Subscribe to Breaking NewsT-shirt retailers using homophobia to make money
Thanks to Chicago Sun-Times columnist and film critic Richard Roeper, a very ugly practice has come to light. T-shirt companies trying to make a buck off of the cross town rivalry between the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs baseball teams have resorted to homophobia and racism to stimulate sales.
The Chicago White Sox won a World Series and a championship parade while the Chicago Cubs haven’t and “only” had a gay parade. Can you guess which is good and which is bad?
Roeper recently attended a White Sox game where he frequently saw the above t-shirt (as well as a version sold as a bumper sticker) worn by White Sox fans. Said Roeper:
The signs, T-shirts and bumper stickers are literally a sign of the times. … but the explicit message in the parade “joke” is that it’s a putdown to call someone gay.
I see this all the time in the chat boxes in the online poker tournaments. A player will lose a hand, and he’ll call his opponent “gay” or a “homo.” It’s never intended as a compliment. Nobody says, “Wow, you’re a great player. You must be gay!” It’s always, “What a stupid bet, you gay douchebag.”
The comments on the Sun-Times site run the gamut from those who get the blatant homophobia to those who tell Roeper to lighten up to those who insist the word “gay” has nothing to do with gay people. It just means lame, dumb or stupid. If you don’t understand that, you’re just gay.
Given that the above shirt clearly shows two men together under a rainbow flag, I’m not sure how folks can honestly make the claim that the word gay has nothing to do with actually being gay, but they do. People are pretty great about rationalizing their behavior after all.
Perhaps they’d understand the issue better if we went around using their actual names as a putdown for a week. “I hate my boss. He’s so Tony.” That red, purple and mango dress is soooo Hank!”
Of course, as GLSEN has so admirably made clear, the use of the word “gay” to mean anything other than gay people (or if you’re English or over eighty “happy”) is inexcusable and shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone.
At least one organization is urging folks to get in touch with the retailers to encourage them to stop selling the shirts. AfterElton.com has contacted both retailers requesting comment, but has yet to hear back. I suspect it’s going to take more than just some angry gay folks getting in touch to make a difference.
Perhaps the Cubs and White Sox could team up to denounce sales of the shirts and fans who wear them to games.
This isn’t the first problem with homophobia that the White So have had. Ozzie Guillen (the manager) derisively called a journalist a “f*cking fag.”
Just another reason for me to support the Cubs while I’m in Chicago. As if the DH rule wasn’t enough.
Personally I’d like to see some cubs wear it out at a bar. Of course I’m not a baseball fan, so I think if the bear community adopted the shirt it would be great.
When you embrace and turn anything into a positive, then it loses it’s power to harm.
Man, that is so het.
Well was that ever gay, lol.
Thanks,
I don’t care for sports and their beered up fans anyway and this is one more reason to stay away.
I want that shirt with just the “Cubs Fans” logo. Then there wouldn’t be this comparison, but a positive light on the Cubs supporting the gay community.
Both stadiums have hosted gay events…..This is something that is not associated with either team in any official way.
Wow. If you go to each of the websites for either of the t-shirt companies http://chicitytees.com/ and http://www.crosstowntees.com/ there’s plenty to get angry about (there are FAR WORSE ones on the sites). Plus, they don’t just make fun of us gays, they also delve into racism too!
If I ever see anyone I know wearing something like that, I’ll tell them to wear something else. Use the argument “Well if you can wear that, then can’t I wear a shirt saying ‘N****rs are stupid’?” When they say “Well that would be offensive” I then say “Just as offensive as your shirt”.
Just don’t back down if you see someone wearing one of these hateful abominations.
As a gay man I must say that I have attended many baseball games and not all teams are the enemy. The San Francisco Giants have hosted AIDS benefits, Gay days, and I have seen K.C. & the sunshine band, the Village People, and alot of Queens “we will rock you” played and performed at the ballpark. Please do not paint a broad brush of bad opinion based on one or two teams unforgivable arrogance.
I think a gay group should take the right half of the image, use it and sell it – donating the money to gay groups and then wear them to Cubs games proudly.
Obviously the use of a “rainbow” is to imply the GLBT community. IMHO anyone who would wear such a shirt is automatically not intelligent enough to associate with. Ah, grown men who think there is something so important about other grown men doing nothing more than playing with balls. Sounds pretty “gay” to me.
Try refreshing your browser – there’s a perfectly clear picture of the t-shirt at the top of the article.
http://www.afterelton.com/blog/michaeljensen/t-shirt-retailers-homophobia-sales
There’s the link to the article, complete with a picture of the shirt.
Better yet, here’s the link to a site that sells them: http://chicitytees.com/ .
If you scroll through, you’ll notice several other homophobic shirts, as well as some racism (”Pujols mows my lawn”), and some other generally offensive T-shirts.
It’s really unfortunate, and sadly not surprising, that people are resorting to this to get a laugh.
This is why I’ve never been a fan of sports. The sporting culture around the globe, but especially in the U.S., fosters, even encourages homophobia, gay bashing and other untoward treatment of the gay community.
This is simply another example of what we’ve always known about sports, and it only helps to reinforce my distaste for them.
“Roeper recently attended a White Sox game where he frequently saw the above t-shirt.” What above t-shirt? What does it say? This whole article is about something the author alleges is homophobic, but as a reader I cannot make a judgement about it, since the article neither shows the t-shirt nor quotes what it says on it. People, this is supposed to be journalism.