A Calgary teenager is demanding Amazon stop selling T-shirts which make fun of suicide and mental illness, reports CBC. Maggie Harder, 14, has sent letters of protest to the online sales giant and wants others to do the same.
One T-shirt shows an image of someone hanging themselves and another watching while eating popcorn. Another reads “Stressed, depressed but well dressed.”
Shirts ‘poke fun at mental illness’
“Not only are they disrespectful but they poke fun at mental illness,” Harder told CBC reporter Scott Dippel.
It’s not appropriate for these novelty shirts to be displayed in Amazon’s humour section, said Peter Choate, an associate professor of social work at Mount Royal University.
‘Why would you laugh?’ asks professor
“Why would you laugh at somebody who is so depressed that suicide has become an option?” Choate said to CBC. He asked whether people would similarly think it okay to laugh at someone with multiple sclerosis or with a physical disability.
CBC requested comment from Amazon, but has so far received none.
There is a movement in Canada to remove the stigma and secrecy surrounding mental illness. In 2007 the Canadian government created the Mental Health Commission of Canada specifically for that purpose and to improve the mental health care system.
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