Activist launches racial social experiment wearing ‘Caucasian’ t-shirt and white folks can’t handle it
Activist Frederick Joseph recently launched a social experiment to find out what happens when a Black man rocks a T-shirt with a “Caucasian” logo to mimic that of the Washington Redskins emblem.
As one might imagine, things did not go well.
The effort, he said in a series of Tweets sharing his experience, has revealed a not-so-surprising racial bias and is sparking conversation across social media.
As reported by Yahoo, the 29-year-old founder of the New York City-based marketing agency We Have Stories went viral earlier this year for creating the #BlackPantherChallenge, which raised more than $950,000 to purchase movie tickets for members of the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem and he was honored by ComicCon as their humanitarian of the year for his efforts.
THREAD: Today I am humbled to be honored by @Comic_Con as a Humanitarian of the Year for the #BlackPantherChallenge! Together, we raised over $950k and helped over 75k children see the film.
But, the lack of representation in media is still an issue we need to tackle. #SDCC pic.twitter.com/gzbNjEaqyk
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) July 20, 2018
For his latest endeavor, Joseph tweeted a photo of himself on Tuesday wearing a red T-shirt with the word “Caucasian” emblazoned across the front. The move was meant to call attention to the NFL’s “racist” and “offensive” Washington Redskins logo.
“I wanted to see how people responded to the shirt — while there’s nothing derogatory about the word ‘Caucasian,’ there’s a certain privilege among some white people who haven’t been challenged on certain aspects of racism,” Joseph told Yahoo Lifestyle.
And when Joseph headed out in his shirt he received some surprising feedback.
He wrote on Twitter: “A white guy walking by mistook the shirt for an actual team shirt and yelled “Go Skins!” I said “nah”, he then saw my shirt and yelled “a**hole!” ”
I left @SXMProgress after just doing an interview with @XorjeO and it was my first time in public with the shirt on.
A white guy walking by mistook the shirt for an actual team shirt and yelled “Go Skins!” I said “nah”, he then saw my shirt and yelled “asshole!” pic.twitter.com/2apsx126YX
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) July 31, 2018
The shirt caused a reaction every few minutes as he walked through the streets of New York City, but, “Still, no one tried to have a conversation,” Joseph tells Yahoo Lifestyle.
Next, an older white lady stopped me in the street and said “why would you wear that? It’s disrespectful!”
So I asked her if she would have said the same if I had on the actually team shirt or another team using disrespectful branding.
She said “no, because that’s the logo!” pic.twitter.com/UaLfIZioS5
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) July 31, 2018
Taking to Twitter, Joseph shared his experience and wrote: “Basically, I was being shamed as a Black person for wearing a non-disrespectful shirt with a white person logo on it. But people wear apparel and jerseys with logos depicting things such as a Native American and call them “redskins”… whew chile, the hypocrisy and privilege.”
Basically, I was being shamed as a black person for wearing a non-disrespectful shirt with a white person logo on it.
But people wear apparel and jerseys with logos depicting things such as a Native American and call them “redskins”… whew chile, the hypocrisy and privilege. pic.twitter.com/laW9lyJIHR
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) July 31, 2018
What do you think of the shirt?
