A recent Tumblr post that has gotten reblogged over 60 times since it has been orginally posted (which is pretty good for Tumblr), is featuring a "Visit Mexico" tee by BustedTees.com that shows a gun behind the tee's logo. Unde the tagline, "Visit Mexico: You'll never want to leave. Or be able to," the tee is being smartly worn by a Weezer-like model in different poses.
Our take on this one: #NoMames. According to its website, BustedTees.com is a private company. Unlike CafePress, which allows ignorant people to design racist clothing and products and makes money off this ignorance while hiding behind freedom of speech protections, BustedTees actually designs its own tees in the name of irrelevant fun and humor. We are sure many will be buying this product, but in the end, such a product, although totally protected by freedom of speech, is just poor and shameless.
We will let one the original blogger weigh in on all this which, in the end, just sucks bolas:
Look at his face. It’s like “Yeah, I don’t really give a shit about what’s actually going on down there in Tacolandia. Off I go to my tech meetup/band practice! Then maybe I’ll smoke some weed that came from Mexico. I totally don’t get my role in how that plays out and I just don’t care!! Yay, white privilege!!!”
If I saw someone wearing this douchebag couture I would go off on them. I like being confrontational.
BustedTees will never see a drop of my $ and if I find out any of my friends are rockin’ their gear, they are getting a face to face intervention from me.
It is very likely that BustedTees will probably think that we are all just a bunch of "uppity Latinos," a label we are very familiar with. Yet, we ask, if this is so hip and edgy and if we are just overreacting, we would ask BustedTees, whose tees are conceptualized by the writers of College Humor and other New York comedians (according to its website), if they would change the tee to say, well, who knows: VISIT NEW YORK, VISIT THE BRONX, VISIT BROOKLYN, VISIT QUEENS. Would that be marketable for them? A bit too close to home? Do you think some New Yorkers might get pissed at them? Hell, if we are going to do this, let's chose Mexico. They are far enough.
In the end, yes, Mexico has problems, serious problems. Like close to 50,000 dead people since 2006 all because of a dumb war on drugs, and like the blogger said, the same drugs that little Weezer guy is very likely smoking. Problems like journalists dying because they are trying to tell the truth. Like people trying to make their country a better one when everyone seems to know that yes, it is all connected: violence, drugs, immigration, NAFTA, neo-nativism on th border, just pure hate. People who are fighting for a better world don't need a tee that mocks their efforts. And we know there will be some who will say that we are just a bunch of PC wussies (ho hum), but we will see your PC charges and raise you a Louie CK, America's #1 Mexican American comedian:
“You’re a white kid eating bubble-gum medicine. You’re wearing clothes made by children your age, professionally. Americans only buy things that come from suffering. They just enjoy it more when they know someone’s getting hurt.” (h/t Border Bro)