Compare Walmart’s Nazi Tshirt with original Nazi symbol
Just when you thought all of the Walmart tshirts bearing the exact replica of an infamous Nazi symbol were recalled, or sold to a discount store and burned, a Walmart in Palmdale, California has them on sale for $3.00 a pop. 62 weeks after Walmart pledged to remove the shirts from its shelves, and 50 weeks after getting a letter from Congress demanding the shirts removal, they’re still out there. If they can’t get rid of a simple tshirt, how good are they at recalling toys, defective merchandise, and dangerous food?
(Thanks to Ronald!)
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@Logan26: See Schutzstaffel. Do you also have a problem figuring out why a swastika has connotations of Naziism?
@Logan26:
Here are a couple of nazi pics with the emblem on the uniforms….
[farm2.static.flickr.com]
[forum.axishistory.com]
Same emblems as in the walmart shirt
@DMDDallas: Fair enough. It looks like some people are confused about congressional action and congresspeople expressing their opinions (speaking on non-legislative matters on behalf of their constituents *is* part of their job description, but a letter does noa congressional action make), and offensive speech/imagery versus threatening speech/imagery, which is to say, you can’t legally stop the KKK from marching through your town, as they have the right to free expression and assembly, but they can be prosecuted for burning a cross in someone’s front yard – not because it’s offensive, but because it is a signal of impending violence (at least that’s what SCOTUS has ruled).
The only issue here is WalMart’s inability/unwillingness to maintain control over its stores. You might not care about the T-shirt (I don’t either), but you should care about the lack of instutional control.
Where is the ACLU to defend the right to sell nazi t-shirts?
@ BENJIMANDODD
Give me a break, this whole bitchfest about an “offensive” Tshirt for sale at Walmart is just ridiculous. If people want to buy and wear a Tshirt that stands for “hatred”, let them. It will be easier to spot the people you don’t want to be around (or in your case maybe it will identify the people you need to “educate” about love and tolerance).
It’s disturbing that Walmart lied about removing them but seriously, can’t we keep the Government out of it? There are things that are actually IMPORTANT that they could be dealing with.
@DallasDMD: Actually, while I’m all for doing stuff in spite of people, I’m a big skullduggery type of guy. In fact, I’m wearing a skull shirt while typing on my skull emblazoned ibook and listening to Queens of the Stone Age. I am not kidding.
That, and I’m also into wearing shirts with obscure meanings.
@Alvis: Symbols most definitely do signify ideas. Most quickest way to signify yourself as nazi? Swastika on red. American? American Flag. Anarchist? The Anarchy @. Puppy killer? Peta. Emergency Medic *MEDIC!*? Red Cross. By wearing those symbols, you present yourself as believing in the idea behind the symbol. Hence flags/uniforms/logos/symbols are all representations of an idea.
Well, it is Palmdale. And at least Wal-Mart is nice enough to position the Totemkampf shirts next to the racks holding the KKK robes and hoods.
Although it is annoying that the Palmdale Wal-Mart has the wooden crosses and the lighter fluid on opposite sides of the store.
PS: ye boneheaded individuals, substitute “lead toys”, “poisoned pet food” or “date-rape drugged childrens’ toys” for “Nazi shirt” and recognize the scope and nature of the problem. Jeezus: brains – they’re not just for eating!
@trai_dep: Drug-rape? ….. Brains, they’re not just for being a hypocrite…
to sum up both arguments with two pertinent, and true, examples I think most people would agree with:
The swastika, which used to be a pretty cool symbol, is basically ruined by the nazis. I cannot use a swastika because everyone thinks on nazis when they see it…it doesnt matter what mean by it, all the eastern uses be damned.
Most people buying the shirts dont know its associated with nazis. So no matter what they mean by it, it is still a symbol of a hate-group…made worse, and the symbol more popular, by the fact that people wear it unknowingly.
while these two examples are contradictory (its the public interpretation of the image vs the makers intent, that defines the meaning) when it comes to a symbol that represents systematic hate and murder in modern times, even if most people dont recognize the symbol, I think the one of the largest retailers in the country should exercise a little common sense.
I am sure Wal-mart does not sell shirts with the symbol of the Taliban either.
oops I guess now I now how to turn italics on…sorry. where the italics turn on I meant an emphasized I
Bet when Wal-Mart PR is contacted regarding this screw-up, they say, “We’ve fixed the recurring issue comprehensively. In fact, we’ve reached a Final Solution for this.”
haha, Final Solution, yea the Final Solution is to “cleanse” all the crazies who get offended by a Tshirt from our society
Really, Week 62 of a pseudo-nazi Tshirt watch, WOW!
Ohhhh yes, let go all the way and have Congressional Hearings on this important subject! Where will this madness end?
Calling for the removal of these Tshirts sounds like something a German National Socialist would do back in the 1930s and 40s.
Stop looking for things to be offended by, God knows a lot of people will always find something…
BTW, I plan on doing some painting around the house soon and don’t want to ruin any of my shirts with paint, so $3 for a shirt sounds like a good deal, unless they were made in China and are full of lead…
Hooray, the Totenkopf shirts are back! It’s just like the old days on Consumerist, except with even more baseless whining from commenters who think the PC Police are hiding under their beds!
I mean, never mind that these shirts’ continued existence exposes a massive failure in Wal-Mart’s inventory system that could someday expose millions of people to already-recalled toxic merchandise… nah, let’s complain about how we can’t wear swastikas anymore because people are “too sensitive.” Being oppressed is hard, y’all.
Maybe it’s just me, but – if they’ve intended not to sell the product, how does a store keep a stack of these for a year and then stumble across them to put out for sale? Surely that’s a monumental failure in all sorts of inventory management processes. What else do they have shut in those storerooms? The ark of the covenant perhaps?
Alternatively there’s a warehouse still shipping them out, ancient orders turning up, or someone actually ordered more, none of which inspire confidence either.
Perhaps, just maybe, they actually spend their time recalling *dangerous* items, like unsafe or lead-filled toys, and not so much time on t-shirts, that don’t actually *harm* anyone (except for the whiny-ass knee-jerk liberal crybabies who complained to begin with). I think this shows that they have their priorities in order.
Ummmm….. Walmart can’t even remove cheese products with huge patches of mold growing on them that are visible from several feet away. I won’t even start with expiration dates.
Wow… the ironic thing about this is that though I now live in Maryland, I’m originally from the Palmdale area. There is something almost poetic in this.
First off, I would like to point out that my previous account was banned because I took an unpopular stance on Wal-Mart’s freedom of speech* in this thread. Good job moderator(s), whoever you are!
Secondly, if this were a shirt with the profile of Marx, Che, Lenin, or Stalin, or a hammer-and-sickle, would there be as much outrage in this thread? I am willing to wager a bit fat NO! The soviets killed far more people than the Germans were ever alleged to have.
* Yes, if Wal Mart promised to remove them and they didn’t, I agree, it exposes a problem, but my argument right now is that people need to “get over it” when it comes to unpopular forms of expression.
yes, most of your customers are rednecks that love this stuff, but when alot of your employees are mexican, this doesn’t make them feel appreciated.
i bet if they had a shirt that said ‘Jesus is my savior’ people would flip out
@DallasDMD: Thanks for pointing this out. Also, what the Nazis did was terrible. But they were hardly the first people in history to pull world-domination mass-killing crap. The Communists ruled Russia and most of Eastern Europe for much longer than the Nazis were in power, and they were just as bad as the Nazis. Anyone here heard of Katyn Forest? Yeah, didn’t think so. But it’s still okay to collect Soviet kitsch.
Who the heck cares? I certainly don’t care if a store sells something of this nature. It’s not the stores fault this stuff is in demand.
Personally, I am tired of the “nanny state” mentality. Adolf Hitler was a bad man … he is dead … get over it.
@no.no.notorious: You raise a good point. Imagine the Red State whining that would erupt of the Wal-Mart shirt said,
“Jesus killed more people than Hitler.”
Which, y’know, is true, y’all.
Umm. Yeah, I’d buy one. In a humanist, Darwin-loving, New York second.
Sorry, but Ben lost all moral cache on this topic when he implied in an earlier post that frequent Wal-Mart shoppers are Nazi sympathizers.
The cross is a symbol that is used by Christians -
Christians who in history killed, tortured, and conquered. Does Consumerist go after stores that sell products bearing Christian symbols like the cross?
Really, we can come up with probably hundreds of examples. Our American flag is being flown by our military – a military that done some rather not nice things. Does Consumerist attack the American flag now?
If you can’t come up with a rational response, feel free to hit the ban button once more.
I wonder if I can still find Wal-Marts selling the Today Sponge and Hydrox cookies.
@dburba: Um, what? Citation please.
In this post [consumerist.com] we find the line “After suffering recent image setbacks, is the retailer circling the wagons to appeal to its core constituency?” From that one infers that you believe Wal-Mart’s core constituency is the kind of person (people?) that buy Nazi paraphernalia. If I’m misunderstanding, feel free to correct me; I’m just saying that’s how it comes off, and from the top comment in the post, I’m not alone.
Can someone ship one of these to me?
@dburba: Looks like I did make such an offhand and angry remark. It’s not what I really believe.
Yeah, Ben. Everyone knows Wal-Mart’s core constituency isn’t Neo-Nazis.
It’s trailer-park, gap-toothed manufacturers of crystal meth.
If I have to play Devils Advocate here, freedom of speech?
@trai_dep: Who just happen to be fans of the Confederacy and think that Hitler guy was a real smart feller! But that doesn’t make them racists.
@Ben Popken: Fair enough; I was pretty sure (hoping) that wasn’t the real you.
@donatj:
But Wal-Mart already said they recalled all of them. They admitted it was in bad taste once they figured out what it was.
The image itself is NOT the problem anymore. The problem is that they can’t recall a simple shirt OVER A YEAR later.
EVERYONE READ THIS BEFORE POSTING!: This is not a freedom of speech issue, this is not about the t-shirt being offensive. here are the facts:
*legislators signed a letter to wal-mart ASKING them (not demanding them) to remove the shirts from their stores. they were merely using their influence, there was no law or order involved.
*Wal-Mart agreed to remove the shirts from all stores.
*They failed to remove the shirts from all stores even after 62 weeks.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the shirt being offensive. The point being made by this article is that after 62 weeks wal-mart has been unable to remove a product from their stores. If that was something that was a health hazard this would be a serious problem.
@no.no.notorious:
They sell plenty of jesus shirts at the wal-mart i go to. and yes i shop at wal-mart and i’m not a gap-toothed redneck with a love for the confederacy. I’m Poor!
@trai_dep: Jesus killed 0 people. God killed countless. And no, you can’t use jesus=god.
The facts are, if you never said a thing, no one would of noticed and they would of been ground up for headliners in new cars. Too many whiners on the planet with too much time on there hands. I’d be willing to bet $10,000 with that shirt in hand, and shown randomly to people on the street, they wouldn’t have a clue what it represented. Get a Life! Now everyone what’s one…
Holy crap, people, get OFF the meaning issue. It’s a NON issue now, we’ve already went over it in posts past, when this whole Nazi shirt watch started. The ISSUE now is the fact that they promised to REMOVE the shirt & haven’t lived up to the promise. This ties into if there was a massive food recall (as there has been) or a toy recall (as there has been). Lets moooove on from what it might be about & onto the issue at hand.
SEIG HAIL DAS WALMART! HAIL! HAIL! HAIL!
Seriously….62 Weeks? Makes you wonder abouyt everything you would buy there. Recalls for safety or even the expiration dates on food items.
Okay, if the issue is truly “OMG Walmart has no control over their stock!” then take out the meaning of the symbol and any emotions and opinions people have based on what was on the shirt, and yes; Walmart has a problem controling their inventory. This surprises who exactly?
Secondly, this is one Walmart.. I am going to pull numbers out of my a** to prove a point here but.. how many Walmarts are their in the US.. now how many in North America, now how many Worldwide..? Now assuming it was just this one Walmart that had the shirt turn up after this length of time would anyone care to even guess the % of Walmarts that DID successfully remove this product from their inventory? 99.99?
Mistakes are made every day by nearly every big retailer on the planet, and most small ones as well. Get over it.
@EmperorOfCanada
Good spelling douchebag… =P
@deadlizard: Actually, I read somewhere that the Today sponge is back in production.
@cryrevolution:
Has anybody’s health been compromised by these t-shirts?
I didn’t think so.
Who cares if they remove them or not?
I honestly would not have connected that symbol with Nazis.. I assumed the shirts would have a swastika on them or something. So many groups use so many symbols, how can we possibly ban all of them that have something to do with a hateful group?
Also, my friend wore a skirt once that had little swastikas all over it, in some kind of “design”. I pointed this out to her and she was appalled, she hadn’t noticed. Symbols get into our daily lives in so many ways, it would be impossible to police them all.
Almost every Hussar, Light, even Heavy Cavalry unit in European history has used this symbol, just because the Nazi’s used it doesn’t back date it. Guess native American’s must be Nazi’s to for coming up with the symbol. Can anybody even read anymore and look into the history of anything. Why is it if a theme isn’t a 30 second ad its to much to understand.
You just can’t make up this kind of irony.
@VitasAluminoid:
The skull and crossbones are said to date back to the Knights Templar and have been used by many different organizations over the centuries, with many minor variations. However, this t-shirt exactly replicates a design of skull and crossbones used by the SS. Can you show us an example of THIS EXACT DESIGN pre-dating the Nazis?