Petition to bring back '˜racist' Walking Dead t-shirt

A petition has been launched to return a 'racist' Walking Dead t-shirt to Primark stores after a Methodist minister's complaint saw the garment pulled from shelves.
A petition has been launched calling for the return of the shirt.A petition has been launched calling for the return of the shirt.
A petition has been launched calling for the return of the shirt.

Now a shopper angry at the removal of the infamous “Eeny Meeny Miny Moe” t-shirt is calling for its return - and wants others to back her campaign.

Jasmine Williams, who has kicked off the petition, says Ian Lucraft, the Sheffield minister who sparked the row, should “not be taken seriously” and that the shop “should not give in to white people claiming racist remarks when they are not.”

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Launching her petition protest on the change.org website, she wrote: “Primark have stopped the sale of The Walking Dead “Eenie Meenie Miny Moe” shirt due to a customer claiming the shirt is highly offensive and racist.

“I, as a consumer and fan of The Walking Dead feel that this is not the right response.

“The complaint called it “racist” despite the fact that those buying the shirt are buying it for the sake of the show as it is an officially licensed product.

“The original Eenie Meenie Miny Moe song had the lyrics changed to “tiger” over 40 years ago and only those older than this know the original which he falsely claims “everyone knows how it ends.”

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Yesterday, Mr Lucraft got the high street clothing store to remove the t-shirt and admitted he was “very pleased” with the chain’s decision.

He wrote to the firm’s Chief Executive Paul Marchant calling for the shirt, which also features a blood drenched baseball bat to be dropped, saying the origin of the slogan had “racist” origins and encouraged violence against black people.

Mr Lucraft and his wife Gwen had visited the firm’s recently opened branch in The Moor in Sheffield city centre to buy a present for their grandson when they spotted the white t-shirt with the slogan from the hit US TV show about zombies ruling a post apocalayptic world.

He said: “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.”

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In the scene, Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) bludgeons a character to death using a barbed-wire rapped baseball bat while uttering the phrase.

However, in the clip, he uses the word “tiger” rather than the N-word.

The petition added: “Also, the man complaining is WHITE. He is taking a mild mannered shirt and taking it way out of context and is dictating what is and isn’t racist on behalf of a group of people, of which he has no right to speak on behalf of.

“Complaints like this should not be taken seriously and it should be down to those whose actual race/ethnicity are involved to speak up and corporations should not give into white people claiming racist remarks when it is indeed not.

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“If Eenie Meenie Miny Moe is indeed so horribly racist as this man claims then maybe we should stop children singing it in our playgrounds or maybe I should get arrested for using it to choose which socks I’m wearing today.

“I’m just shocked that a retail corporation could panic so much on the complaints of one ill minded customer speaking as if he himself is black!”