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22nd Feb 2017

Primark pull a controversial Walking Dead t-shirt from its stores amid racism claims

Alan Loughnane

What do you think of this?

Primark has pulled a line of The Walking Dead t-shirts from its stores after they received complaints from some customers that the t-shirt was “racist”.

The t-shirt in question was in reference to the character of Negan, from The Walking Dead, who uses the line ‘Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe,’ to decide which character he will kill in the finale of Season 6 of the show.

The decision was made to pull the t-shirt from stores and speaking to The Independent, a spokesperson for Primark said: “The t-shirt in question is licensed merchandise for the US 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 and Primark sincerely apologises for this.”

The t-shirt received criticism from some quarters with Methodist minister Ian Lucraft telling The Sheffield Star: “The slogan is “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.”

Lucraft has since said that he’s very pleased at Primark’s decision.