported racist roots.

It just seems a little like a cultural thing where something that was cleaned up much longer ago in the US is still an open wound in the UK.
 
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Which also kind of raises the question: if it was a racist rhyme, but was cleaned up by exchanging "tiger" for "n--", then is it still offensive? I mean, it's not very disguised, is it? But perhaps it isn't offensive. Argh. I don't know.
 
Which also kind of raises the question: if it was a racist rhyme, but was cleaned up by exchanging "tiger" for "n--", then is it still offensive? I mean, it's not very disguised, is it? But perhaps it isn't offensive. Argh. I don't know.
If it wasn't racist in the first place, then became racist, then is back to not being racist, what then?

The thing is, most rhymes are easily changed by substituting words. And even the N-word version might not have been intended with any stronger racism than "One little, two little, three little Indians". The N-word wasn't especially offensive at one time, and making rhymes or sporting team names out of "exotic" people like blacks, Eskimos or Indians was not done as a purposeful put-down. We look at this use of human descriptors now as wrong headed, and maybe someday people will tsk-tsk at us for using endangered animal names in rhymes and for mascots. But I do think there is a big difference between hate speech and more or less casual use of human groups for their novelty.
 
Yes, I agree, but I don't think it's possible to undo that phase when it is offensive and pretend it didn't happen.

If we were talking about historical use of the word that would be different but this isn't an Olde English t-shirt or anything. The fact that it's from a tv show that most people don't watch, is clearly about violence (because of the blood-stained club) and references a rhyme which uses language about PoC that we now find deeply offensive does give an impression that probably wasn't what the people who made it intended.
 
Yes, I agree, but I don't think it's possible to undo that phase when it is offensive and pretend it didn't happen.

If we were talking about historical use of the word that would be different but this isn't an Olde English t-shirt or anything. The fact that it's from a tv show that most people don't watch, is clearly about violence (because of the blood-stained club) and references a rhyme which uses language about PoC that we now find deeply offensive does give an impression that probably wasn't what the people who made it intended.
I think it just comes down to a perspective problem. TWD and general zombie fandom is large enough for a TWD fan to assume that their references are truly pop culture, not just inside jokes.

The second problem is that most Americans have absolutely no idea that the rhyme was ever racist or racial, and this is an American show. So it almost requires a historian or a person from an outside culture to even be able to see racist connections.

Third, baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire definitely look violent, but they do not conjure images of either slavery or racial violence. Baseball, if anything, was a sport that helped curb racism against blacks in the US.


So while I see the problem now, I think you have to be pretty creative in viewing the shirt as having any intended racial undertones.

I once created a costume that looked like I had blown myself up in a lab accident. It included using matte black makeup to give myself a cartoon explosion appearance. I would have been heartbroken if someone looked at my singed hair, burned shirt and test tubes, then concluded that I was in racist "blackface".
 
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And I think we should give the people who designed the t-shirt the benefit of the doubt and assume that it wasn't what they intended. And most (if not all) of those who bought the shirt did so without knowing (or at least remembering) the n-word version either.

In other words, an honest mistake. As it would be an honest mistake for anyone ignorant of the controversy to continue to wear the shirt.

But now that we've all been reminded of that version—which is not, after all, particularly obscure, and in some places quite well known—and what the shirt could mean to a lot of people when they see it (not just the people who would be offended by it, but also the people who knew the racist associations and have been probably smirking all along), things have changed.

So while it is unfair to call everyone who ever bought or wore the t-shirt a racist, it is equally unfair to call those who want it gone over-the-top PC. There is a middle ground. We could all ... I don't know ... just give everyone we know credit for meaning well, and make a personal resolution to be more sensitive ourselves in the future? Would that be a bad thing?
 
I just checked - there has been no major uproar in the US about this and many versions of this T-shirt are readily for sale here:

Amazon.com: The Walking Dead Negan Eeny Meeny Miny Moe T-Shirt: Clothing


From one article:
"This image relates directly to the practice of assaulting black people in America.

Actually, it really doesn't from the perspective of Americans.

I think it just touched a nerve in the UK because you guys were casually using the N-word much more recently. It really wasn't used on TV or radio at all in the US, and was officially banned by networks starting in the 1950s. Two iconic black actors used the terms in the 1970s, but no white characters did - certainly not for a laugh like in Monty Python's 1972 episode.

It is fair to say y'all have a different relationship with the N-word in popular culture than we do.
 
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Yes, as I said I doubt it was used intentionally but as Hex has said, the offence it caused some in this country has been decried as hyper sensitive PC which is just not fair.

It is a British news story about the sale in British shops that I was commenting on. Without going down the rabbit hole of pre- and post- slavery meanings, it's clearly causing an offence. That said, I doubt many African Americans I know - if any - would be 'cool' with the t-shirt.

Aside from that, I don't really have more to add as I am far too invested and involved in Afro-Caribbean affairs and struggles, to be able to leave it at 'oh, it's just a mistake' because whilst it is most likely a mistake, its heritage is too loaded to be ignored.

On a separate note, it's strange to me that I would be happy to wear a tee shirt with Freddy Krueger - a child murderer - as a thumbs up to his anti-heroics, but Negan seems so much more indelibly wicked that it must also inform my distaste for this shirt.

pH
 
That said, I doubt many African Americans I know - if any - would be 'cool' with the t-shirt.
Are you talking about African Americans that have had no exposure to UK culture? Why would they be offended? As I pointed out, it takes a foreign perspective or a lot of detective work to even connect that rhyme with racism, and then presume that the kind of racism related to the slave trade connects to baseball bats.

I do agree that UK sensibilities are not US sensibilities, and if the shirt holds meaning for you guys that it doesn't have in the US, then a UK company needs to operate with that in mind.

But going the other way and saying it is offensive in the US is like an American accusing a Brit of sexual harassment for offering Spotted Dick with a meal.
 
As a child of the 70s, I'd say we always said "tiger" (and toe), although as a voracious reader, I suspect I knew the other version from somewhere fairly early on. I couldn't begin to guess where I got it from, but I didn't use it. My kids still say the tiger one all the time, and I doubt they have any notion of any other.

I don't watch the show, so I wouldn't have the slightest idea that the shirt was intended to be racist. Well, to be fair, I wouldn't have the slightest idea that the shirt was about a show. It just looks like a violent joke to me.
 
I think this article is worth reading:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe - Wikipedia

It shouldn't be a shock to anyone that the N-word was used at some point in the past, but there isn't a lot of evidence of a connection to slave selection. In the 2003 court case the jury was not convinced that the stewardess was referencing something she believed to be even remotely racist, which is fairly telling.
 
As I pointed out, it takes a foreign perspective or a lot of detective work to even connect that rhyme with racism, and then presume that the kind of racism related to the slave trade connects to baseball bats.

No. Just because a white American majority don't know doesn't mean a black one doesn't. You'll find African Americans are very much invested and educated as regards their own struggle. Second no: the baseball bat is immaterial to the discussion of the rhyme. Apart from which, baseball isn't even played here.

Your point of effectively comparing five hundred years of slavery to sexual harassment is... well, specious, to say the least.

pH
 
According to Wiki, Primark** has 177 stores in the UK, 37 in Ireland, many in various other European countries and a whopping 7 in the US. If these items are primarily (which, incidentally, isn't a portmanteau version of Primark + merrily) being sold in the UK, where memories of the less pleasant version of the rhymes are, it seems, better... er... remembered, I'm not sure that it matters that much how many people in the US recall that less pleasant version or not.


** - As far as I can see, the story is about Primark pulling the product and the reaction that has caused, not about the manufacturers of the product (wherever they are).
 
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