Primark pulls t-shirt in racist TWD merchandise

Phyrebrat said:

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

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My comparison is between the very different ways two English speaking cultures use the same words. While there may be awareness that Eeny Meeny had a racist version at one time in the US, there would not be an assumption on the part of African Americans that a broadcast television show is using racist references or that a t-shirt referencing that scene on the TV show has a connection to racism. Eeny meeny is primarily a children's game for US TV viewers, black or white. If even Dave Chappelle isn't aware of a problem when he parodies the scene, there probably isn't a problem - in the US among African Americans.

Other English speakers have a very different history with the N-word. When the film Ghandi came out, many Americans thought it was mighty strange how Ghandi was labeled with a word derived from "negro". We also find it crazy that Agatha Christie would have published Ten Little Niggers as late as 1939. Or the aforementioned "Mrs. Niggerbaiter" from 1972 Monty Python. The word was not used as casually in the 20th century in the US as it was in the UK, and when it is used here it is meant to offend, rather than to insensitively refer.

Our language is full words that had less than glorious pasts, some of those pasts distant and others less so. I have heard Jewish people take offense at the word "gyp" (to swindle), when no modern etymology shows a connection to Jews and the connection to gypsies being more obvious. It probably was a slur at one time, but our connection to that usage has all but disappeared. And in the US, that connection between Eeny Meey and the N-word version of it has worn so thin that stewardesses and major network TV producers don't understand that there ever was one to be sensitive to. That is clearly not true in the UK.

Language is in constant flux. "Homosexual" is becoming offensive while "queer" has taken on a specific non-pejorative label. It is not productive to become a history detective every time a different culture uses a word in a way your culture doesn't approve of.

I wonder how many Americans understood the "want to see my fanny" scene in Billy Elliot? Probably not many, because no church groups got upset.

RX-79G said:

My comparison is between the very different ways two English speaking cultures use the same words. While there may be awareness that Eeny Meeny had a racist version at one time in the US, there would not be an assumption on the part of African Americans that a broadcast television show is using racist references or that a t-shirt referencing that scene on the TV show has a connection to racism. Eeny meeny is primarily a children's game for US TV viewers, black or white.

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I'm not sure you can so blithely speak for all of them that way. It's entirely possible that not everyone in a group feels the same way about a thing. It's also entirely possible that, even if people you know do not appear to be bothered by something, they may not feel comfortable expressing that for a multitude of cultural and personal reasons.

Other English speakers have a very different history with the N-word. When the film Ghandi came out, many Americans thought it was mighty strange how Ghandi was labeled with a word derived from "negro". We also find it crazy that Agatha Christie would have published Ten Little N--s as late as 1939. Or the aforementioned "Mrs. N--rbaiter" from 1972 Monty Python.

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This is true, in my experience. I, personally, was taken aback at the term used for Gandhi, though I've read enough that I shouldn't have been surprised. Still, it's odd to actually hear it. And I've always been puzzled by the Christie book. I'm not familiar with that Monty Python, but I'm sure it would strike me as shocking, being from 1972. Even my parents were raised (in the 1930s) with the term "colored" being the polite term, and "negro" only a holdover from the past (and not for people in India) -- and certainly not the other word!

TheDustyZebra said:

I'm not sure you can so blithely speak for all of them that way. It's entirely possible that not everyone in a group feels the same way about a thing. It's also entirely possible that, even if people you know do not appear to be bothered by something, they may not feel comfortable expressing that for a multitude of cultural and personal reasons.

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I'm not so much "speaking for" African Americans (as Phryebat did), but observing that our very large African American population, currently very socially mobilized in the BLM and Trump era, seemed to have raised no stink about it. Racism commentators like Dave Chappelle have performed material referring to the Eeny Meeny thing on TWD without mention of a problem.

Do I think people like Chappelle and his friend Paul Mooney are completely unaware of the 'other' version of this nursery rhyme? No. I just don't think they see an important connection between that fact and the show or its promo shirts. And if they don't see a problem, I'm not going to create one for them.

As I said, I get why people in the UK would be bothered. I just don't think they should be bothered on behalf of Americans who aren't bothered themselves. These shirts and the use on the show are old non-news here.

In the uk the rhyme is intrinsically linked with the N-word - and that was the version I knew growing up.

Having said that I'm not sure the t-shirt itself is intrinsically rascist or if it's more implied. Especially since the rhyme is still used with the N-word replaced and seems to predate the N-word in the first place.

For me, liberal that I am, I have to stretch to find offence. But if, eg, that rhyme had have been linked with the various Irish/NI insults then I might well feel differently.

Which comes back to the old rule of offending others - once someone has stated it is offensive we don't have the right to tell them otherwise. This rhyme has been cited many times as offensive - and therefore it is. How much to flaunt that offence is then up to the individual or organisation.

RX-79G said:

As I said, I get why people in the UK would be bothered. I just don't think they should be bothered on behalf of Americans who aren't bothered themselves. These shirts and the use on the show are old non-news here.

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The problem with your argument is only that by "Americans" you meant US citizens, but that when @Phyrebrat said "African Americans" he did not. The part of the UK where he works is quite a lot more cosmopolitan.

Dave said:

The problem with your argument is only that by "Americans" you meant US citizens, but that when @Phyrebrat said "African Americans" he did not. The part of the UK where he works is quite a lot more cosmopolitan.

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I'm sorry, which group of people has the name "African Americans" and aren't "Americans"????

The t-shirt itself isn't racist - however worn down the street it has no context. The only thing people who have not watched the show see is a potentially racist rhyme and a baseball bat covered in wire. Without the context it is at best questionable.

But I'm not interested in how America sees - or justifies - their version of the rhyme. My post was in response to Primark - a UK business - using it on a t shirt. It's been appropriated by your comments in a way that it would now be a thread more suited to World Affairs - a forum I avoid.

I think the fact that we don't all know its heritage (in the U.K.) is not therefore grounds to say that it's inoffensive to people. If you wore that shirt where I live and work you would be in no doubt as to its offence and its provenance.

Whilst I do not have the insight of all African Americans, my job and social circle places me in a minority in that I am the only white person. I have travelled with all different hip hop groups in the States from South Central to Atlanta and I've done so for the past 20 years. Furthermore my thesis in engaging inner city (black) young people in State Education came about as a result of a little under seventy hours of interviews over three years with Afro-Caribbeans. In that regard, I feel confident in writing what I have observed in their replies.

Here's a comment from E K Shell, professor in a southern state uni:

I first heard it as "eenie meanie minny moe, catch a nigger by the toe..." I don't know if that was the original version or just a rural, SC version.

Which makes it obvious that in some places to some people (in a huge country), there are those who're quite aware of the rhymes background in the US.


My two positions on this:

1) Primark made a mistake and showed ignorance or insensitivity.

2) White Brits interviewed on BBC news who claimed that it was PC run amok are ignorant and part of the perpetuation of white privilege and entitlement.


pH

Phyrebrat said:

But I'm not interested in how America sees - or justifies - their version of the rhyme. My post was in response to Primark - a UK business - using it on a t shirt. It's been appropriated by your comments in a way that it would now be a thread more suited to World Affairs - a forum I avoid.

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Perhaps if you are not interested in how Americans sees the rhyme, you would benefit from not speaking on behalf of Americans.

I have agreed multiple times that those in the UK have good reason to concerned about this T-shirt.

Phyrebrat said:

Which makes it obvious that in some places to some people (in a huge country), there are those who're quite aware of the rhymes background in the US.

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As for Americans (since you are back to being interesting America all in the same post), we are aware of many bits of language that have unfortunate pasts. Paddywagon, peanut gallery, hooligan, rule of thumb, sold down the river, bugger, etc. It's just that no one seems to feel that constant reminders and objections are a better way forward than letting some of this stuff to grow naturally innocuous over time.

In the case of Eeny and the UK, it was just too late.

You're quite welcome to pick apart my posts with irrelevant observations but seeing as they're not particularly germane to the initial discussion I don't really know if you're looking for an actual reply from me, or an apology.

pH

So we agree that Primark were right, and the issue hasn't emerged in the US -- or if it did, no one acted on it -- because people either aren't aware of the racist version of the rhyme or are but don't regard it as problematic or are but don't want to make a fuss.

It's interesting that the n- word has vanished from the US. From my perspective as a total outsider, it seems like it's used in some parts of the countrya a lot more than others. That's not really relevant to this discussion, though. I'm glad Primark removed the shirt, and I wonder what the minister said in his letter.

Bizarrely enough, one of the most sensible wider-internet threads I've seen on this was on Mumsnet (!) where the conclusion was that pretty much everyone knew the original version, and -- as Jo said -- once you KNOW something is offensive, it's not okay to keep using it.

This was a thread about a UK company with, apparently, only 7 stores in the USA. Of that part of the population of the UK that is "African American" (you said it was only 3% and I have no reason to doubt that figure) very few of their ancestors came from the USA. That part of the UK population is much more likely to have come from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, British Guyana, Canada... Mostly Commonwealth countries, but to a lesser extent, other Caribbean islands and Central and South American countries too. Only you are making this about the USA, but the the African Diaspora in the Americas was much larger. Comments about what people in the USA think have very little relevance to this discussion, but those of African Americans living in the UK do.

Dave said:

This was a thread about a UK company with, apparently, only 7 stores in the USA. Of that part of the population of the UK that is "African American" (you said it was only 3% and I have no reason to doubt that figure) very few of their ancestors came from the USA. I'm really at a loss about what it is you want to be clarified because no one else seems not to understand. That part of the UK population is much more likely to have come from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, British Guyana, Canada... Mostly Commonwealth countries, but to a lesser extent, other Caribbean islands and Central and South American countries too. Only you are making this about the USA, but the the African Diaspora in the Americas was much larger. So your continued comments about what people in the USA think have very little relevance to this discussion, but those of African Americans living in the UK do.

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I'm sorry, Dave. I'm an American who lives in America with the majority of African Americans. Your post that I asked about seemed to suggest that due to "being cosmopolitan", some people who do not live in my culture are better aware of the average opinion of my fellow citizens then I could possibly be. While that might be the case, I didn't understand the basis for that assertion.

I don't claim to be an expert on any part of my culture, but I do know that our media makes a mess out of any sort of controversy, and if TWD was angering US based African Americans, both that and the right wing over-reaction to it would have become "news". And that didn't appear to happen.

When I initially read your post, I was trying to understand how an African American could fail to be an American. I'm aware of the terms black citizens of Canada, the UK, Caribbean and Europe tend to use for themselves, and I am unaware of any situation where someone who is not from the US would describe themselves as "African American".

I hope you don't take that as some challenge to your authority that I didn't parse the sentence you wrote correctly.

Growing up in the 50s, we did use the N word in our counting games, because we'd learned it from older children. It's an offensive word, I think everyone agrees with that, and once you become aware it is (as I did, when I met the first person of colour I'd encountered - small village upbringing in Rural England) you stop using it. I just checked with my children (34 and 31) and they'd never heard the rhyme, so I obviously didn't use it at all with them, even an alternative version. But say to me 'eeny meeny miny mo' and my mind will know exactly what came next. The fairest thing you could say might be that the people who designed the T-Shirt were very young and had no knowledge of the older version of the rhyme (though I don't hold to that one) but ignorance is no excuse. Somebody in the chain of production would have known. Or nobody did an ounce of research into it.

It's hardly PC gone mad to take offense at ignorant racism, is it? The worst kind, that harps back to slavery? If it is, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. The T-shirt was offensive. It's right that it should have gone.

I think there can be few people in the U.K. unfamiliar with the N version of this counting rhyme, not after the fuss there was because someone claimed Clarkson said it in an out-take of Top Gear.

I think that negro or less likely the other n-word being the original word in this rhyme make sense. Particularly with the possible gangrene background. I remember this n-word version from my English junior school. I don't think it ever really made sense to me though as I wouldn't have known anything about that background. Also there were very few foreigners in my school and generally in the town which no doubt meant we were ignorant about it. The school was in one of the rougher parts of town, though not rough compared to many towns and cities, and I think many of the kids parents were also ignorant or thoughtless on the topic. This was in the 1980s so more recent use than some are suggesting. I think tiger or pig may have been used occasionally.

The photo on the BBC site of the Primark sold t-shirt doesn't show a Walking Dead logo. Maybe it is just off the picture. It would make more sense as not being controversial if it does have that. The Amazon versions do have a logo. Still I can see people being upset about bloodied baseball bat weapons being on display in high street shops whatever the message.

I think the likelihood that the rhyme is actually a vestige of the Atlantic slave trade to America is very low. That ended in 1808, and the slave traders were certainly able to go about their "business" without a nursery rhyme for guidance.

It seems much more likely the N-word was substituted into the rhyme somewhat arbitrarily, just as it was in the earlier version of "One little, two little, three little Indians".

RX-79G said:

I think the likelihood that the rhyme is actually a vestige of the Atlantic slave trade to America is very low. That ended in 1808, and the slave traders were certainly able to go about their "business" without a nursery rhyme for guidance.

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Nursery rhymes have been carried on for much longer than that. Three Blind Mice and Jack Sprat are much older. The slave trade was big in many British cities - I grew up in a city that was built on the money from it.

Sailors had a whole collection of rhymes and shanties many of which are quite brutal. It makes sense that it came from that background, particularly as the rhyme seems more well known in the UK. Shanties were intended to help the sailors with their work - kind of the Radio 2 of their day. But a lot of port cities and fisher villages still used a lot of the old superstitions when I was a child like you didn't put new shoes on a table. open an umbrella indoors or put blue and green together. Any of those things meant certain doom to a sailor.

AnyaKimlin said:

Sailors had a whole collection of rhymes and shanties many of which are quite brutal.

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I just can't really see sailors being the ones doing the "picking", but who knows? Ring Around the Rosy goes all the way back to Plague times, but I think that is also an invention for children.

The point is, though, that many nursery rhymes have very long histories, and it doesn't matter whether or not those keeping them alive between the time they were first composed and today (or whenever they dropped from general view) were ever participants in the events on which the rhymes were based.

After all, the children singing/reciting them down the ages weren't, so why should those sailors have been?