MVN - Most Valuable Network

Racist Shirt Is Top Seller At Wrigley Field

This story’s a few days old, but it’s definitely been a hot topic around the blogosphere. Much has been made of a racist t-shirt sold by a souvenir stand outside of Wrigley Field that specializes in unlicensed Chicago Cubs merchandise. The shirt depicts the Cubs cartoon bear face on the front with slanted eyes and Harry Caray-style glasses. This image is surrounded by the words ”Horry Kow,” which are written in a “Japanese-style” font. The name and number of Cubs right fielder Kosuke Fukudome are on the back of the shirt. (For a picture of the shirt, click here.)

According to a report by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, which you can read by clicking the previous link, these shirts have been the highest-selling item at that particular souvenir stand. Uh, I wonder if it’s too late to revise my post from yesterday, in which I defended Cubs fans after Cincinnati Reds announcer Marty Brennaman gave them some harsh criticism for classless behavior.

Thankfully, the Cubs put a stop to the production and sales of these shirts after the Sun-Times report was released, but that doesn’t change the fact that these shirts were selling quite well during the opening weeks of the season.

This controversy shouldn’t be decried as an attack on free speech. The Cubs halted production of the shirts because the shirts illegally used an image that’s trademarked by the team. Had the shirts not illegally used an image owned by the team, the Cubs wouldn’t have possessed any power to stop sales and production of the shirts.

As long as they abide by the law, people can sell all the racist t-shirts they want. But even if these Cubs fans had acted within the law when they sold and purchased the Fukodome shirts, it would have still reflected very poorly on them — and now, it’s not so easy to defend Cubs fans, even though the vast majority of them would have never purchased these shirts. It’s unfair, but the actions of a few can create negative perceptions of the entire group.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.