Amazon UK is currently selling the above shirt, along with a number of others made by Solid Gold Bomb, all of which feature the popular “Keep Calm” slogan/imagery and the word “rape.” We first learned about the t-shirts through Twitter campaign @NoMorePage3.
To be honest, some of the t-shirts feature phrases that don’t really make any sense at all (“Keep Calm and Rape In”?), so this might be a massive printing error. But if it’s supposed to be some kind of joke, I really don’t get it.
I’m mostly just appalled and angry that someone is, at this very moment, potentially making money off of these incredibly oppressive and harmful slogans. And a major brand like Amazon is supporting them in doing this. If you are upset as well, tell Amazon UK and Solid Gold Bomb that you’re #NotBuyingIt:
They have subsequently deleted their Facebook page entirely, without apologizing. The shirts are still available on Amazon UK.
UPDATE (5:36 pm PST): Amazon UK has now been sent over 400 #NotBuyingIt tweets, in less than two hours time. They’ve earned a spot on our all-time worst offenders leader board.
Meanwhile over 100 folks have already written negative reviews of the t-shirts on the Amazon UK webpage for this product.
UPDATE (8:30 pm PST): After over 500 #NotBuyingIt tweets, and less than 24 hours after we learned about it, Amazon UK has removed the shirts completely from their site! They have yet to make any comment on the existence of the shirts though, and have not delivered an apology of any kind.
Written by Imran Siddiquee at MissRepresentation.org. Follow him on Twitter @imransiddiquee
