Walking Dead T-Shirt Gets Pulled From Store For Being Racist

A t-shirt with a familiar nursery rhyme was recently pulled from a U.K. department store chain for the rhymes tie to racism.

We all know that nursery rhyme used in the finale of The Walking Dead’s sixth season where Negan was trying to pick which person to beat the brains out of.  “Eeny meeny miny moe” became the familiar tagline going into season 7 and was taken up by various memorable including posters and now T-shirts.

But one in particular is being claimed as racist.

Here’s the shirt that was deemed offensive and racist:

You may be wondering how a nursery rhyme can be deemed offensive and racist.

At one point in time, the rhyme was also used as derogatory slang and a racial slur. They’d substitute the n-word in “catch a tiger by his toe,” instead of using “tiger.” This was taught in the early 1900’s to school children. In the US, the words were changed in the late 1940s/early 1950s. But in the UK it held on for about a decade longer–long enough that a person of a certain age seeing it in a store would immediately fill in the rhyme.

A customer of the well-known U.K department store Primark spotted it and shared their opinion with The Sheffield Star.

"“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.”"

The store replied with:

"“The T-shirt in question is licensed merchandise for the U.S. television series, The Walking Dead, and the quote and image are taken directly from the show. Any offense caused by its design was wholly unintentional and Primark sincerely apologizes for this.”"

They then pulled the shirt from their shelves.

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Apparently the U.K needs to watch a little more TV if they didn’t know this shirt was referencing The Walking Dead. Doesn’t AMC play over there across the pond?