Walking Dead T-Shirt Deemed 'Racist' Pulled From Stores, and Some Fans Aren't Too Pleased

The Negan-themed shirt got some people upset with its use of a nursey rhyme.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan discusses 'The Walking Dead'
Getty

Jeffrey Dean Morgan discusses 'The Walking Dead'

Jeffrey Dean Morgan discusses 'The Walking Dead'

UK fans of The Walking Dead have one less piece of merch to choose from after a man in Sheffield complained that a Negan-inspired shirt was offensive.

The shirt features the villain's frequently-parodied weapon of choice, a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, along with a snippet of the nursery rhyme he says before doing his dirty work, "Eeny meeny miny moe." 

Ian Lucraft and his wife Gwen saw the shirt in a Primark clothing store, and was offended by what he viewed as its racist connotations. He immediately wrote a letter to the store's chief executive.

"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...'Eeeny meenie miny moe…..' It stops there, but of course we all know what the original said: 'catch a n***** by his toe.['] 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.

While the actual history of the rhyme in question is somewhat lost to time, the racist variation Lucraft cites goes back at least to the 19th century. It was especially popular in the UK, ever since The Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling used it in a poem in 1935.  

Primark responded to the letter by saying noting that the shirt was "licensed merchandise for the U.S. television series, The Walking Dead, and the quote and image are taken directly from the show. Any offence caused by its design was wholly unintentional." They then said that the shirt was being removed from stores.

Not all TWD fans were pleased at the shirt's removal. 

However, some were very much on Lucraft's side.

If you're absolutely dying to get a similar shirt of your very own, of course you can still find one on the internet.

Latest in Pop Culture