Tag: racism

What does your t-shirt say? (now with MORE dumb t-shirts!)

Luke

With the popularity and availability of screen printing and selling t-shirts over the internet, seems like everybody’s got some idea, phrase or illustration they want to market in t-shirt form. So for anywhere from $7-25 bucks, you get to wear not only a piece of clothing but something that says something to everyone else. It’s what you want other people to read or notice or learn about. For that moment, whether it’s a wayward glance on the subway or the start-up of a conversation in line from a deep gaze, the t-shirt and its modern storytelling (oh, lets say in the past couple years) reveals another form of violent backlash and aggression by men to women.

The t-shirt: It’s about half-way between a bumper sticker and a tattoo. With a bumper sticker you face a limited landscape where simple text is the main projection and chances are you don’t see the person whose politics are being espoused unless you drive up and give them a good stare-down. With tattoos, you don’t know what you’re getting because it’s a tattoo. Some people hide them, other display, some mix and match. Now, with a classic t-shirt with illustration/text on the chest area, you’ve got something that says “this is what I think, this is what I think is cute/funny/cool.”

Now, I could give a shit what people wear on their t-shirts, skin, cars or whatnot. If you want to wear a tattoo with the Pythagorean theorem, great. A t-shirt with all species of marine life? Even better. But lately there have been a growing number of people and companies cashing in on misogynist, homophobic, and racist “humor” meant to be funny or worse yet, rebellious and gutsy. In other words, while what Ariel Levy calls “Raunch Culture” oppresses women (and men) through hegemony by co-opting sexual degradation and objectification as liberation and empowerment, for men, the passive-aggressive sexual aggression to women whether in t-shirt form with something like this or in street harassment with “cat-calls” and lewd sexual gestures, the patriarchy of men’s control and power over women is reinforced yet again.

So when a man wears a shirt that reads “If you’re already this close, why don’t you just suck my dick?” what are we to make of this? Is this just crude and typical guy humor? No, I don’t think so. Men, women, everybody engages in stupid, crude humor but when it becomes an immediate projection of sexual aggression similar to street harassment, that’s not funny, witty, rebellious or charming. It serves no purpose other than for men to exert their patriarchal bullshit sense of physical and sexual power over women. This is essentially delusional and idiotic men from the normalized pornographic culture that says treating women like you would a doormat, a sexual object of no humanity or worth, likes being treated like this. In many ways, such shirts become mental Viagras, immediately creating this impressive yet ultimately fleeting and hallow masculinity for men to be crude and somehow held unaccountable for the words on the shirt. “Hey, I didn’t say anything, you read it sugah.” In other words, its what they’re thinking, what they believe, what they think is appropriate and an acceptable way to talk to people, namely women.

But this isn’t just for gender issues and men’s sexual aggression against women. Just as in any areas of patriarchy you find sexist oppression, there are elements of racism through stereotypes. Can you start to sense who these shirts are marketed towards? A very specific demographic, isn’t it? And where there are issues of racism and discrimination are often the general glorifications of physical violence as well as generally being “rebellious” by deliberately being insensitive and “un-PC.” As a culture, we don’t encourage sensitivity. With how stigmatized Politically Correct has become, the cool thing isn’t to use a respectful words, its cool to go around with the “I don’t care who I offend” Eminem/Carmelo Anthony/Avril Lavigne/Ozzie Guillen type attitude that operates under the guise of being raw, real, and unfiltered.

Warming Up: For Exhibit A we have the obvious offender in Urban Outfitters. You’ll remember that they carried the infamous “Ghettopoly” board game a while back so these people aren’t very bright. Anyways, they chime in with some fratty type humor with these losers. “Down with panties and “Let’s make a dirty movie.” hahahah awesome shirt, Brad! Dude those panties will drop real quick when these chicks see it! Idiot.

Head on over to the women’s section of print t-shirts and you find….nothing remotely like what they got at men’s. Surprise? The only t-shirt I could find objectionable was one that just had the first names of famous supermodels which was just blah. This presents an interesting situation. Sexual aggression becomes extremely gendered because it’s a man only thing to street harass, to wear crude sexually charged t-shirts. In that sense, it becomes a sort of unearned gender male privilege to not be subject to sexual harassment or the visual filth of these types of t-shirts. But even so, as you’ll see below, there are a few t-shirts geared towards women to essentially “wear t-shirts like a man”/”have sex like a man”/engage in raunch culture.

Now we’re jumping straight into the icy water with this group. Presenting, the people of Santorum over at T-Shirt Hell.

Let’s see, where to start? How about “Ladies don’t spit” or the aforementioned “If you’re already this close, why don’t you just suck my dick?” or how about “Thousands of my potential children died on your daughter’s face last night”. Obviously these folks are going straight for the jugular with flat out offensive material under the guise of being funny, over-the-top and “we’ll say anything, fuck the FCC!” (raises fist).

How about
“I like my women like I like my coffee (ground and in the freezer).”

”If this is on your floor tomorrow…WE TOTALLY FUCKED (now go make me some breakfast, bitch)”

”Pirates do it for the booty.”

”Save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

”Soldiers need hummers. Please support the cause.”

”Everything is bigger in Texas.”

”I’m ready for a female president [to sit on my cock]”

Or, if you saunter over to the idiots at YQue.com how about some t-shirts poking fun and celebrating the rape cases involving famous celebrities? Free Kobe. Free R.Kelly. Or if mass-murder is your calling, how about Charles Manson?

If those aren’t to your liking, the “Anti-PC” “Anti-establishment” band-wagon is gathering steam. The conservative case here with these t-shirts is essentially that the world has gone soft and that actually having and respectfully recognizing difference, different likes and preferences and lifestyles and cultures is a bad thing.

”I Hate The Environment.” Real witty.

Don’t like the spirit of America, I mean, “illegal immigrants” coming to the US? How about this shirt. How about some more latino stereotypes?

Remember those Burger King and Jack In The Box commercials celebrating macho meat-eating men? Now this.

How does the old saying go? “To not know is bad, to not want to know is worse”? Disturbing to see how that motto doesn’t resonate anymore.

Remember how I was talking about Raunch Culture being celebrated and normalized? Kinda like how that Pussycat Dolls “Dontcha” song is so popular?

“I taught your boyfriend that thing you like.”

”I taught your girlfriend that thing you like.”

Women pressured to make out with other women at parties? Girls Gone Wild normalization, anyone? In comes this bs.

Or how about jokes about rape or even child-rape, or those who are pro-choice?

T-Shirt Hell obviously creates a majority of the crap you’ve seen thus far. They’re fully aware of how offensive this is, but for the sake of the almighty dollar (and from what I imagine to be a crappy sense of rebellion and ego) they produce this shit at the expense of women and inevitably, men.

Even with all this, I mean god it’s just a t-shirt isn’t it? Obviously these people aren’t being serious. It’s just a joke. You’re taking this too seriously.

It is a t-shirt. So just as long as you put it on a t-shirt means its free from hate-spewing, sexism, racism, homophobia? If we’re going to be critical of oppressive legislation, the media, the tv shows we watch, the movies we buy, the music we listen to…why not the t-shirts that we see day-to-day?

What can I do? Seems like these crazies aren’t going to listen to reason so what’s the point of arguing. Aren’t you just promoting their website and giving more attention to them?

It’s true, I am giving attention to these websites and so I’ll try to offer some alternatives in the process.

A. You can write them to protest their garbage with something along the lines of:

Tshirthell.com – info@tshirthell.com

Urban Outfitters – http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/custserv/customerservicemain.jsp?cid=7

YQue – admin@yque.com

One Horse Shy – http://www.onehorseshy.com/customer_service/

B. Spend your money elsewhere. There are plenty of great people out there making anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist, conscious, responsible t-shirts that don’t pull Andrew Dice Clay shtick and actually have something meaningful, original and funny to say.

www.blacklava.com is one famous for their “I will not love you long time” t-shirts. I know there are more out there…let’s hear everybody’s favorite t-shirt joint 🙂

###UPDATE: Hey everybody! Found some more dumb t-shirts.

Dirty Shirty is a real piece of crap. Basically, this whole gimmick is trying to cash in on the Christina Aguilera drrty bit (which the video itself, I know to some has potentially redemptive qualities if you take it as a satirical piece criticizing the double-standards of sex, gender and music) and the idea that women who participate in Raunch Culture are then more attractive as women. Look at the shirts for men and women, many (6) of the t-shirts for women loudly display “DIRTY” while for men, only 3 do. For men, we have some frat-type humor t-shirts. That is where in comes in with this t-shirt in the men’s section: Because men think with their dicks, dude. You know, and those women always think with their hearts.

Seeing the Classism in Racism

tekanji

vegankid has an excellent post over at Ally Work debunking the myth of lazy “welfare queens”. The post traces the history of welfare, brings up statistics, cites sources… all you could want from a topic like this and more.

Here’s an excerpt:

Martin Gilens, in Why Americans Hate Welfare, finds that “the belief that blacks are lazy is the strongest predictor of the perception that welfare recipients are undeserving.” In a mid-90s study titled “White’s Stereotypes of Blacks: Sources and Political Consequences,” researchers Hurwitz and Peffley found that White people agree that most Black people are lazy (31 percent), not determined to succeed (22 percent), and lacking in discipline (60 percent). It was these stereotypes that fueled the racist attacks on welfare despite the fact that at the time, the majority of welfare recipients were White wimmin. By catering to racism through imagery and rhetoric, those with the agenda of wiping out welfare could convince the largest recipients of welfare (economically-poor White people) that it was a good idea.

All to often, people (white people especially) seem to conflate issues of race with class. But, really, they aren’t the same. At all. Anyway, vegankid says it better than I ever could, so go read the post.

I like Chinese, I like their tiny little trees…

tekanji
Gamestop Ad
A Chink in the Armour by White Light Films

Via one of my friends, A Chink in the Armour is a light hearted documentary that explores the stereotypes about Asians (specifically Chinese) in North America (specifically Toronto). There was a lot of fluff in it, but I think it would make a nice segue into talking more about racism against Asians in Western culture. (Hint, hint)

Carnies and Veggies

lake-desire

The second edition of the Radical Woman of Color Carnival is out at Brownfemipower’s Woman of Color Blog. Topics include identity issues, voice, mamihood, and a section for allies so us white folks don’t feel left out.

I do say that with tongue in cheek–a few days ago in my Global Women class we were discussing a women of color week event called Woman of Color Fashion Show: Undressing the Other. The show kicked all kinds of ass. All types of people dressed up as a stereotype and performed to exemplify how others see them. In the second act the performers told their real stories.

In class, one critique of the show brought up was that some white women felt left out (a good third of the performers were white). In turn, we analyzed why those women felt that way, but a few classmates were sympathetic. They didn’t feel the need to make an issue of race when we discussed the necessity of our university’s anti-racist white student union. I attempted to articulate (much less eloquent on the fly) that being able to say race doesn’t matter was white privilege because our race is portrayed as the neutral norm–a nonrace, that race is something other people have but not us. I raised a few ires because white people can be discriminated against too. Well, sure. I’m oppressed for my gender, but not my race. Whites can even be on the receiving end of racial prejudice in my country, but that isn’t racism because someone isn’t having power over them based on their skin color.

Coming back to carnivals: Call for Submissions for the Second Big Fat Carnival and for Carnival of Empty Cages. I’m really excited about the latter carnival, which vegankid is starting, because I want to start blogging more about my veganism. I recently realized animal liberation prepared me for feminism and am pumped to share.

Sexism, racism, and xenophobia oh my!

tekanji

I’ve spent time discussing over at East Asia Blog the racism and xenophobia of East Asia in the context of the kerfluffle surrounding the China/Japan problems, but now I’m going to turn to something more close to home: Michael Lohman, Asian fetishism, and the xenophobia, racism, and sexism inherent in American communities.

A few months ago, feministing had a post about Michael Lohman’s assault on Asian women. On one of the feminist live journals I check out from time to time, I came across a post that linked to a forum called ModelMinority: A Guide To Asian American Empowerment. The article posted, For Asian Women, ‘Fetish’ is Less Than Benign, highlights the problems with American society at large while the comments show the problems that the Asian American community is part of.

American society seems to be perversely fascinated by “submissive” women, whether it be finding one, forcing someone to become one, or imagining one. This is not only nothing new but it is, arguably, an integral part of the Puritan ideals America was founded on. What comes into play here, however, is the stereotyping of all Asian women as the ideal submissive woman, the real facts about these women be damned. This notion is not limited to sexual perverts, but can hit anyone: friends, family, and any other people who are usually against racism. I cannot count the number of times I have heard people talk about how submissive Asian women are; I remember having a conversation with one of my cousins about how he wanted a Korean wife because Korean women were so submissive. My story is merely an anecdote and, like the Michael Lohman case, is easily dismissed as an outside incident.

Many might discredit this news as an isolated incident of perversity, but the fact is that there is a pattern in which Asian women are targeted for sexual fetishes, harassment and assaults, even on college campuses. For example, in 2000, two Japanese college women were abducted, raped, videotaped and told that if they told anybody what had happened, the videotapes would be sent to their fathers. The three white assailants admitted targeting Asian women precisely because they had a sexual fetish for “submissive” Asian women, but also because they believed that this same submissiveness and cultural shame would prevent the women from reporting the assaults.

The article begins to explore some of the reasons behind this fetishizing of Asian women coming, not surprisingly, to the media.

Though it may be difficult to identify the exact origins of violence targeted at Asian women, there is no denying that media portrayal of this minority population has had an effect on building preconceived notions and shaping stereotypes of Asian women as passive, exotic and more easily dominated. Images of the Japanese Geisha girl, the South Asian seductress and the China doll pervade American culture and add to the misconception of Asian women. This has had disturbing results. For instance, in 2002, Jennifer Lynn Gossett and Sarah Byrne conducted a content-analysis study of 31 pornographic Web sites that advertised scenes depicting the rape or torture of women, and found that nearly half of the sites used depictions of Asian women as the rape victim.

This fetishization of Asian women is, among other things, a manifestation of American racism/xenophobia. The Asian woman is objectified, dehumanized, and exulted as exotic and Other; an animal that needs to be tamed. While this process is not too different from what all women, regardless of race, go through, the element of Asian-ness adds something more to the Otherness/exoticism of these women. Perhaps, since women have long been the gatekeepers to morality and society, it would not be so far off to suggest that part of this fetishism might be a way to “conquer” the East. But that is mere speculation; I would have to do more research into the matter to support that kind of claim.

The fetishization described in the article is bad enough, but some of the comments on that thread are disturbing, to say the least. The star of this particular show seems to be someone with the charming handle sir_humpslot, who starts off the conversation with accusing Asian women of “yellow cab service” (another way of calling Asian women sluts), accusing these women of playing “dragon lady,” and saying that the women brought the assault on themselves. UsAgainstThem adds, “Lets face it, white guys are fuckin perverts, no matter what they look like, they are thinking it, and they still get stupid ass whoreientals.” Apparently he not only is qualified to speak for the whole of male white America, but also has the insight into the inner workings of Asian women, as whoriental apparently implies that it is “biological for all Asian women to want to be desired.” And he wonders why it is these supposed “white perverts” who get the women while he, who clearly has such high regard for the “stupid ass whorientals,” can’t get the time of day from these women. Right.

It is heartening to see that amidst the racism and woman hating, there are some voices that try to highlight the problems rather than dismissing it as “white men are perverts” and “Asian women are whorientals”:

mahod:

What a disgusting pervert. Some things can not be forgiven.

Incidents like this show that the fetishization of AA [Asian American] women and the demasculinization of AA men are two sides of the same coin, and both are hurtful racism. AA men and women must join and fight this together.

SeoulOne:

I don’t think Asian culture blames women for being victims of sex crimes, and in that sense I didn’t agree with the authors of the article. But yes, community support is important but prevention should also have the same amount of attention. It’s stupid INDIVIDUALS who blame victims (not culture), a few stupid individuals have commented on here as well.

You can’t tell me that of these 50 incidents it was the women’s fault all along. DFH, are you saying that if women aren’t taught self defense that it’s their fault if they’re ever assaulted? Why is it their fault that they were minding their own business when some sicko attacked them via bodily fluids?

Knowing that racism, xenophobia, and woman blaming are in no way limited to the Asian American community does not make me feel better about what I read in that forum. Being friends with many open-minded and women friendly Asian Canadians cannot erase the bitter taste of some of those posts, any more than being part of and having friends in the nebulous white collective makes me feel any better about the Asian fetishism, and the sexual assault that goes with it, that permeates American culture. In the East Asia Blog comments I said, “When you have such a strong discourse of Otherness then how can you expect to even begin moving away from xenophobia and racisim?” Here I feel I must add “sexism” to xenophobia and racism, for women are very much part and victims of the discourse of Otherness. So, when are we going to step away from these discourses and start seeing people who are different from us as, well, people?

Via feminist_rage.