My T-Shirt Shows Everything
Richard Dawkins, sometime in the last little while, has founded a new campaign to organize atheists around the world. This is just a brief, superficial reading of the website, but it seems to me that the centerpiece is these hip new t-shirts. The first thing I checked was whether they're sweat-shop free or not, and of course, they're not! See, atheists care about other people! Their supercool Hawthorne-referencing t-shirts are sweatshop free! Hooray!
I'm not really sure what my reaction at this point is, really. Sort of a bemused ironic distance from any notion of t-shirts making even a little bit of difference tinged with the sense that even if I did wear such a t-shirt in Miami it would just raise my already high chances of being hit by a car (as so many SUVs in this gorgeous state proudly sport their pro-life license plates (it was, in 2003 the 10th most popular license plate in the state (sadly, I can't find an SUV-specific statistic))).
I'm not really sure what my reaction at this point is, really. Sort of a bemused ironic distance from any notion of t-shirts making even a little bit of difference tinged with the sense that even if I did wear such a t-shirt in Miami it would just raise my already high chances of being hit by a car (as so many SUVs in this gorgeous state proudly sport their pro-life license plates (it was, in 2003 the 10th most popular license plate in the state (sadly, I can't find an SUV-specific statistic))).
3 Comments:
"The OUT Campaign: Before, We Atheists Stood Alone. Now, Everyone Thinks We're Gay."
Remember that if you try to square off with the "Choose Life" crowd in the realm of t-shirts, you're going head-to-head against the unstoppable style juggernaut that is George Michael.
Well, at first, I was staring at that Wham video, trying to figure out if those "CHOOSE LIFE" shirts were as blatant as they seemed to be, but then, I realized that I'm on the quiet study floor of the University library, and that, I should probably be, like, studying quietly, but then I remembered that I go to FIU, and that all is well, but at the same time realized that I didn't need to watch the rest of the video to get the point.
What is it that's so messed up about a bunch of people wearing matching white t-shirts that say the same thing on the front as on the back? Everything? I feel like everybody in that video must have died minutes after shooting wrapped from drinking poisoned Kool-Aid.
I generally like Richard Dawkins' thinking, and even that intro statement on the campaign seems to contain his usual level of thoughtfulness and nuance, but this seems doomed to be a halfhearted branding effort rather than an effective political mobilization.
If you're in the mood for a book-length, rah-rah treatment of secular thought in American history I recommend Freethinkers by Susan Jacoby.
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