A store in Nashville has come under fire for selling ‘Not Vaccinated’ badges that resemble the Star of David badges Jews of Europe were legally compelled to wear during the Holocaust.

As reported by CNN, Nashville's hatWRKS recently posted an image to their Instagram page showing the store's owner, Gigi Gaskins, posing with one of the badges and announcing their availability.

The patch resembles the yellow Star of David patches the Nazis enforced during World War II, with the caption of the now-deleted post reading: “Patches are here. They turned out great. $5 [each]. Strong adhesive back...we’ll be offering trucker caps soon.”

However, the shop was swiftly met with backlash, and the post was deleted just a few hours later. Gaskins has also since revealed in a follow-up post that no badges were sold or given away.

A star worn by Jewish prisoners. Sachsenhausen concentration camp Museum in Germany. Credit: PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy

But despite being removed from the page, screenshots were taken and shared across social media, with many people venting their outrage on Twitter.

One person wrote alongside the screenshot: "This utterly repulsive shop in #Tennessee is selling ‘not vaccinated’ yellow stars, desecrating the memory of all victims of the Holocaust. It should be shut down immediately."

A second added: "As a young school girl in Holland, my mother was forced to wear a yellow star by the Nazis to identify her as a Jew. It’s beyond grotesque to sell this evil symbol to proclaim one’s not vaccinated. Where does this end?"

A third wrote simply: "Beyond disgusting."

After coming under fire on social media, Gaskins issued an apology to the store's Instagram page on Sunday (May 30), which read:

"In NO WAY did i intend to trivialize the Star of David or disrespect what happened to millions of people. that is not who i am & what i stand for.

"My intent was not to exploit or make a profit. my hope was to share my genuine concern & fear, and to do all that i can to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again. i sincerely apologize for any insensitivity. [sic]"

However, the apology came after the store seemingly attempted to defend its position, questioning why people were outraged at the post when they should be "outraged at the tyranny the world is experiencing".

Per the Holocaust Memorial Center, Jewish people in Europe had been "legally compelled to wear badges or distinguishing garments" as far back as the 13th century.

After being phased out and abolished prior to the 20th century, "the Nazis resurrected this practice as part of their persecutions during the Holocaust".

Per CNN, a group of protesters gathered outside the store on Saturday morning, with some holding signs reading "Nashville condemns hatWRKS" and "No Nazis in Nashville".

Additionally, the apparel maker Stetson announced over the weekend that it will no longer conduct business with the store.

Featured image credit: Maurice Savage / Alamy

Chrissy Teigen has been criticised online for the alleged associations surrounding her new tattoo. Some people are even going as far as to claim that the tattoo - which features a selection of numbers that represent, amongst other things, the birthdays of her husband, John Legend, and two children, Luna and Miles - gives off "holocaust vibes".

Although the majority of the comments about the ink, which she shared on Instagram, were positive, some have said they find it offensive and insensitive.

Chrissy Teigen shares video of mystery health ailment on Twitter

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"Yikes really strong Holocaust vibes," wrote one Instagram user,  while another suggested that the model wasn't aware of the connotations: "Chrissy, I love you, I just wish people were more aware of the connection to the Holocaust when they elect to get forearm tattoos of numbers."

Another person commented: "I think this would make any Jewish person very uncomfortable even if unintentionally," while someone else stated "Is anyone else a little bothered by the fact that she got a series of numbers on her forearm? Is the Holocaust really that far removed from our reality? Anyone??"

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In other news, Chrissy Teigen just learned the hard way to never post private information on the internet. The model took to Twitter last month to reveal that she had accidentally posed her email address on social media, which prompted a number of her fans to FaceTime her in hopes that she'd pick up.

One person did get lucky, but to her surprise, she had a call with a friendly stranger, and wasn't confronted by anything inappropriate.

"F*ck I posted my email address lmao," she wrote on Twitter, before adding "Oh my god people are FaceTiming me. was 100% sure this would be a penis but nope just a nice stranger."

"Everything disabled and changed emails. but I love you guys and thank you for the kind words lol," she continued. 

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In a video shared to Twitter, Chrissy was alongside her mother, Vilailuck "Pepper" Teigen, and chatted with a fan called Ricardo on her laptop.
"Hi, Ricardo, nice to meet you. This is my mom,” Chrissy said. "Thanks for calling me!"

When Ricardo asked how the cookbook author was doing, she responded "We’re good, we’re about to eat dinner but just thought we’d answer one of these."

Before hanging up, Chrissy said "[It was] nice to meet you!"

What a lucky fan!

During WWII, approximately six million European Jews lost their lives in the Holocaust. Of those that perished, about 1/6th of them were murdered at Auschwitz, one of the most notorious death camps run by the Nazis. Despite this truly horrific and tragic history, Auschwitz - and, indeed, the Holocaust as a whole - is still seen by some as a subject to be joked about or trivialised.

This week, it emerged that Redbubble.com, an e-commerce site often used by independent designers and artists to sell their work, had been selling pillows, mini skirts and tote bags with images of the death camp printed on them.

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Auschwitz, which is now a memorial site, reached out to Redbubble on Twitter to challenge them on the matter.

"Do you really think that selling such products as pillows, mini skirts or tote bags with the images of Auschwitz — a place of enormous human tragedy where over 1.1 million people were murdered - is acceptable?" they asked. "This is rather disturbing and disrespectful."

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Redbubble responded to apologise for the offensive items, and assured the memorial that they would be removing them from their site.

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention," they said. "The nature of this content is not acceptable and is not in line with our Community Guidelines. We are taking immediate action to remove these and similar works available on these product types."

However, this prompted the Auschwitz memorial to point out more antisemitic and insensitive items on the popular clothing store.

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Once again, Redbubble said they were very sorry that this sort of material made it onto their site, and claimed that they were still working on removing it.

"Thanks again for reaching out to us, it is greatly appreciated, this work has now been removed," Redbubble stated. "We are currently still in the process of reviewing works of this nature but are working towards removal of all unacceptable works as soon as possible."

This is not the first time that the Auschwitz memorial has involved itself in issues online, either. In March of this year, they took to social media in order to highlight the problems with tourists posing for photos on the train tracks that brought millions of people into the camp and, ultimately, to their death.

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"When you come to Auschwitz Museum, remember you are at the site where over 1 million people were killed. Respect their memory," they said. "There are better places to learn how to walk on a balance beam than the site which symbolizes deportation of hundreds of thousands to their deaths."

As the recent Redbubble incident shows, however, their pleas for respect fell on deaf ears. Perhaps now, after a more direct callout, Redbubble and other similar sites will be more vigilant in policing the sort of work that is hosted on their platforms.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has apologized for her comments after comparing a Covid mask mandate to the Holocaust.

The Republican, 47, was regretful after comparing the ongoing Covid restrictions around the world to the Holocaust, per CNBC, which sparked mass backlash on social media.

She apologized after Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill announced that he and other lawmakers were planning to introduce a resolution to censor Greene over her comments, which have been widely perceived as anti-semitic.

"I know that words that I have stated were hurtful, and for that, I'm very sorry," Greene told reporters outside the U.S. Capitol.

Greene explained that she had recently paid a visit to the Holocaust Museum on Monday, June 14, and "there's nothing comparable to it."

"It happened, and, you know, over 6 million Jewish people were murdered," she added.

The 47-year-old's apology marks a complete u-turn in her attitude towards continued Covid restrictions, which she had previously stood by in spite of the criticism she received.

NBC News reported that Greene appeared on a podcast in May to say that a mask mandate was comparable to the Holocaust, saying: "We can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens - so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany."

She repeated this comparison days later on Twitter, where she wrote: "Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi's forced Jewish people to wear a gold star."

Credit: Alamy / REUTERS

Her comments come after a local Tennessee news outlet reported that supermarket chain Food City would be giving their workers a badge to let customers know that they are fully vaccinated.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., described the comments as "outrageous" and "reprehensible."

But despite facing widespread criticism, including from other Republicans, she initially stood by her Holocaust remarks.

"I never compared it to the Holocaust, only the discrimination against Jews in early Nazi years. Stop feeding into the left wing media attacks on me," Greene complained on Twitter.

Featured image credit: Alamy / REUTERS

A Jewish doctor has gone viral on social media this week after speaking about treating a Covid-19 patient with Nazi tattoos.

In a lengthy post made on Twitter, Dr. Taylor Nichols - who works at Mercy San Juan Hospital near Sacramento - told his followers that dealing with so many cases of the coronavirus has been incredibly tough on healthcare workers, especially when patients have refused to follow the stipulated guidelines.

This other doctor recently took to social media to share a breathing technique to help manage Covid-19 symptoms: 

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Nichols described how one patient, a "solidly-built" older man was brought to the hospital with breathing problems and hooked to a CPAP machine. It was then that Nichols noticed a large number of swastikas and other Nazi symbols inked onto the patient's skin.

Despite the fact that he was perturbed by the openly-hateful symbols, Nichols and his medical team (which also consisted of an African-American nurse and an Asian respiratory therapist) worked hard to ensure that the man pulled through and got the best possible care.

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In his lengthy thread, Nichols stated: "His methamphetamine use over the years had taken its usual toll and his teeth were all but gone.

"The swastika stood out boldly on his chest. SS tattoos and other insignia that had previously been covered by his shirt were now obvious to the room.

"'Don’t let me die, doc,' he said breathlessly as the RT switched him over from CPAP by EMS to our mask and machine. I reassured him that we were all going to work hard to take care of him and keep him alive as best as we could."

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Nichols continued: "We all saw. The symbols of hate on his body outwardly and proudly announced his views. We all knew what he thought of us. How he valued our lives.

"Yet here we were, working seamlessly as a team to make sure we gave him the best chance to survive that we could. All while wearing masks, gowns, face shields, gloves.

"The moment perfectly captured what we are going through as healthcare workers as this pandemic accelerates.

"I see the SS tattoo and think about what he might think about having Jewish physician taking care of him now, or how much he would have cared about my life if the roles were reversed. For the first time, I recognize that I hesitated, ambivalent."

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He added: "The pandemic has worn on me, and my mantra isn’t having the same impact in the moment. All this time soldiering on against the headwinds, gladiators in the pit."

Nichols went on to say that his hesitation has made him wonder about his mental and emotional state at this time of crisis. However, his post was met with support and praise from other Twitter users and received more than 100,000 likes as of the time of writing.

In a dream world, we'd live in a society where everyone was accepted for who they were and treated equally no matter what. Unfortunately for all of us, instead, we live in a world where lesbian couples are reportedly chucked out of their Ubers for sharing a peck and black communities can't even hold family-friendly BBQs without being shut down by the police.

Sucks, doesn't it? However, one way to edge closer to our ideal peaceful universe is to hold people accountable when they act with prejudice. That's exactly what the internet did to hardware store owner Jeff Amyx when he hung a sign that said 'no gays allowed' outside his shop.

You may have heard of Jeff already since his story starts all the way back in 2015. Three years ago he hit the headlines when he initially put the sign up on his Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies store in Grainger County, about an hour outside of Knoxville, East Tennessee.

Rather than apologising and immediately taking it down, Amyx, who is a Baptist minister, simply stated that gay and lesbian couples were against his religion. Speaking to USA Today, Jeff - who allegedly also sold anti-gay merchandise - reportedly stated that he had realised LGBT people were not afraid to stand up for what they believed in, so he wanted to show others that Christian people should also be brave enough to stand up for their beliefs.

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Nonelessless, after weeks of backlash, he eventually caved to public pressure and took the sign down. He replaced it with one that read: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech & freedom of religion."

Skip to three years later and Jeff still hadn't learnt his lesson. His 'no gays allowed' sign reportedly swiftly returned in 2018 when the Supreme Court ruled in favour of a Colorado baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

It's safe to say that the internet was not at all happy with his decision, and decided to make this loud and clear by destroying the name of his store and encouraging others to boycott it on social media.

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In addition, people online turned to Yelp, a site that gives users the chance to review different establishments, to slate Amyx Hardware & Roofing Supplies. Unfortunately for Jeff, this resulted in a dramatically low star rating for his hardware shop.

Eventually, the store’s Yelp account received so many awful reviews that site management started deleting comments that were mainly focused on the sign and not the shop itself.

Yet, still, there was no way of stopping the outage.

In fact, even when the owner attempted to gather public support for his cause, he still continued to lose the battle online.

The message in all of this? Don't be a massive homophobe. Oh and, never ever mess with people online. You'll live to regret it.