In A Disappointment To Their Customers, WalMart Decides To Remove Journalist Lynching T-Shirts

NY Post- Walmart removed a controversial T-shirt urging violence against journalists from its website after a news association asked for it to be pulled amid “today’s vitriolic political and ideological environment,” according to a report.

The Radio Television Digital News Association announced Thursday that the nation’s largest retailer on Wednesday removed the T-shirt — which reads: “Rope. Tree. Journalist. SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED” — from its online store.

In a statement to The Post, Walmart officials said they were conducting a “thorough review of the seller’s assortment.”

What? Was WalMart really selling journalist lynching t-shirts? I’m not even mad, I’m just blown away. Flabbergasted. We’ve sold some pretty controversial t-shirts at Barstool, but I can’t recall us ever making a shirt that targeted a group of people to be lynched. Seems a little strong, but that’s just my opinion.

There are a couple ways to react to this t-shirt. Reactionary idiots will say that somehow, these t-shirts will galvanize people to lynch journalists. That somehow, a guy will see this shirt and think he should hang the nearest reporter he finds. It’s exactly the reaction that cyclists had when Feits created the t-shirt about opening a door on bikers. I personally have more faith in humanity to draw the line between “t-shirt joke” and “now I’m allowed to commit violence,” but that’s just my opinion.

Another reaction is to dismiss the t-shirt as a joke. That’s clearly what it is, and the “some assembly required” punchline is ok. The problem, though, is that the joke is about journalists. Do you know what countries are known for murdering journalists? Somalia, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. The reason? Islamist militant groups like Al-Shabaab and ISIS target journalists, whom they see as heretical and dangerous to their ideology. To share the sentiment of murdering journalists with these countries–even as a joke–makes me a little uneasy. Call me American, but that’s just my opinion.