Flap Over T-Shirt: "Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals"
Tshirthell.com, "where all the bad shirts go," has come under fire for selling a shirt depicting an African-American baby wearing handcuffs, with the slogan, "Arrest Black Babies Before They Become Criminals."
A disclaimer reads, "Anyone who thinks the shirt is racist is just ignorant." The site's creators say they are equal-opportunity offenders "regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, or sexual preference ... ."
The site also asks why Chris Rock and David Chappelle, but not Tshirthell.com, are allowed to do stereotype humor. Other shirts at the site read "I Broke Up Brad and Jen," "I Still Hate George Bush" and "I Survived the Tsunami 2004."
A dramatic reduction in crime if people would just listen to good advice when it came along... which this is not.
Abortion is clearly a superior means of controlling the population of a given underclass(or any class, it's just that educated people have less and less potential children,) which increasingly black persons are not.
In the meanwhiles, the shirt has a message which is as ill-recieved as it is rascist. However it is worth mention, given present rates of incarceration factoring in the race of the imprisoned, it might make practical sense to implement such a plan.
Purely from a practical standpoint, of course. Not saying it is "right" in a moral, ethical, etc, etc way.
I suppose it's just racism, really. Non-Whites don't actually commit more CRIMES than whites.
Coloring Crime: Violence, Deviance, And Media Manipulation
By Tim Wise
Ask the average American to describe the typical drug user or dealer and they’ll say he’s a black male, even though blacks make up only thirteen percent of drug users and sixteen percent of dealers. Most dealers and 76 percent of users are white, according to federal data.
Ask the average American to describe the typical violent criminal, and likewise they’ll say he’s a black male, although the Justice Department’s annual Victimization Survey indicates that African Americans commit only 26 percent of all violent crimes in a given year. Non-Hispanic whites commit the majority of such offenses, and thus, are the “typical” violent criminals.
That public perceptions are so far from reality cannot owe to genuine individual experience. After all, it is not possible that most people have been attacked by a black person or know someone who has.
This is especially true for whites, who most often stereotype criminals as black, despite the fact that we are four times more likely to be assaulted by another white person, and less than four-tenths of one percent of us will be violently victimized by a black person each year. So what explains the common racial stereotypes with which we are all familiar?
For those struggling for an answer, one need look no further than the news media, which overhypes crime news generally--coverage has exploded in recent years even as crime has been plummeting--and especially crimes in cities committed by people of color.
Despite the occasional focus on white school shooters or white guys who kill their families because their stock crashes, studies confirm that not only does crime take up a huge amount of overall news, but crimes with black perps and/or white victims are the most hyped of all. Think Central Park Jogger, for example.
In general, media has a tendency to inflate public fears of blacks and Latinos by way of overwhelmingly negative coverage. While not all crime stories involve blacks, for example, those stories that do involve blacks disproportionately revolve around crime, poverty, drugs or other generally negative imagery.
As one especially egregious example, consider the May 2 broadcast of Good Morning America, during which Charlie Gibson and the bunch replayed video from Milwaukee, showing several black women attacking a car with baseball bats at a gas station.
The car did not belong to President Bush or the Mayor of Milwaukee, or anyone else whose victimization would have made this scene nationally newsworthy. The persons inside the automobile, though surely horrified by the event were only slightly injured, further reducing its logical news value beyond the confines of Milwaukee itself.
Yet there it was on national TV, with Gibson explaining that police had released the video in the hopes that the public might “help in catching these young women.” That the women are not likely to be interstate fugitives on a national car-bashing spree--and thus there isn’t much that viewers in Omaha or Poughkeepsie can expect to do about them or much reason for them to worry--never seems to have entered his mind.
What could possibly be the probative value of this story outside of Milwaukee? What purpose could it serve, other than to provide some exciting footage to fill space between gushing stories about soldier boys in Iraq and the women who love them back home?
The answers are: very little value, and very little purpose. As such, to play this footage, given its likelihood for reinforcing common racial fears and assumptions, seems a singularly remarkable display of irresponsible journalism, which can do nothing to improve the odds of apprehending the subjects, but which serves to maintain the impression of blacks as lawless thugs.
One should contrast this coverage with the decided lack of the same in cases where whites engage in acts of mayhem. Three days after the airing of the Milwaukee video, for example, white college students at the University of Cincinnati celebrated Cinco de Mayo by taking to the streets, overturning cars, throwing sofas out of windows and setting them on fire. Yet, there was no footage of the mini-riot on GMA the next day, despite the fact that such an event surely must have provided some exciting video.
Likewise, within the last few years there have been dozens of riots involving almost exclusively white students at college campuses across America, almost none of which have received national coverage. This, despite the fact that having happened repeatedly in several different states, such college riots could be said to represent something of a trend, unlike, say, black women attacking cars with baseball bats. Yet thousands of white co-eds behaving badly is not considered news, while a handful of black women in Milwaukee doing so is headline material.
Even recent footage of affluent white high schoolers “hazing” classmates by throwing feces on
that wasn't entirely necessary. Decent bit of information though. I'm going to venture a guess and say it's probably due to the popularity of hip-hop and all that nonsense. You can't avoid it, no matter what. These guys, often black, present themselves to be criminals. We see so much of it, it's kind of drilled into our heads. These rappers present themselves as if they're doing something more than acting. It amazes me that I hear people I work with talking about "Lil Puppy dissed Tennis L-Bo"... as if it's reality. If John Denver was presented to us in the same way, with the same level of (ridiculous) popularity, then he'd be our image of a criminal. Disclaimer: This comment in no way implies that the author has ever heard, listened to, or been within 100 miles of John Denver or any of his songs.
we can make jokes about white people, we can make jokes about religion, we can make jokes about our mothers but we can't make jokes about blacks. we can have black miss america pagents but can we have a miss white america pagent? it has to go both ways before we all live and work together. a joke is a joke and no more. as long as we allow reactions like these dictate our actions and policies this situation will not get any better.
Though some of their stuf is iffy and extreemly offensive we all have the god given right not to visit their site nor by their products. So if you have any issue with either do the oweners and the rest a world and block your computer from being able to go there or just dont type in the link. As far as strangers wherering the shirts you prob will only see them for a few moments in passing , so look the other way.
Anyone who doesn't find those shirts hilarious is in serious need of medical help, the whole point of them is to show how ignorant some people can be & it's the ones who get offended by them that are the ignorant ones I mean.
"I suppose it's just racism, really. Non-Whites don't actually commit more CRIMES than whites."
Have you ever looked at crime stats for the USA broken down by race? Didn't think so.
"Ask the average American to describe the typical drug user or dealer and they’ll say he’s a black male, even though blacks make up only thirteen percent of drug users and sixteen percent of dealers. Most dealers and 76 percent of users are white, according to federal data."
It would make sense that 13% of the drug users are black because they make up 13% of the population.
"Ask the average American to describe the typical violent criminal, and likewise they’ll say he’s a black male, although the Justice Department’s annual Victimization Survey indicates that African Americans commit only 26 percent of all violent crimes in a given year. Non-Hispanic whites commit the majority of such offenses, and thus, are the “typical” violent criminals."
Read that paragraph again! Are you an idiot? How does that help your case at all? How does it make sense that a minority, 13% of the population in the USA, accounts for 26% of overal violent crime. It sounds like this guy needs a few lessons in statistics because the results are misleading at best. Only a little bit of common sense will show that you are MUCH more likely to be assaulted by an african american than a "white" citizen. Even according to the statistics he listed.
http://www.amren.com/ "In 1992, police reported 23,760 murders and non-negligent homicides. Although they are only 12 percent of the population, blacks committed about 55 percent of the murders. This means that murder rates, by race, were dramatically different. “Whites” (including Hispanics) killed at a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 while the rate for blacks was 43.3 per 100,000. Blacks are therefore 8.5 times more likely to commit murder than whites and, all by themselves, account for the fact that the United States has a higher murder rate than England or Italy (see story on page 6).
Most of the time, blacks killed other blacks, but about 13 percent of their victims were white. Whites also usually killed each other, but six percent of their victims were black. In all, there were 2.7 times as many whites killed by blacks as blacks killed by whites, which means that any given black is 17 times more likely to kill a white than vice versa."
"Robbery, or “mugging,” is the street crime that people fear most, and in 1992, 672,478 robberies were reported to the police. Victimization studies show that only about 60 percent of the victims of a successful robbery report the crime to the police, so the real figure was well over one million – one for every 250 people every year. Robbery is very much a black specialty, and blacks committed over 60 percent of the year’s robberies. This means that blacks committed robbery at a rate of 1,343 per 100,000 while the white rate was 126 per 100,000 – less than one tenth the black rate. When it comes to gang robbery – perhaps the quintessentially black crime – blacks are 22 times more likely than whites to be offenders.
Unlike murder, robbery is not a crime that blacks mainly practice on each other. Over half of the robberies by blacks are of whites (including Hispanics). White muggers (including Hispanics) choose blacks as their victims only about four percent of the time and steal from other whites the rest of the time. Put differently, for every black robbed by a white, there are 24 whites robbed by a black. "
...put that t-shirt on and walk through East L.A. or any other predominantly-black neighborhood....
What would happen to you?
But, what if a black person wore it? Or a Korean person?
What if George W. Bush wore it? Would it be racist, or just plain funny?
What's sad is the truth-> American black males vs. law-enforcement--- white criminals get lighter sentences, most judges are white males, and Michael Jackson negates the entire argument presented by the t-shirt.
Whether it be t-shirts, bumper stickers, clothes, etc., the vender is in business to make money.
Buying/wearing a specific item tells more about the person who chose to present that specific message than it does about the businessman who sold it to him.
He (owner of Tshirthell) certainly did exactly what he set out to do... create publicity. He is just making money and the fact is people LIKE to insult and be insulted as he is now a millionaire. This is no different than when he sued Ozzy over the shirts that they did, in fact, basically steal from him. He knew he would lose the case but the attention that it drew far exceeded the cost of his lawyers.
Yes, he is a very smart businessman. Kudos to him!
thats the truth of it. If I remember correctly truthtoyouth was stating that there was no such thing as being racist against a white person, and that only white people could be racist. This has been quite a while ago though.
guess I disagree with that. Apparently so does merriam webster.
One entry found for racism.
Main Entry: rac·ism Pronunciation: 'rA-"si-z&m also -"shi- Function: noun 1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
I believe that if you wore a t-shirt with both 'white babies' and 'black babies' printed on the front and back, then it would be making more of a statement--> that selling two contrasting racist statements does not make the message any less hurtful/sensitive; it all depends on which way you look at it.
(and by the way-- what race is the owner of tshirthell.com? just curious.)
You guys fell for it. They got you. They worked you into a frenzy on a blatant attempt at getting their daily hit count up via racial remarks. So what if they have a t-shirt? Who cares? I'm a black male in the good old USA and I've NEVER been to jail. Nor even gotten a ticket. Why? Because I keep my nose clean. Period. You work hard, you play by the rules, you gonna succeed. Someone walks by me wearing that t-shirt and I want to shoot them? Maybe, but I'm an adult. I accept that they have a right to free speech. As long as they're not shoving it in my face or making me feel my family or myself is in any immediate danger (kkk for instance?) then I'm likely to just pass them off as a guy/girl with an opinion. Remember, opinions are like rear ends, everyone has one and most of them stink.
