Yes Cubby Tees Made A Dumb "Chicago Stronger" Shirt, No That Does Not Mean Everyone In Chicago Is A Scumbag

So I’ve been getting blown up on twitter and email saying Chicago is a bunch of scumbags and blah blah blah. First of all, Cubby Tees has already come to their senses and pulled this shirt. Put up a long winded response to all their hate mail saying the point of the shirt was pointing out that “Boston Strong” should be about the tragedy and not sports teams.

(Source) Our hearts go out to all of those touched by the 3 fatalities and 30 serious injuries from that crime – this is not a recalcitrant statement motivated by your Tweets, we said (and felt) this right from the beginning. We love Boston, we love Bostonians. There was nothing in this shirt intended to trivialize the real losses; the design was based on the puzzling creation of a “Boston Strong” slogan in the first place, and then the use of that banner for the glory of New England pro teams.

If you have written us because you think that it’s wrong to hijack human misery to promote athletic glory, THEN WE ARE IN AGREEMENT – THAT IS WHAT WE WERE MOCKING WITH THIS SHIRT! Every time we saw a Boston fan say “BOSTON STRONG, F#*K THE YANKEES,“ or “BOSTON STRONG, BRUIN STRONG!” we scratched our heads (and wondered if cheering for our teams made us evil people). We’ve been similarly confused by your emails that first tell us we’re classless, then tell us how disturbingly horrifc the bombing injuries were, then tell us to f*#k ourselves and that you hope Chicago is bombed and that our legs are blown off. For making a tee shirt. Communities generally best show their strength by SHOWING it, not by telling everyone about it, and certainly not by suggesting that their athletic mercenaries will succeed because of the real-life tragedy, or by threatening that same ugly violence against anyone whom they perceive has slighted them. THAT SENTIMENT is what we were satirizing — not the real pain suffered by real people away from the Twitterverse.

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A point that I understand and don’t totally disagree with. But really this is just a dumb T-Shirt. That’s the end of it. There’s no need for long winded diatribes about mixing tragedy and sports and how a slogan after a terrorist attack leaked into the way people cheer for their team. You know what that’s called? Human Nature. A terrorist attack happened. The city of Boston rallied around each other and a lot of times that shows through in sporting events, because, get this, everyone roots for the same team there, so they have what we call “something in common”. Not exactly rocket science.

But I think the real point of this whole “controversy” is that It’s just completely unnecessary. You’re not some political pundit sitting on Fox News Or MSNBC. You’re a T-Shirt company. Before you made the T-Shirt you should have said to yourself, hey do you think this might be misconstrued even a little bit? And if the answer was Yes, don’t make the shirt. Simple as that. Like the shirt doesn’t even make me mad. It’s stupid and in poor taste but I’m not angry that it’s somehow making all of Chicago look like scumbags (which it isn’t). What makes me angry is that Cubby Tees think they’re so important and so influential that they need to make a T-Shirt that will change the way we deal with tragedy and cheer for our sports teams. That’s just moronic. And the backlash is probably deserved. It’s just a topic that doesn’t need to be touched, especially not by a T-Shirt company.

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Now, for anyone who pretends these guys speak for Chicago on a whole, get a fucking clue. Remember when a few Bruins fans called Joel Ward the N word and everyone in Boston got upset saying those racists didn’t speak for the city. Well that was about a billion times worse than 2 guys making a stupid shirt.