No. No, it isn’t. But there are some people who’d like for you to think that it is.
The store chain Primark (which honestly I’d never heard of) has pulled some THE WALKING DEAD T-shirts off the shelves because a couple of people found them offensive. Like, literally a couple. What was offensive about them? They had Negan’s baseball bat and the words EENY MEENY MINY MOE printed on them. Yes, the phrase that Negan uttered before he started swinging Lucille in the season six finale. If you’re thinking “Huh? What’s racist about that?” then good for you. You aren’t a simpleton. Also, thankfully, you aren’t one of those wannbe do-gooder social justice “activists,” who are way worse than simpletons. They’re racists. I’ll explain why in a sec.
First, I’ll tell you the reason they got all bent out of shape. (Not that it ever takes much to get such people bent out of shape.) The second verse of the rhyme “Eeny Meeny Miny Moe” USED TO go “Catch a n_gger by his toe.” Yes, that’s an ugly, unfortunate fact. Our society used to be far more racially prejudiced than it is today. Such things, which are abhorrent to the modern palate, were acceptable in bygone days. Did you know that there used to be a line in the Star Spangled Banner belittling slaves? It’s true. Lots of things we have around today have ugly pedigrees. Most you probably never even knew about. Do you know why? Because those things were CHANGED. Why were they changed? Because people somewhere along the way realized that those elements were wrong and changed them. For example, there now IS no line in the National Anthem addressing slaves. It got excised. We as a society realized it was wrong and we got rid of it. And that rhyme now reads “Eeny Meeny Miny Moe, catch a TIGER by his toe.” Society evolved and corrected those problems. Except SOME people won’t let anyone forget. We never should forget history, no, because those who forget it repeat it and all that. I get THAT. But WHY, if an innocent child would have never in a million years thought about “Eeny Meeny Miny Moe” in that way, would you put it into his or her mind? Not that too many little kids are THE WALKING DEAD fans, but you get where I’m going. The problem was recognized, addressed and corrected, as it should have been. Why feel the need to correct it AGAIN? These same folks who want to “correct” things by doing away with them completely are the ones most likely to forget the lessons of history. It’s a “the past is ugly, so let us get rid of all reminders of it” mentality, and it’s dangerous.
Let me take a couple of quotes from the article, interspersing my own thoughts. Said the offended party: “We were shocked when we came face to face with a new t-shirt with a racially explicit graphic and text.” There is NOTHING racially explicit or graphic about it, outside of the guy’s own mind! “It was fantastically offensive [To HIM, maybe.] 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.” There ARE no subliminal messages in it! He then says the shirt “relates directly to the practice of assaulting black people in America.” No, you dimwit, it doesn’t, not even remotely. It references a popular television show. About ZOMBIES. Get your head out of your ass.
There is one VERY telling point, though, that I’d like to point out before I explain why this dude is a racist. Again I’m quoting from the article, which quoted him directly. Pay attention to what he said. “It is directly threatening of a racist assault [No, it isn’t.], and if I were black and were faced by a wearer I would know just where I stood.”
Did you catch that, friends? The dude says “…if I were black…” Yes, this loon is a WHITE guy, and thus a glaring example of the useless, worthless wannabe social savior type, going around getting offended on behalf of others.
Try to grasp this concept, Mr. Head-Up-Your-Ass. If you go around feeling it necessary to constantly defend people who might potentially be offended by something, that is condescending to them. Telling those folks what they SHOULD be offended by is talking down to them. And if those people are always minorities, it is, in truth, the essence of Colonialist thinking, i.e. that black people need white people to “help” them, because they aren’t capable of doing things for themselves. And that, my friend, is RACIST. YOU are being racist. If a black person finds that T-shirt featuring Lucille and the rhyme offensive, he is perfectly capable of speaking up for himself. He does NOT need you serving as some kind of vanguard for his feelings. That’s insulting to the very people you think you are “defending.”
I hope you’ll excuse me, peeps. I tend to get a little riled up by this kind of thinking, people who think they’re helping when they’re really contributing to the problem.
I don’t know what the exact ratio is, of viewers of THE WALKING DEAD, how many are white, how many are black, etc. But I do know there are an awful lot of black folks who love the show. And I doubt ANY of them would have gotten offended over that shirt. I daresay they’re smart enough to realize when something is an insult or a threat and when it’s JUST A FLIPPIN’ T-SHIRT with an image taken from a TV SHOW ABOUT FLIPPIN’ ZOMBIES! Sheesh!
Also, Mr. Wannabe Do-Gooder, by getting them yanked from stores you just guaranteed that those “fantastically offensive” shirts are gonna become collector’s items and will sell for a mint on eBay. Way to go, genius!