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Thursday, May 15, 2008
Fuss over shirt offers chance of enlightenment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He looked nervous.
Who could blame him?
Some customers pointed and gave double-takes when Jason Getz, an AJC Gwinnett News photographer, walked into Martin’s Restaurant in Norcross. He wore a T-shirt that’s been in the news of late, thanks to Mike Norman, owner of Mulligan’s Bar and Grill in Marietta. He sells a T-shirt that shows a picture of Curious George, with a banana, with the words “Obama ‘08” underneath.
A coalition has protested. The publisher of the Curious George reading series has threatened to sue for misuse of the chimp’s character.
On Tuesday, I drove to Mulligan’s and plucked down $15 for a T-shirt. A jovial customer told me to be sure and try the collards, that they’d been prepared by a “sister” (meaning black woman) who was a mighty good cook.
The T-shirt served as a prop for yesterday’s Badie Tour. I wanted to see the reaction if someone actually wore the shirt. Getz agreed to be the guinea pig, though he may now resent it. He didn’t like the attention, the stares and gestures.
“It’s not me,” Getz said.
Soon, he shed it.
Dwight Bramlett, a white man from Newnan who was eating breakfast, could see why.
“I don’t see it as a racial thing, but it’s a touchy subject, ya know,?” the electrician said. “If I was black, I think I’d be a little insulted. But this is just more trouble. More stuff to fuss about.”
All because of a T-shirt.
But is it just a T-shirt?
Norman has the right to erect any kind of mean-spirited message he wants to on the marquee outside his hole-in-the-wall. He can sell racist T-shirts, too, if that’s his thing. If you don’t see anything wrong with it, you can eat and drink there. Take friends. We can’t tell Norman what to think or what to express.
Likewise, black people can’t be told how to feel or how to react to a T-shirt that compares a monkey with a black man. Black people, deal with it in different ways - by ignoring the Normans of the world, through anger, pain, protests, counter racism and humor. It’s not about holding a grudge, playing victim; it’s about not forgetting the past, the legacy.
It’s easy to say just get over it, move on, knock the chip off your shoulder, when you’re not the one whose history, whose ancestors, bore the scars. But do you tell a woman whose been raped to just “get over it?” Or relatives who lost a family member to murder to just “move on?”
The historical context in which blacks have been derogatorily compared to monkeys, apes and chimps is too defined, too recent. It’s rooted in Jim Crow America. The South. And if you can’t see that, don’t want to acknowledge it or didn’t know, then perhaps Norman’s Obama spoof has served one good purpose: enlightenment.
I’ve read some comments by AJC readers who wonder why the characterization and depiction of President George Bush as a monkey hasn’t garnered the same visceral reaction. While such a depiction may offend some, it carries absolutely no racial, racist or bigoted innuendo. Zilch.
At Martin’s Restaurant, Doug Candis and Burke Johnson, two black men, sat at a nearly table. They once worked together in radio broadcasting when stations didn’t play the same 30 songs all day. They were relieved to hear that Getz was part of a journalistic exercise, not some agitator with a death wish.
“We saw him when he first walked in,” said Candis when I approached their table. “I don’t go for things like that at all. It reflects negative thoughts. People are trying everything they can to bring (Obama) down. I reward him for staying on track.”
Johnson of Norcross saw a TV newsclip of the T-shirt. “I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone wear it,” he told me. “I didn’t think anybody would be brave enough to do it.”
Then, jokingly, he offered Getz some advice:
“You wouldn’t make it too far with that shirt on in some places,” he said. “You almost got tackled coming in here, man.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ �
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