PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL – A Palm City woman says an Affliction t-shirt she saw in Nordstrom is offensive. The department store chain agreed with her and removed the shirt from all of its stores.
The famous Millennium painting has striking similarities and differences to a t-shirt made by Affliction.
Judy Carbo describes the t-shirt, which shows a skeleton holding Baby Jesus, as demonic. The Millennium painting shows Mary holding Jesus.
Judy was in disbelief when she saw the shirt for sale in Nordstrom.
"As a Catholic and a Christian, it was offensive all the way around. We consider her holy," says Judy.
Judy, who is a devout Catholic, says the image on the shirt was offensive enough to say, ‘enough.’ She asked the store at the Gardens Mall to pull the shirt. They did.
Judy says, "If you were Jewish, you wouldn’t want to see a swastika on a shirt. If you were African-American, you wouldn't want to see anything desecrating you."
The Affliction brand is sold at department stores and small trendy shops. We visited several. The t-shirt was either not on shelves or sold-out. So, we brought a picture of it to find out what people thought.
Regardless of their faith, people we talked to in downtown West Palm Beach overwhelming were offended by the shirt. Here are a few statements from people we ran into:
"I would complain. I'm religious and I don't find it interesting."
"I don't like the looks of it."
"I think its more taste. The way they have the halo is offensive to me."
A group of teens did think the shirt was "cool."
In response to Judy’s complaint, Nordstrom looked at their entire Affliction selection. The chain pulled the shirt and two others – nationwide. A spokesperson for Nordstrom says, "The Company empowers its buyers and clearly someone made a bad choice. A mistake was made and fixed."
Judy does not want the shirt sold anywhere. She would also like to talk to the head of Affliction.
Affliction did not return calls for comment.
