Support NeoGAF

[Excess Poo Flakes]

By DEBORAH YAO, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jul 22, 3:18 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA - The Anti-Defamation League has asked retailer Urban Outfitters to stop selling a T-shirt that reads: "New Mexico, Cleaner than Regular Mexico."

"This is saying that the country of Mexico is a dirty place," said Barry Morrison, regional director of the civil rights group. "Dirty can be interpreted figuratively and literally."

The group wants the Philadelphia-based retailer to get rid of all its inventory.

Urban Outfitters did not immediately return calls for comment Friday. The retailer, which targets 18- to 30-year-olds, has run into similar controversy before.

Two years ago, it stopped selling a game called "Ghettopoly" after protests by black civil rights leaders. Last year, it halted sales of a T-shirt that read "Everyone Loves A Jewish Girl," surrounded by dollar signs, after the Anti-Defamation League objected.

A "Voting is for Old People" T-shirt angered pro-voting groups.

Urban Outfitters operates 77 stores in the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. This year, first-quarter profits rose by 60 percent to $27.4 million, compared to the same period a year ago.

 

[Escape Goat]

How can you ask someone not to exercise their right to free speech?

 

[impirius]

How can you ask someone not to exercise their right to free speech?

You don't ask. You demand!

 

[AntoneM]

How can you ask someone not to exercise their right to free speech?

by claiming that it falls under hate-speech and therefore is not protected (probably beaten to it by now (stupid job)).

 

[olimario]

We've become a nation of overly sensative pussies.

 

[temp]

I don't get it. Anyone who would buy an "Everyone loves a Jewish girl" shirt would be Jewish. So if it sold at all actual Jewish people don't care.

 

[Mercurial]

Urban Outfitters is by far my favorite clothing store. But I can't stand those novelty/joke t-shirts.

 

[Escape Goat]

Urban Outfitters is by far my favorite clothing store. But I can't stand those novelty/joke t-shirts.

Me too. American eagle seems to stock only those nowadays.

 

[bishoptl]

I don't get it. Anyone who would buy an "Everyone loves a Jewish girl" shirt would be Jewish. So if it sold at all actual Jewish people don't care.

It's the dollar signs surrounding the phrase - alluding to the stereotype of Jews being money-grubbing - that I think they'd have a problem with.

 

[Cauliflower of Love]

Not if....they buy them.....

 

[temp]

It's the dollar signs surrounding the phrase - alluding to the stereotype of Jews being money-grubbing - that I think they'd have a problem with.

Did you even read my post?

 

[Loki]

by claiming that it falls under hate-speech and therefore is not protected (probably beaten to it by now (stupid job)).

Isn't the reasoning behind the push for hate speech laws that "hateful" speech is possibly an incitant (to violence etc.)? How can saying that a country is "dirty" possibly be construed in such a way? I find such a message as they're conveying (re: Mexico's supposed "dirtiness") extremely distasteful and meanspirited, but there's no way in hell that it should be prohibited by any sort of legal dictate. Political correctness has gone much too far in this country (and the world, really), and, further, its demands are frequently very inconsistent.