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Wrestler Jordan Myles Furious Over ‘Sambo’-Style T-Shirt: ‘WWE Doesn’t Care About Black People’

Myles calls fellow wrestler Jay Lethal an “Uncle Tom,” rips WWE for employing Hulk Hogan after n-word use

Tony Maglio | October 28, 2019 @ 8:25 AM
NXT's Jordan Myles

WWE.com

Jordan Myles, a wrestler on WWE’s NXT brand, is feuding with his employer over a t-shirt design for his character. The piece of merchandise, which has since been pulled and replaced, resembled a “Sambo” doll.

On Monday morning, Myles followed up his original criticism of the shirt with a string of tweets and a video where he sticks up his middle finger and says “WWE doesn’t care about black people.”

Myles also called Ring of Honor wrestler Jay Lethal an “Uncle Tom,” and criticized the WWE for employing Hulk Hogan after using the n-word. “The fact that @HulkHogan is still employed after giving the locker room an apology for being caught says enough,” Myles wrote.

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Myles, real name Albert Hardie Jr., appears to have deleted the video tweet and the one calling Lethal an “Uncle Tom.” TheWrap captured screenshots of both:

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WWE says that Myles “approved” the t-shirt design.

“Albert Hardie Jr. (aka Jordan Myles) approved this t-shirt for sale,” a WWE spokesman said in a statement. “As always, we work collaboratively with all of our performers to develop logos and merchandise designs and get their input and approval before proceeding. This was the same process with Albert, and we responded swiftly once he later requested that the logo/t-shirt be redesigned.”

“No t-shirts were sold,” WWE said.

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In terms of its likeness to a Sambo doll, the t-shirt’s black backdrop would be the face, the red looks like lips, and the white, spelling out Myles’ name, would be smiling teeth.

See the shirt below.

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“The Story of Little Black Sambo” is a book originally published in 1899. Though the titular character in the book is a South Indian boy, the simplistic style of its illustrations spawned a caricature that would become a symbol of racism against African-Americans.

On Saturday, Myles tweeted out the shirt and promised WWE would “regret” making it.

The next morning, Myles called out his bosses directly. He asked his followers and supporters to change their profile photos to black and white in solidarity.

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“I will keep posting this till my voice is heard. I’m not sorry for anything I say or do,” Myles wrote yesterday on Twitter.

“Representation is important,” he tweeted, adding: “If this is @VinceMcMahon & @TripleH ‘vision’ of me then this is a slap in the face to EVERY African American performer, fan, and supporter.”

Vince McMahon is WWE chairman and CEO, Triple H (real name Paul Levesque) is executive vice president of talent, live events and creative. Levesque, who formerly wrestled as Hunter Hearst Helmsley, is considered the godfather of NXT.

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Readers can follow Myles’ string of tweets below.

Debbie Emery contributed to this post.

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