T-shirt tussle ends in accord

BERKELEY -- A happy ending to an ugly shirt.

What started as a painful confrontation over offensive merchandise from a San Leandro supplier was settled harmoniously this week by management and consumers.

When Brandelyn Castine strolled into the three-level Futura across from the University of California, Berkeley campus on Saturday, she was "shocked to see a T-shirt that read 'Rutgers Nappy Headed Hoes Basketball Team' complete with a picture of a basketball with an Afro and an Afro pick."

The T-shirt comes on the heels of radio talk show host Don Imus referring to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy headed hos." The ensuing outcry led to his dismissal.

After a boycott of the Futura store's products and a protest rally at the site, manager Jonathan Fernandez, Castine and her supporters reached an agreement this week about the future of merchandise sold at the Telegraph Avenue store.

But even more, they've opened a dialogue about what are acceptable images and perhaps a new retail outlet for purveyors of clothing that appealsfrom Business 1

to African-American consumers.

Upon seeing the T-shirts Saturday, Castine said she asked management to remove the offending shirts and was told that most of the T-shirts Futura sold on its T-Shirt Orgy basement level were offensive and that the store was not willing to remove the shirt because of one complaint. Futura's Fernandez could not confirm that and said that he wasn't in the store at the time. After this rebuff, Castine launched a group on the Palo Alto-based social networking site Facebook and by press time had amassed a group of 598 to protest images being sold in the Berkeley shop. On Wednesday, about 70 people appeared in the store to complain about the shirts made by Deez Teez of San Leandro.

Fernandez described the consumers as "reasonable and easy to deal with."

"We carry every Deez Teez design, but a lot of them we don't see when we order them. We just order by description," he said. "I hope people don't confuse the store with the statement on the shirt. We have 5,000 shirts here."

Deez Teez's Web site, DeezTeez.com, describes the company as a "team of four college dropouts from San Leandro, California that pretty much risked it all in the online t-shirt business." Deez Teez would not respond to requests for an interview, but sent this e- mail response: "At DeezTeez.com, we sell funny and offensive tshirts (sic). If you are easily offended then don't visit our web site and don't buy a shirt."

On Thursday, Leandrew Robinson, a supporter of the boycott and a colleague of Castine at Stiles Hall community service center across the street from Futura, met with Fernandez for a double purpose. Robinson runs his own T-shirt online store called Ragamuffin Clothing, Ragamuffinclothing.com.

"I want to teach (Fernandez) what kinds of images are acceptable," Robinson said.

"Leandrew's idea of showing T-shirts with a positive image is a great one. We are replacing the Deez Teez designs. Consumers described them as having negative images of African Americans," Fernandez said. "Their message is bigger than my store."

Fernandez ordered 250 of Robinson's Ragamuffin Clothing line of T- shirts. Even more, he said he is open to looking at new sources of suppliers designing more positive images.

Facebook entries on the Futura debate hearkened back to the Imus controversy. The debate also brings to mind the 2002 uproar created by national retailer Abercrombie and Fitch, which at the time was selling shirts denigrating Asian Americans. Eventually the retailer was forced to retract the merchandise. Foster City-based CafePress.com, a do-it-yourself design company, also has faced criticism for controversial T-shirts sold on its site.

When asked where the line is between promoting civility and the freedom to express oneself, Dana Gleeson, spokeswoman for the National Black MBA Association, said that corporations have a "social responsibility in responding to the market."

"One-half of the world is made up of people of color. It's important that we establish mutual respect," she said.

Deez Teez, meanwhile, feels it has gotten a bad rap.

"The Rutgers Nappy Headed Hoes tshirt does not represent our point of view. We simply created a tshirt based on an actual event and it is up to the person viewing it to decide if it's something they want to purchase," its statement said.

Further, the San Leandro company feels the public by and large is behind them.

Despite the "many threatening emails" they say they've received about this issue, "we have received more than double the amount of positive emails from visitors who feel that we should have the right to free speech and support the humor of our tshirts. We will not be intimidated and will not be taking any tshirts down from our web site."

They invited readers to visit DeezTeez.com and judge for themselves.

Contact Francine Brevetti at fbrevetti@angnewspapers.com or (510) 208-6416.

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