Last week, a popular online clothing store, Spreadshirt.com, was forced to pull two t-shirt designs from its website after a number of internet users pointed out that the t-shirts had insulting and racist messages written on them.
Spreadshirt is an online store based in Germany that does not design its own clothing, but instead, allows users to design and sell shirts through the website.
Two users under the names Quentin1984 and Monigote, thought it would be a good idea to use the slogans, “Save A Dog, Eat A Chinese” and “Save A Shark, Eat A Chinese” on t-shirts and sell them.
The dog shirt reportedly cost AUD $36.70 (RM 123.64) while the shark shirt was priced at AUD $21.10 (RM 71.08).
Source: nextshark.com
These shirt designs understandably upset a large number of Chinese people, many of them taking to social media to voice out their concerns, the Huffington Post reported.
One Facebook user expressed his outrage saying, “This design is typical racist and discrimination I would never agree, nor other Chinese people.”
The user went on to say this;
“Such message serves nothing but promoting hatred rather than saving shark.”
“I do urge your company to remove all products and design with such unethical phrase to avoid damaging your corporate image before the case goes big. Thanks for your attention.”
Source: nextshark.com
Another user Tweeted, ” ‘Save a shark, eat a Chinese’?! Since when we need resort to #racism for animal protection?”
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time the issue of racism was brought up when addressing animal rights. In January this year, a report on animal abuse and the donkey skin trade in China received a slew of negative comments targeting Chinese people, according to Times Live.
One of the users commented that Chinese people are ““the most despicable things on this planet”.
Thankfully, Spreadshirt had the decency to stop selling the shirts before things got uglier.
Also read: The Body Shop Malaysia Gets Backlash From Netizens For ‘Racist’ Job Ad
