A lot of times when I’m bored, laying on the couch and drifting off into the wonderful land of Lazzy A-holishness – something that doesn’t happen that much anymore, sadly – I waste time by diving into the bowels of Etsy and check out what kind of crap people are selling under the misnomers of “vintage” and “artistic.” Trust me when I say that there is more crap on Etsy than there is actual handmade art, and this University of Texas Longhorns fan shirt that “honors” the hiring of Charlie Strong is a perfect example.
The t-shirt in question is going viral in all the wrong ways because people think that the general tone and message of the shirt is racist. Here, you can judge for yourself…
As Yahoo!’s Dr. Saturday points out, the shirt has since been removed from Etsy after the initial backlash from people who think that the “Black is the new Brown” slogan is in fact racist. Instead, this much more generic shirt is about as scandalous as you’ll find on Etsy right now:
You can scroll through Twitter to find people acting like these shirts were created by the University of Texas, but the truth is that it’s just the dumb idea of some random schmuck trying to make some money on sh*tty quality, overpriced t-shirts on Etsy. Is the design actually racist? Obviously, some people think it is, but I think it’s just an unoriginal play on words created by someone who might have thought, “This is pretty edgy and will get people talking and I’ll make a bunch of money.”
But is it worth blowing up an entire Monday with fist-shaking outrage? Nah. Hell, if this is the worst thing that happens in the wake of Strong being hired as the first black football coach at Texas, then I think we should consider it a huge victory.
(Banner via Getty)
