Some of you probably know the backstory on this so please don't post anything about it until I get to hear from some people who don't know it. If you saw a person wearing a t-shirt with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire and dripping with blood, with the words "Eeny Meeny Miny Moe" on it, would you think that it is racist? Please mention if you are from the UK, USA or other.... Thanks!
If the shirt mocking the TV series I think it is, then it's possible to be racist due to the show's victims of that scene. I guess if someone saw an obvious skinhead wearing it, they could come to that conclusion. But overall, NO ... the shirt itself is NOT racist. The circumstances would have to be too special for it to be racist.
'Merican here. No the shirt is not. Yes I know the historical context of the rhyme. As a child we were taught the clean version. Nursery rhymes are often times dark. "Ring around the rosie, pockets full of posies"
I would think we're dealing with a clearly unstable and potentially dangerous person, but I have no idea where race would even come into play. If this is a references to something in pop culture I'll admit I'm completely out of that bubble so I have no idea what backstory you're referring to.
1st Episode of The Walking Dead current season. The baseball bats name is Lucille. The person swinging it is Neegan.
Guys it's a reference to one of the most intense scenes by one of the strongest characters in The Walking Dead.
I haven't ever watched the show (I don't watch much TV) so none of that makes any sense to me. How is this to be construed as potentially racist??
Exactly. And what an episode. --- Post Merged, Feb 24, 2017 --- I don't see how. Lucille is the bat that kills two characters, and it's basically Neegan's trademark. The bat is almost a character itself. And Neegan doesn't care about race when he kills.
FFS....yes its from Walking Dead, something I was hoping not to talk about here until I heard from people who didn't know that..... Anyway, to Answer the poster quoted, apparently the original rhyme ended with "catch a n-word by the toe". I never knew this, its more known in the UK than the USA, I think. Someone saw the shirt in a UK shop (shoppe?) and raised hell. They said if they saw someone wearing it, they would be fearful, that it was racist and incites violence.
It is a decades(centuries?)-old rhyme for teaching kids how to count. So, yes, liberals/democrats/progressives will find it offensive a/k/a racist.
There are two parts to this. I'm an adult born and raised in the USA and never knew there was an alternate version to the Eeny Meeny Miny Moe song.. As a fan of the show I don't find it racist. On the flip side there are many who know the original version or alternate of the song and haven't seen the show. You can't determine how people interpret things. We don't all have the same background info. Knowing what I know now, I can see how some take as offensive. I still don't find it offensive though.
I never knew this, do you have a source for it? As it stands, I don't think that shirt would be racist.
I wonder what would have appened if the guy was also reading (the newly retitled) Agatha Christie's "and then there were none"?
http://ew.com/tv/2017/02/22/walking-dead-t-shirt-racist/ and: " Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo, Catch a ****** by his toe, If he won't work then let him go; Skidum, skidee, skidoo. But when you get money, your little bride Will surely find out where you hide, So there's the door and when I count four, Then out goes you.[15]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe
I've grown up in the south, SC, NC, GA, FL, LA, MS and from TX. I haven't heard anything racist with the song before.
Being pissed off because a rhyme was used this way by "some versions" 200 years ago is as stupid as saying that the N-word is not bad because 200 years ago was perfectly normal.
Same here. I've lived nearly my entire life in the south and have heard/seen all kinds of vile nonsense, but I had no idea this song had a racists alternate. I also don't watch much TV (especially dark stuff), so I've been pretty clueless in this thread.
That particular episode was a new level. There was the gore and usual zombie destruction but that one was something else. Actually glad it has been more tame since.