Zellers, the Canadian retail giant with nearly 300 stores spread throughout our northern neighbor, has been selling a T-shirt that includes the message, “Yo, let’s get ’em. Let’s drive-by egg these transvestites.” They were available in children’s sizes, because the shirts were for children.
Oh, did I mention the shirts were manufactured by X Games Clothing, a subsidiary of ESPN Consumer Products, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., harbingers of the ABC television network?
The shirts were pulled from the racks amidst a nationwide recall after shopper Ashley Simpson, not the lip-syncer, found the tee she purchased for her four-year-old son (pictured) contained some horrible dialogue between two friends that also included this phrase: “What the fuck?” The mini-conversation, about listening to rap music and bashing cross-dressers, went like this:
Oh man, I don’t know. They got their equal parts of being ridiculous. Terry is pretty high jinks. I’d say Terry is pretty up there… remember one time when he and I were like fifteen or sixteen, we were driving around…. getting hyped, listening to Mafia; just youngsters having some fun. Me and Terry would see the transvestites on Santa Monica and this one time… [we were] like ‘Yo, let’s get ’em. Let’s drive-by egg these transvestites.’
Except the real problem with these shirts isn’t that they call for violence against transvestites. It’s that the writers of the tee’s copy look like they came straight from Engrish.com.
How about we take this to the next level?
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[photos via]
Shaded Spriter
This sort of proves what I think about all of these type of t-shirts – no one really looks at what is written on them apart from the designer.
FoolMe1
“Except the real problem with these shirts isn’t that they call for violence against transvestites. It’s that the writers of the tee’s copy look like they came straight from Engrish.com.”
Right, the real problem with the shirt is it’s style, not the call for violence. Because we all know that violence against trans women is totally fine as long as it has a “queer sensibility” (TOTwK for example).