This Fake NFL Merch is Going Viral (Caucasians)
The latest Twitter chatter may have you rooting for a new team… or maybe just pondering some outdated mascots.
A selfie of a man in a shirt touting “Caucasians” under a profile cartoon of a white man is making the rounds. The shirt appears to play on typical sports merchandise, specifically the culturally insensitive RedSkins mascot portraying a caricature of an indigenous man. The team rebranded as the Washington Football Team in 2020, dropping its offensive imagery for their comically generic new title.
The photograph circulating on Twitter was shared by @infamouschar, though the original user remains uncredited.
At last count, the photo posted on January 10th has racked up nearly 700k likes as well as a sea of replies and retweets. Much of the engagement is other users enjoying the humor of the shirt. Many replied seeking out where they could purchase the tee.
Some even called out the misuse of the word “caucasian”. User @persiankween pointed out “They ain’t from the Caucasus and the term was appropriated as a result of colonization and enslavement of people of the Caucasus.”
This, however, is not the first time this shirt has gone viral. In 2018 Twitter user @FredTJoseph reached 65k likes when he posted a selfie of himself in the same Caucasian shirt making the rounds today, as well as the reactions he received while wearing it.
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 actual team shirt or another team using disrespectful branding.
She said, “no, because that’s the logo!”
@FredTJoseph adds, “I was fairly surprised by the reactions of people because again, there are so many disrespectful and racist representations of minorities used for brands and they don’t even think twice,” he said. “But, it goes to show how fickle and hypocritical people can be.”
If you are a fan, the shirt can be purchased from the link below.
