I was just reading the Angry Asian Man blog and came across a recent entry about this terrible T-shirt.
The Cubs just stopped the production and sale of a Kosuke Fukudome T-shirt with a racist image that was being sold near Wrigley Field.
On the front of the shirt, the official Cubs logo was altered. The bear has slanted “oriental” eyes, and the words in an Asian-cartoon-like font read “horry kow” (meant to say “holy cow”). On The back is Fukudome’s name and number.
Kosuke Fukudome currently plays as right-fielder for the Chicago Cubs. The Chicago Sun asked his thoughts on the shirt:
“I don’t know what the creator of the shirt meant this to be, but they should make it right,” Fukudome said through his interpreter after being shown one of the shirts Thursday. ”Maybe the creator created it because he thought it was funny, or maybe he made it to condescend the race. I don’t know.”
Apparently, the guy selling these shirts–Mark Kolbusz–didn’t see anything wrong with them. In fact, it was a hot commodity, his highest selling item. According to the Chicago Sun…
Kolbusz went as far as pointing out that the shirt’s creator is ”an Oriental guy” and also pointed out an Asian woman he sold a shirt to.
But the customer in question, Laureen Hom, had no intention of wearing the shirt, she said.
”I bought it for my mom, who has a collection of racist images of Asian Americans,” she said.
Wow. How ignorant can you be?? I didn’t even get what the shirt was saying at first. A lot of offended fans emailed the Cubs and they decided to do something. In addition to the negative response from the shirt, the Cubs banned the shirt since it also uses the trademarked Cubs logo. Good thing people spoke up and did something about it. A little goes a long way.
Read the original Chicago Sun Articles here:
- Fukudome doesn’t find racist T-shirts in Wrigleyville funny
- Cubs pull Fukudome shirt after Sun-Times report
