EBay pulls new controversial Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt
Janet Adamy
Knight Ridder Tribune
Issue date: 4/22/02 Section: National News
Online auction site eBay on Friday became the second vendor to yank a T-shirt that Asian-Americans deemed racist.
But not before one Midwest buyer committed to paying $249 for a gray extra large shirt that sold in shopping centers for $24.50 one week ago.
Trendy retailer Abercrombie & Fitch introduced a line of eight Asian-themed shirts last week designed to add humor and levity to its clothing line. The shirts featured slant-eye drawings of Asians wearing pointed hats with sayings like "Wong Brothers Laundry Service - Two Wongs Can Make It White," and "Abercrombie and Fitch Buddha Bash - Get Your Buddha on the Floor."
Many Asian-Americans did not think they were funny. By the middle of the week angry consumers had started circulating e-mails urging consumers to complain to Abercrombie and participate in protests against the store. Ohio-based Abercrombie pulled the shirts Thursday.
By Friday, at least nine shirts in three styles were selling on eBay, with one racking up 38 bidders. EBay pulled the shirt with the laundry service slogan after a newspaper reporter asked eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove about it. None of the other four shirts that Abercrombie pulled had been banned from the site, Pursglove said.
"It clearly is promoting or suggesting racial intolerance," he said of the laundry shirt. "We will exercise discretion and remove items that violate our policy."
After hearing Abercrombie pulled the shirts from the stores, Paul Hensley, a 31-year-old from Holt, Mich., immediately headed to eBay to see how much they were selling for. He thought five minutes before giving a final bid of $249 for the laundry shirt.
"As soon as you see the word `banned,' it means something's valuable," said Hensley. "It's humorous, and everything like that gets blown out of proportion."
But about 20 minutes after he bought the shirt, San Jose-based eBay sent him an e-mail saying it had ended the auction early because the item "contains material which is prohibited for sale on eBay." Even though he got his bid in before it was pulled, Pursglove said, eBay will not help sell Hensley the shirt.
Even if he would have gotten the shirt, Hensley was not sure he would wear it. "It's a $250 shirt, and if you take the tags off, you can't sell it anymore."
Hensley, who is white, does not think the shirt is inappropriate, but he said he can understand why it would be offensive to Asians. Mostly, it was the controversy that drove him to buy it.
Edward Wu, a 19-year-old Asian-American from Philadelphia, bid $150 for the same shirt. He was disappointed when eBay halted the bidding.
"I laughed when I saw it," he wrote in an e-mail. "So did my Asian friends."
Bids for the Buddha shirt were as high as $99. Another shirt that reads "Rich Shaw's Hoagies and Grinders _ Order by the Foot," and includes a photo of an Asian pulling a sandwich on rickshaw, was selling for $41.
But not before one Midwest buyer committed to paying $249 for a gray extra large shirt that sold in shopping centers for $24.50 one week ago.
Trendy retailer Abercrombie & Fitch introduced a line of eight Asian-themed shirts last week designed to add humor and levity to its clothing line. The shirts featured slant-eye drawings of Asians wearing pointed hats with sayings like "Wong Brothers Laundry Service - Two Wongs Can Make It White," and "Abercrombie and Fitch Buddha Bash - Get Your Buddha on the Floor."
Many Asian-Americans did not think they were funny. By the middle of the week angry consumers had started circulating e-mails urging consumers to complain to Abercrombie and participate in protests against the store. Ohio-based Abercrombie pulled the shirts Thursday.
By Friday, at least nine shirts in three styles were selling on eBay, with one racking up 38 bidders. EBay pulled the shirt with the laundry service slogan after a newspaper reporter asked eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove about it. None of the other four shirts that Abercrombie pulled had been banned from the site, Pursglove said.
"It clearly is promoting or suggesting racial intolerance," he said of the laundry shirt. "We will exercise discretion and remove items that violate our policy."
After hearing Abercrombie pulled the shirts from the stores, Paul Hensley, a 31-year-old from Holt, Mich., immediately headed to eBay to see how much they were selling for. He thought five minutes before giving a final bid of $249 for the laundry shirt.
"As soon as you see the word `banned,' it means something's valuable," said Hensley. "It's humorous, and everything like that gets blown out of proportion."
But about 20 minutes after he bought the shirt, San Jose-based eBay sent him an e-mail saying it had ended the auction early because the item "contains material which is prohibited for sale on eBay." Even though he got his bid in before it was pulled, Pursglove said, eBay will not help sell Hensley the shirt.
Even if he would have gotten the shirt, Hensley was not sure he would wear it. "It's a $250 shirt, and if you take the tags off, you can't sell it anymore."
Hensley, who is white, does not think the shirt is inappropriate, but he said he can understand why it would be offensive to Asians. Mostly, it was the controversy that drove him to buy it.
Edward Wu, a 19-year-old Asian-American from Philadelphia, bid $150 for the same shirt. He was disappointed when eBay halted the bidding.
"I laughed when I saw it," he wrote in an e-mail. "So did my Asian friends."
Bids for the Buddha shirt were as high as $99. Another shirt that reads "Rich Shaw's Hoagies and Grinders _ Order by the Foot," and includes a photo of an Asian pulling a sandwich on rickshaw, was selling for $41.