was apparently selling a line of “Everybody Loves [Ethnic Group] Girls” T-shirts — “Irish” with shamrocks, “German” with beer steins, “Jewish” with purses and dollar signs:
I’m pretty cautious about charging people with anti-Semitism; and I should also acknowledge that the target market for the shirts is obviously Jewish girls, so it would be Jewish girls who are associating Jewish with dollar signs as much as the manufacturer and distributor. Moreover, some such girls might happily wear such shirts simply as a celebration of shopping (which Jewish girls as well as other girls have been known to enjoy) rather than anything else.
Still, depicting shopping as emblematic of Jewishness in the way shamrocks are emblematic of Irishness, or even beer (which the usual stereotype depicts Germans as drinking for fun, rather than to get drunk) as emblematic of Germanness, strikes me as pretty bad. Urban Outfitters must have the legal right to do this, but I think it’s in pretty bad taste for them to exercise this legal right. Fortunately, the Anti-Defamation League reports that Urban Outfitters discontinued this shirt in early January, in response to the ADL’s complaints. The story I cite above was published today, but I’m not sure whether the T-shirt sighting that it describes happened after early January or before.
A Seattle Urban Outfitters store referred me to company headquarters, and I left a message with their public relations department. If I hear more from them that’s relevant, I’ll post an update. (Thanks to reader Regina Cullen for the pointer.)
UPDATE: Reader Prof. Patrick Brown writes:
Urban Outfitters has agreed to redesign the “Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl” t-shirt, removing the dollar signs. However, they are insisting on selling the ones that are already on the shelves or in the warehouse. These shirts are also being sold at the company’s stores in Canada. Here’s a
a National Post article on this story from last Friday . . . . reporting comments by the President of Urban Outfitters:“Richard Hayne, the president of Urban Outfitters Inc., said last night the company agreed to modify the design.
“We agreed to take the dollar signs off and just keep it as it is otherwise. And it will say ‘Everyone loves a Jewish girl,'” Hayne said in a telephone interview from Philadelphia.
“Our agreement with them was that we would sell out what we have and that when we printed the new ones they would be different. That seemed to be acceptable to the people here and that’s what we’re doing.”
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