I’m a a sharp-eyed blogger!
At least that is what Sara Dickerman over at Slate says:
The skull can serve as a piratelike threat, but historically it has also symbolized bravado in the face of death—a dual meaning that has made it popular among fighting units around the world. In the United States, special operations units have gravitated toward skull imagery in their insignia. During World War II, the death’s head, or totenkopf, was a hallmark of a number of Nazi SS uniforms—something that Wal-Mart unhappily discovered three years ago when a sharp-eyed blogger noticed that some of the retailer’s trendy skull shirts featured the distinctive grimace of the SS death’s head. Wal-Mart pulled the shirts and apologized, but it shows you that you have to be choosy about your skulls.
Of course Wal-Mart never really pulled the shirts unless that means that they simply continued selling the shirts till they were all gone. That’s what they did. The important thing is that they said they pulled the shirts from the shelves. To most people, that was enough. It didn’t matter that people were still finding the t-shirts on Wal-Mart shelves even 62 weeks after they said the shirts were removed.
The important thing is that I have been identified as a sharp-eyed blogger. Maybe I should add that to me resume.
Wal-Mart’s love of selling Nazi SS skull t-shirts will not die
The Consumerist posted about a new Nazi SS skull t-shirt sighting at an Ohio area Wal-Mart. It’s been 22 weeks now since I first found them at my local Wal-Mart and posted something about it. Since then, Wal-Mart has issued apology after apology along with promises to remove the offending shirts as quickly as they can.
They then proceed to continue selling the shirts as though nothing ever happened.
This is just too ridiculous. Even for Wal-Mart. Either they want to sell Nazi SS skull t-shirts to kids or they don’t. They need to make up their mind. I realize that Wal-Mart likes to say one thing and do another when it comes to how they treat their employees, but this is about selling a t-shirt with an image worn by Nazi SS concentration camp guards at Auschwitz. Claiming that they offer affordable health insurance to their employees even though they don’t is not the same thing as claiming that they don’t want to sell Nazi SS merchandise even though they seemingly do.
I realize they are used to lying about stuff. They shouldn’t lie about this.
I noticed that this story made it’s way to digg again. A lot of people are commenting on this issue as though it’s something new. Some people are making the same lame retarded arguments that this is not a Nazi SS skull image even though it is an exact copy. They claim it’s just a skull. I used to get emails every day from people saying all sorts of things. Right now their are digg users arguing about Wal-Mart selling these t-shirts as though it wasn’t already argued to death last year on digg. Are these people all new digg users? Why didn’t any of these digg users making these comments last year? Not to say other digg users didn’t try to make similar flawed arguments.
The whole Wal-Mart Nazi t-shirt thing will not die
I got a call yesterday afternoon from a reporter from the Chicago Tribune. It was concerning my not-so-recent discovery of Nazi t-shirts being sold at my local Wal-Mart. I blogged about it at the time. Feel free to go back and read my posts if you want to.
I haven’t blogged about the ‘controversy” since November 21. I did write about some idiot that emailed me about it, but that doesn’t really count. I wasn’t blogging about how bad Wal-Mart was for selling Nazi paraphernalia to kids. I was blogging about how much of a tard some guy was. Others have been blogging about it though. Some have been quite active on the subject. Just not me.
It seems that congressperson Jan Schakowsky from Illinois has learned about Wal-Mart selling Nazi swag. She is pissed off about it. She wrote a letter to Wal-Mart and even got other members of Congress to sign the letter. In fact, she even got Representative Barny Franks to sign it.
Nothing demonstrates just how angry you are then than getting Representative Barney Frank to sign your letter.
The reporter from the Chicago Tribune wrote an article about it that was published in today’s issue. She mentioned in her article that I was the one who first wrote about Wal-Mart selling the shirts.
I hope this does not get me in trouble. There is a chance (albeit a small chance) that I am a wanted man in Chicago. The last time I was in the Windy City I drove through a toll without paying. I wanted to pay the toll. I had the money to pay the toll. Sort of. Illinois has these unmanned toll booths where the driver has to throw change into a big orange plastic basket. It’s really quite easy. If you have any change that is. I had just flown in and I didn’t have any change. I only had paper money. Not knowing what to do, I just drove through without paying.
I haven’t been back to Chicago since. I haven’t dared.
The wisdom of Steve Cook delivered directly to my email inbox
I’m still getting email about the whole Wal-Mart Nazi SS Totenkopfis t-shirt controversy. Is it really a controversy? I don’t know and I don’t care.
Some of the email messages I get are positive and well thought out. Others, not so much. Some of the messages sent to me are so idiotic and stupid that they are actually quite funny. Here is one such email I received this morning.
Steve Cook <keywest63020@charter.net> wrote:
Emblems similar to nazi emblems on wal-mart t-shirts….!
To quote john Stoessel (sic) “give me a break”..so what…..do you have any idea howlong the skull and crossbones have been around? The skull and crossbones is also an insignia for the fighter wing aboard the USS Washington aircraft carrier(I think that is the correct ship). I saw it on the History channel the other night. You gonna contact George Bush and have him change that also?
The swastika has also been around since the dawn of civilization and was used by many civilizations including the american indian…..it can actually be traced back to ancient judiaism (sic).
The ss symbols are from the ancient Runes symbols…shall we outlaw all of them also?
Why dont you get your panties in a wad over something that matters and not some vague reference to last mid-century.
If you wanna get mad @ wal-mart about something ,why not complain about the crappy produce selection .
Nothing personal…..but if you really want to make a difference in this world quit looking back and try to look forward.
I am pretty sure that no one was gonna walk into wal-mart and say.” Dude!…look….an SS deathshead t-shirt..i gotta have one!”
Steve
My favorite part is where my new friend Steve invoked the name of ABC’s 20-20 John Stossel. He’s the guy that’s always trying to argue that global warming is fake or that it’s perfectly acceptable to charge $20 for a bottle of water during a disaster because it ensures that the person who really needs that water gets that water.
As though there are some people that don’t need water.
Steve takes me to task for “looking back”. He advises me to instead “look forward”. This is interesting since he’s the one commenting on a blog post I made over a month ago.
Talk about being relevant.
But I don’t want to be a World War II buff
According to the Miami Herald, I am now a World War II buff. It’s a label I strongly reject. How does one even become a World War II buff? I don’t watch the History Channel. Something I believe World War II buffs do all the time. They certainly don’t just flip past it to get to other channels. I don’t want to be a buff. Not about World War II or anything else for that matter. Really.
I was never contacted by anyone at the Miami Herald before they wrote this article. I certainly never told anyone that I was a World War II buff. To the best of my knowledge, nobody else ever referred to me as a buff.
Here is the article from the Miami Herald:
Skull emblems are huge sellers these days, so Scott Deutsch had no problem placing 50,000 T-shirts emblazoned with a distinctive version of the gory symbol in Wal-Mart.
Trouble is, this particular skull and crossbones was the insignia used by a division of the Nazi Waffen SS — the Death’s Head or Totenkopf. Wal-Mart yanked the shirts off the shelves last week.
”We would never have done that shirt if we had known,” said Deutsch, president of Miami-based Orange Clothing Company, a manufacturer of young men’s apparel. “Furthermore, I’m Jewish.”
The T-shirts are now flooding back into Deutsch’s warehouse, leaving him with a loss of more than $200,000.
Wal-Mart started pulling the tops after a Maryland blogger — and World War II buff — noticed them in local stores and took a photo of the squashed-looking skull with his cellphone.
After Rick Rottman checked the emblem and saw it matched the Nazi insignia, he posted an item on his blog, bentcorner.com, on Nov. 9 along with comparison photos.
Wal-Mart, which had placed the T-shirts in stores a couple weeks ago, reacted quickly. ”We would never have placed the T-shirts on our shelves had we known the origin or significance of the emblem,” the retailer said in a statement.
The Death’s Head was used by the Third Division of the Waffen SS, which was notorious for war crimes. Many of its men were concentration camp guards.
Deutsch said his designers found the skull in a European ”trend book.” Apparel makers use trend books to decide which motifs and styles to manufacture for the upcoming season.
The T-shirt was made for Wal-Mart’s private label, No Boundaries.
Skulls, Deutsch said, have been popular emblems for the past five years.
”It’s a cool, bad-ass image in the young men’s market,” he said. “We do skulls all the time.”
A Miami native, Deutsch started Orange Clothing in 1999. The company manufactures in China, where it has an office in Shanghai, and Latin America. It sells $10 million worth of clothing a year to retailers such as Macy’s, Dollar General and JCPenney.
Deutsch said he doesn’t know what he’ll do with all the extra T-shirts, which have also started cropping up on eBay. But he’s sure about one thing.
”We’re checking the origins of the skulls now,” he said.
So the totenkopf shirts sold at Wal-Mart stores was done so by a company owned by a Jewish man? You couldn’t make this stuff up.
What’s a trend book? Are clothing designers allowed to just copy things and then pass it off as their own? If so, it makes me wonder just what they are actually designing. Maybe they didn’t know they were copying a Nazi SS totenkopf, but they had to know they were copying something. Something not designed by them. Something that might have been trademarked by another artist or designer. The company or person that actually created the image. It’s an exact copy of the Nazi SS totenkopf. They didn’t even reverse the image. They didn’t change the shape or add anything.
Maybe next time they are paid to design something, they should design it instead of lifting it from a book.
It’s strange that a clothing maker that provides clothes for Macy’s also makes clothes for Dollar General. Talk about a wide range of products. No matter which way the economy goes, they are covered.
Nazi shirt was an accident, Miami designer says [Miami Herald]
Wal-Mart Nazi swag now on eBay
Ben Popken from The Consumerist has discovered that some of Wal-Mart’s Nazi t-shirts are now being listed on eBay. I have to think that the eBay seller who listed them knows the significance of the Nazi skull since he lists them as being Totenkopf in the listing’s title.
The seller made sure to also list them in the Militaria/WW II (1939-45)/Germany/Medals, Pins, Ribbons catagory. I’m guessing that’s where one goes when they want to find Nazi stuff on eBay. When you cannot simply run out to your local Wal-Mart.
Totenkopf Shirts On Ebay [The Consumerist]
Wal-Mart sells Nazi swag to kids
Magellan over at ExploreForTruth has posted that his local Wal-Mart is still selling the Nazi SS t-shirts. He also purchased one and took a pic, which demonstrates that the shirts haven’t been put on hold or frozen in Wal-Mart’s central inventory computer system. Something that would be very easy to do if they actually wanted to. He makes a good point on his blog:
I know they said it could take a couple days, but if this was E.coli laced spinach or acetaminophen, it would have been off the shelves in hours. Tomorrow I will be checking another Wal-Mart.
I would hope to believe that they would be a lot quicker to remove tainted products. Seeing how they have dropped the ball at getting rid of Nazi swag, it makes me wonder how proactive they would be when it comes to removing product that could actually kill you such as E.coli laced spinach.
My problem with Wal-Mart is that they refuse to sell products that they deem to be offensive. They will not sell CD’s to adults that contain adult language. They canceled orders for the best-selling satire book America (The Book) by Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show because it dared to show phony naked pics of Supreme Court justices. They also refuse to sell magazines such as Maxim because they show woman wearing sexy clothing.
They then turn around and sell t-shirts adorned with the very same symbol worn by Nazi SS concentration camp guards at Auschwitz.
Imagine a situation where a someone buys this shirt at Wal-Mart not knowing the significance of the Totenkopf or even that it is a Totenkopf. He then wears this shirt in public and the wrong person sees it. How is he supposed to know that the shirt he purchased at his friendly local Wal-Mart features a Nazi symbol?
I think like most people, he expects Wal-Mart to be more responsible. The reality is that Wal-Mart won’t sell Maxim magazine to adults, but it will sell Nazi swag to kids.
Wal-Mart is still selling Nazi SS skull t-shirts
I was surprised at the level of response I got from yesterday’s post about Wal-Mart selling t-shirts with the Nazi SS “Death’s Head” logo on them. I knew some blogs got over 55,000 visits in a single day. I just never thought this blog would ever be one of them.
If I have learned anything over the last 24 hours its that people love a story involving Wal-Mart and Nazis. Go figure.
I was contacted yesterday by someone from a PR firm that represents Wal-Mart:
Rick:
Good morning. My name is Marshall Manson. I work for Edelman doing online public affairs for Wal-Mart. I noticed your post about the t-shirts that Wal-Mart is selling. I wanted to make sure you saw the company’s statement about this and knew that Wal-Mart is now removing the t-shirts from its stores. Obviously, with a company as big as Wal-Mart, that may take a day or two.
The statement is just below. If you would like to discuss anything, feel free to respond to this e-mail.
Statement from Wal-Mart:
We were not aware of the origins of the image until this morning when we learned about it through the blog Bent Corner.
We are deeply sorry that this happened, and we are in the process of pulling all of these t-shirts from our stores.
Respect for the individual is a core value of our company and we would never have placed this t-shirt on our shelves had we known the origin and significance of this emblem.
We are reviewing our product review process in an effort to ensure this never happens again.
Sincerely,
Marshall Manson
Edelman
If you would like a copy of the above correspondence sent directly to you by Marshall Manson, simply post something on a blog about Nazi’s and Wal-Mart and wait about 30 minutes. I doubt it will take even that long. The very same email sent to me was sent to just about every other blog that posted something about this. Word for word.
The New York Times published an article about Wal-Mart and bloggers. In it they mention Marshall Manson quite frequently. It’s an interesting read.
Marshall Manson asked me if I would post an update to my original post about Wal-Mart and the Nazi shirts. Something about how quickly they responded to the problem once they realized they were selling Nazi swag. I would have no problem doing that. If I felt they had indeed acted upon the information that they were selling Nazi clothing.
The problem is that they haven’t yet done anything about the Nazi shirts.
Yesterday afternoon I stopped at a Wal-Mart on my way home for work and found a stack of the same shirts still for sale in the men’s department. My wife also stopped at a different Wal-Mart on her way home from work yesterday. She too found a stack of these Nazi shirts still for sale.
In my opinion, quickly taking care of a problem involves actually taking care of the problem.
Instead of having someone from a PR firm contact bloggers, Wal-Mart should have concentrated on simply removing the shirts from their stores. They could have worried about contacting bloggers after their stores were free of Nazi clothing.
Marshall Manson claimed that because of the size of Wal-Mart, removing the shirts from all the stores might take a day or two. I don’t think so. Wal-Mart could have removed these shirts from every store in a matter of minutes if they actually wanted to. Would they be this lethargically slow if they found out they were selling child porn? I don’t think so.
I am more then a little pissed off that because of my post, white supremacists and neo-Nazis are now goose stepping to Wal-Mart to buy these shirts. For example, over at the Resistance Records official website, members of the forum linked to my post and wrote about going to Wal-Mart to buy these shirts. Resistance Records produces white supremacist and neo-Nazi music. It is the same record company behind Prussian Blue, the Nazi version of the Olsen twins. One member of that forum even posted a photo of herself wearing the shirt she bought at Wal-Mart. The shirt she didn’t even know existed until I posted about it on my blog.
I wish Wal-Mart had acted more responsibly and taken care of this situation as soon as it was brought to their attention. Instead they worried more about trying to control the blogosphere then stopping teenage wannabe Nazis from buying Nazi SS shirts in their stores.
The reality is these shirts are so ugly, I doubt anyone was even buying them. Until wannabe Nazis learned about them on my blog. Great.
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