Primark forced to remove racist t-shirt from sale

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I don't watch the walking dead. So this reference would have gone straight over my head.

But again I'm the generation who sang catch a tiger by its toe so wouldn't have immediately gotten the racist connection either.

But once it was pointed out, I got it and agree it should definitely be removed

What were they thinking making this?

Nicely summed up @sibys1

I am old enough to have been called a geriatric mother when I had my 11 and 10 year old DCs, so I certainly sang the racist version in my childhood.

When my DStepD, who is now 32 was at school, she taught me the newer version of catching a Tigger by his toes.

That is the version my 21 year old DD knows and my little ones know too. I consider it the accepted version nowadays, so see nothing wrong in the T-shirt.

Yeah, but it's still a shit t-shirt.

MammaTJ - what would you have thought the bloodied baseball bad on the t-shirt was about? Killing tiggers?

I am of the generation whose mother sang the 'n*** version to. Primark have absolutely done the right thing in removing this t-shirt from sale. I would imagine the Primark person/buyer responsible for this would have had no knowledge of the original rhyme most likely due to the fact that they are light years younger than me and probably had a mother who sang the tiger version.

Yeah, it's a shit T shirt whatever way you look at it.

Excellent point sibys

sibys1 - exactly. Withdrawing a t-shirt from sale is not an overreaction.

And I'm not 'frothing' or 'outraged' either. Just trying to point out why the t-shirt could be seen as offensive. Not the show, the t-shirt.

This is a very old rhyme which was sanitised in the last couple of decades but many, many people grew up with the original. I'm 40 and it had the N word when we used it, I only heard the tiger version when my now teenaged niece was small. Even now I cringe a bit if a child starts that rhyme because I'm expecting to hear the racist version!

TWD may be a popular programme but in terms of the population a larger percentage of people wont know of it but will pick up the racist connotation.

It's understandable that some posters didn't previously know of the racist version but honestly, when it has been explained and some of you still come out with the usual "PC gone mad", "over sensitive", "get a grip" shite then you are just showing yourselves to be chronically hard of thinking. Depressingly common on MN recently it seems.

I can not remember what version I used as a child (70s). I definitely know the racist version but in my mind it was something to do with fish - tiddler maybe? Fish obviously makes no sense as they have no toes! However, I definitely never made the connection between the N version and black people.

Fish have fingers though soup

What else would they pick their noses with Rufus?

Oh god now I'm worrying about how all the animals without fingers pick their nose!

Good point well made saucy

pig

Its very distressing....try not to think about it

I believe chickens use their nuggets to pick their noses.

soup

soup

We used the racist version at a suburban South East London primary school in 70s/80s. At first we didn't know the meaning of the N word but I am sure we were told the meaning at some point, we sort of repeated the word the way kids do when they know they're not supposed to use the bad word but it's "bad" to use it but then we just stopped. Wasn't made a big deal out of either.

My parents didnt use the n word and i wouldnt have been able to sit down for a week if i ever used it

As someone who first knew the racist version in the 70s, and who does not know the programme, I would consider this to be a threatening and racist T-shirt.

I wouldn't go and complain to Primark, but I would avoid anyone wearing it!

Child of the seventies here too, grew up hearing, learning (at school) and repeating the N version.

It was so normalised that children had no idea what they were singing about. Which seems completely shocking now in hindsight.

I too tense up when I hear any version of it.

Earlier versions didn't just have a different character popped into in the rhyme, they were in different languages or completely different made up prose to the same lilt of the rhyme.

This rhyme with all the exact words was about catching a N to see if he'd work. Then one change of an animal character *after it was recognised as offensive.

It wasn't as if it was changed from Tiger to* N to reflect a slavery zeitgeist trend and then back again. This original version was always racist.

You'd have to have been living under a rock not to know TWD and Negan said tiger anyway.

Or perhaps just not care so much about made up dead people come to life on the telly stuff?

Nothing worse for some of us than the evangelical box set bleaters....

I like TWD but if we were being rational about it, Negan would choose the N-word version of the rhyme and then possibly choose a black person to beat to death.

Why would he bother about using the sanitised version of it seeing as he thinks it's okay to club people to death.

But obviously TWD thought saying the N-word was a step too far.

So Jeffery Dean Morgan and anyone else saying Primark shouldn't have withdrawn the t-shirt are being disingenuous and illogical. Because logically someone like Negan would have used that word. Because what's worse - saying the N-word or smashing someone's head in until their eye pops out and then mocking them for looking 'really gross'?

And as I said, I actually like the show.