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Opinion

Shirt fiasco reveals retail irresponsibility

by AUSTIN HAVICAN 
Opinion Columnist

Sixty-nine days ago, blogger Rick Rottman noticed a strange T-shirt design in his local Wal-Mart. A brown shirt prominently featured a faded beige skull and crossbones with the text "Since 1978" printed underneath. The common shopper would generally assume the image was some nonsensical tattoo design -- unless he or she's familiar with Nazi iconography.

This style of skull and crossbones is technically called the Totenkopf, or "Death's Head," and was first adopted by Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit in 1935. Unlike the meaningless "Since 1978" underneath the Totenkopf, the image is an exact replica of the Nazi symbol and carries the same stigma as a Swastika.

After this news came to the attention of Wal-Mart headquarters, its online public relations department forwarded Wal-Mart's public apology to Consumerist.com, the consumer protection and news Web site that's been actively tracking the sales of the shirt.

Wal-Mart promised to immediately pull the shirts from its shelves and reassured customers that "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."

However, the shirts are still on the shelves, and now widely available on eBay for prices of up to $31 each. Consumerist.com last posted an update on its official "Wal-Mart Nazi T-shirt Watch" on Tuesday with a cell-phone photo of the shirt in the store taken 68 days after the company promised to remove the items.

The problems with the controversy do not necessarily revolve around Wal-Mart's recall; they also have to do with the fact that the shirt was even produced.

About 30 days after the apology was issued, the Miami Herald was able to track down the shirt's designer, Scott Deutsch, the president of Orange Clothing Co. 

"We would never have done that shirt if we had known," he told the Herald. "Furthermore, I'm Jewish."

Deutsch probably did not intentionally sell Nazi shirts to Wal-Mart. Orange Clothing Co. and Deutsch's mistake was the attempt to make a meaningless and trendy shirt by being uncreative and stealing from a graphic design book. Deutsch was ignorant of the iconography his company saw in a book, and it turned out to cost his company more than $200,000.

It's upsetting to see huge companies conducting business irresponsibly and failing to follow through with promised rectification. Wal-Mart and other retailers need to be more conscientious about what they sell instead of rushing to get their share of what they think is this month's new trend. 

Havican, an English senior, 
can be reached at holemoles@gmail.com.