Sorority Formal Shirt with Racist Image
 

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/nationa...t-shirt/nrNMP/

I wish that I could say that I'm shocked. I also wish that we weren't discussing this- again.

The ADPi chapter at Samford University(AL) is under fire for their sorority formal shirts. The shirt has a caricature of a black man eating watermelon.

What is (almost) worse about the situation, is that the university had told the sorority that the shirt would not be allowed when it was submitted. The sorority went ahead and printed it anyways.

There are some things here that don't add up. If the University rejected the shirt, then the Chapter president saying (at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.2636727 )

“In selecting the T-shirt, we failed to focus on the specific images in the design,” ADPi Samford chapter president Lauren Hammond said, adding the shirts will be destroyed.

“We are horrified by our oversight. Had we recognized what the design details depicted, we would never have purchased the shirts.”


The primary question to me is "Who designed the image on the shirt, some of the sisters or was it an image gotten from elsewhere"?

Except for the "University rejected it", I *could* see this happening by mistake, if the image for the t-shirt front that the sisters saw when selecting it was half the size or so...

Usually the images on shirts are designed by the company the shirt is purchased from. A lot of clip art/stock imagery is used, and a proof is put together and emailed to the T-shirt chair who sends it to the chapter for the girls to purchase. At least in my experience.

Pretty sure the image is stock...
 

In about 1 minute of looking for alabama map t-shirts on images.google, I found the following
http://www.zazzle.com/alabama_vintag...44407346706706
and
http://www.zazzle.com/alabama_vintag...34547141801545

Which I'm fairly sure is the same "vintage" map, just in monochrome. *But* I certainly would not have been able to tell if I hadn't seen the first image. So as I said, if the school did tell them, then the chapter screwed up *somewhat* significantly, but if not, then I'd let it go.

(somewhat of a lane swerve, I guess the equivalent racism toward asians would involve a rice bowl and chopsticks, no idea what food would be viewed that way for non-hispanic whites)

I was going to say the graphic looked like vintage maps that you would have on place mats at diners when we traveled by car in the 50's and 60's.

One way or another, it was a poor choice, and a bad decision to disregard the university's mandate. May they make much better decisions in the future.

What doesn't even make sense to me is...usually formal shirts go with the theme of the formal (Paris, come sail away, etc). What on earth was the theme of this formal? Our school is in the state of Alabama? Lazy and thoughtless on the part of the t-shirt chair and/or formal chair, without even getting to the racist imagery.

Not all formals are themed. My chapter's never were.

Unrelated to this specific issue- why do chapters order shirts for formal? You are wearing formal wear.... I feel like I am missing a piece of this puzzle

For some campuses the shirt is the souvenir, not something worn to the event. You buy one for you and one for your date. The dates like them as it shows they got an invite. The members like them because it is just another way to proudly wear letters and show how much fun it is to be in that organization.

"A spokesperson for Alpha Delta Pi said the chapter found the shirt design online and did not take part in creating or designing the questionable map of Alabama in any way.

The T-shirt’s design was rejected by the university as part of its approval process, but the shirts were printed anyways.

The shirt vendor acknowledged it failed to notify the sorority that the design had been rejected by the University, so the chapter did not know there was a problem with the design."

http://www.wtvm.com/story/31987289/s...ffensive-image

My kids graduated from Samford and both, plus SIL,said that Kappa chapter were rule followers to a T. They were very surprised that this chapter would risk everything over a T shirt and did not believe that was the case. This makes more sense.

@LaneSig, I'm sure there have been much worse shirts in Greek event history. I'm sure even the Sigma Chis have printed very inappropriate shirts over the years. I'm not saying it was right, the girls were definitely in bad taste, but I see that they were at the point of political correctness that they just said F it, the shirts are done, they are paid for, it is too late. It was offensive. There is no getting around that. I just know that at my chapter, we always had to ask ourselves about our image. Every single day. The ADPis weren't thinking this. If I wore a shirt too tight or a skirt too short, there were girls around me to tell me that it would look bad. We now live in a world where everyone is hyper sensitive and to survive as Greeks, we DO need to be concerned about image.

Courtney

One need not be hypersensitive to find that image in extremely poor taste.

And of course, Samford is a private institution, so under their rules, there may very well be hell to pay for going forward with an unapproved tshirt.

And no national organization is going to jeopardize their brand by allowing something like this to take place. There are plenty of reminders of our past when mostly white males curated pop culture insofar as what would be deemed appropriate and this sort of imagery--not just in the South--was not uncommon in the United States even when I was a child.

Tshirts can be funny things though. Often, as part of the shirt design process, you pretty much hire out all of the graphic design work, approve it, send the money and you receive a box of shirts. I could see how if that was the process here, one could easily miss this image being on the shirt. It sounds like there was a lot more to this though including a rejection from whatever university administrators is in charge of offensive shirts (this is why tuition is so high folks). It's worth noting we are almost always dealing with young folks who are prone to exercising bad judgment. I hope no one goes overboard in determining consequences.

Ahh, that makes much more sense! Thank you!