Thursday, January 16, 2014

Racist? You Decide

The University of Texas recently hired Charlie Strong as its new head football coach. Strong, who is black, replaces Mack Brown, who is white.

Some folks made a big deal of that. One can argue that the hiring is newsworthy, since Strong is the first black head coach of a men's athletic team at UT. Okay - I can live with that.

But what I find troubling is the reaction to this T-shirt.


For the life of me I can't see anything racist here. I think it's a clever play on words and the "black is the new..." meme.
Since black is always in style in the fashion industry, saying something is "the new black" means that it is the hottest new thing. This phrase can be used to call out the "coolness" of anything, it's not just limited to the fashion world.

"Striptease aerobics is the new black."

"I just love your yellow purse. Yellow is the new black this season."
Other examples:
Black Is the New White - a book by comedian Paul Mooney, who wrote jokes for Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphey, among others

Black is the New Green - marketing to affluent African Americans
Orange is the New Black - one of the hottest shows on Netflix right now
I've looked at several of the websites proclaiming the shirt as racist, and have yet to see any reasonable justification for that sentiment. If anyone out there can enlighten me, please do so.

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

Strong will play it to HIS benefit... Since he's married to a white lady, he USED that in SC to play the race card more than once with a variety of organizations, including LEOs... Don't see him doing anything different there...

CenTexTim said...

Strong hasn't said a word about this. The controversy has been generated by a bunch of liberals who see racism behind every tree.

JT said...

"...a bunch of liberals who see racism behind every tree."

In other words, t.u. alumni, staff and students? Keep Austin weird...

CenTexTim said...

As a UT alum, I object to that blatant stereotype.

Actually, most of the flak has come from sports 'journalists' and commentators, not the common folk.