Walmart Nazi Tshirt Watch: Week 62
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!)
Attention, Walmart shoppers! This ad is for you! Woo hoo!
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Comments:
what do you expect from wal-mart. its not like they are advocates against racism.
No matter how hard they try to improve their image they will always be the epitome of suckage
Does anyone really think that a company who treats their employees so poorly is going to care about taking some shirts off their shelves.
Obviously these shirts are getting shipped to some Wal-marts and the employees just put them on the racks.
Well considering the ammount of white trash I see when I do venture inside I wouldn't be suprised if there wasn't a backhanded purposeful effort to put these shirts out.
When they get caught they appologize up and down and put them in a different stone a week later.
totenkopf nicht so schoen
yawn
Why should what Congress wants or demands enter into anything.
Seriously.
Why?
I agree that they should remove them and that they are in the worst possible taste, but Congress has less than no right to demand anything and can cram it six ways from Sunday.
They ARE removing them from the shelves...by attrition.
That's a nazi symbol?
Let me guess... isolated incident, communication failure, blah blah.
Screw your profits and economies of scale. If you're too big to implement a critical corporate and/or congressional directive throughout your organization... YOU'RE TOO BIG.
I agree with you there, I still don't get how this is a nazi symbol it looks like a cross skull & bones to me. I have one on my pirate flag.
WTF you crack heads, I just looked at the wikipedia page and it doesn't look anything like it.
Are you blind TRAUMA_HOUND? It's the same damn skull. Doesn't take a forensics analyst to see it either.
As the first link in the story shows, it's an EXACT replica of an SS badge.
Hahaha "Since 1978" that's a classic right there.
I have the perfect solution for this "problem"; if you don't like the Tshirt, don't buy one. Common sense?
@Vitalis: Of course that's common sense! And that's why we need things like Consumerist to alert us of stuff like this, so that we can make informed decisions.
@ Vitalis: Perfect sense.
@Vitalis: That's a reasonable response, but isn't it upsetting that a company that publicly acknowledged that it was an offensive product and that it intended to stop selling it within a matter of days (see the linked article above from NOVEMBER OF 2006) but has not done so after more than a year? As the original post suggests, this bodes ill for the effectiveness of, say, a future Walmart recall of tainted meat or radioactive Barbies. The more reasonable response might be to avoid shopping at a retailer that so willfully misrepresents itself.
How dare you interject common sense into this debate Vitalis. How dare you!
Did the person try to buy it?
From what I understand, since Wal-Mart inventory is usually a mess, and who knows where things are packed at - from what I understand, if you try to buy the shirt - the computer is suppose to stop the sale and not allow it to be bought. Just because it had been found and stuck back on the shelve by an employee which knows no better.
Don't like them? Then don't buy 'em.
@vitalis
that's a great idea. let's use that "common sense" and put the swastika on a shirt for germans who want to buy it. don't like it jewish people? don't buy it. it doesn't matter it represents the people that killed millions of you. just don't buy it.
how about the ku klux klan symbol? for those southern people who think it's historical for something wierd reason.
don't like it african americans? don't buy it. it doesn't matter they tortured you and killed you. just don't buy it.
i totally support congress and their ordering wal mart to take it off the shelves. some things need to be taken care of at the government level to actually get it done.
but apparently that doesn't work with wal mart.
I think you guys should really stop Q_Qing over a stupid shirt. It'd be different if it were a swastika.
5 + s/h for who ever buys me that shirt! /srsly
"If they can't get rid of a simple tshirt, how good are they at recalling toys, defective merchandise, and dangerous food?"
Apparently the answer is, "not good at all."
@benjimandodd: free speech. its your right to socially pressure them to stop carrying it, but the government cannot force them to take it away.
you were being sarcastic, but your reasoning was correct. if you do not like it, do not buy it.
@cde: yeah dude, I think I'd totally wear it just to piss off the readers here, especially if there is ever a big consumerist meet up ;D
@rando
why would it be different if it was a swastika? both the group that the swastika stands for and the group that this symbol stands for killed jews. why is one worse than the other?
Don't forget that the swastika is actually an ancient symbol that predates the NSDAP's use of it in Germany. You can find the swastika all over europe, india, and Asia. Lets ban history too huh.
So by your reasoning benji then we can never fly the american flag or show patriotism because the US persecuted and massacred native americans?
Symbols != ideas. Grow up, consumerist.
@DallasDMD: You're missing the point. Expression isn't the issue here - Wal-Mart acknowledged that it was in bad taste and promised to remove the item. If they can't follow through on the promise, it's hard to think they could, say, pull recalled cans of chili off the shelf in a timely manner (and they couldn't).
62 weeks of not caring, if you didn't tell me it was related in some way to a Nazi battalion or whatever that committed really nasty war crimes, I would just go with it being a pretty cool skull and crossbones image. I read up on their history just to know what you were talking about. So does that mean you are in the job of teaching history? If it were a black t-shirt I would probably buy it if I saw it on a shelf, of coarse I don't shop at Wal-Mart, so that is a different story. Gotta love that you can purchase a t-shirt that says Fuck You You Fucking Fuck. But a skull and crossbones has to be banned by congress because some consumers take offense at the image. I can almost gurantee that whoever chose the image, thought it was cool, and in no way related it to anything that had to do with WWII.
Since when did Wal-Mart get wood/laminate floors? I guess the piss-stained tiles got old?
@spinachdip: Understood. My point is that a store has a right to sell whatever type of clothing it wants. Some people here think that the government should step in, and I totally disagree with that. It compromises the principle of free speech.
My suggestion is that, instead of complaining, people should concentrate on creating symbols/speech they think are better alternatives instead of trying to impose their ideology on everyone else.
In their clothes sections they have them. I guess it's an attempt to class up the joint.
How do we even know that this a current photo taken at Wallyworld?
Wow, a tee for only $3! *Buys two*
@marsneedsrabbits: If you read the Consumerist post about the Congressional letter, you'll see that about twenty or thirty Congressfolk signed a letter requesting WalMart to remove the shirt. This is hardly "Congress" demanding anything. If anything, the Consumerist's statements in the above post are something of a distortion. The concerned Congressfolk are merely employing their right to freedom of speech, which is even a right our legislators are entitled to.
Nonetheless, I'd like to think these Congressmen have something better to do than to worry about some stupid t-shirt being sold at a retailer that carried, until now, a relatively obscure symbol. I'm also of the camp that says, "If you don't like it, don't buy it." Until I read the first Consumerist post about the shirt, I just thought it was some skater punk skull thing ;-)
Still dont see what is Nazi about them
As an associate with Wal-Mart, I can point out what exactly can make this happen.
Often large amounts of overstock accumulate in the back room where they more or less forgotten about until someone runs across them and decides to reorganize the bins. A system wide recall on a product isn't as simple as just removing the items necessarily, and it really isn't surprising to see a few of the items continue to appear even after a figuratively long span of time.
I personally would also like to point out that Wal-Mart as a global retailer wields a large amount of consumer authority. For this reason I tend to support the idea of leaving what we sell in the hands of the consumers who desire (or do not desire) it.
Realistically, if one were to point fingers at anything in the consumer market, would it not be wiser to complaign about explicit video material? I could carry on to some length here.
Damn if it were closer I'd stock up. Every time I find myself in walmart I search the clothing section for these. :-\ Cool design.
They have them here at several Wal Marts in Vegas and at a few ross stores too. I see them occasionally, but not often since the story broke.