Anti-American T-shirts For Sale in Itaewon
|If you need a t-shirt to display your anti-Americanism, than a Canadian in Itaewon has one for you:
Alleyway T-shirt vendors in the Itaewon district have a new competitor. The new must-have shirts read I’m not migook on the front, and on the back in Korean, “I am not an American.†Since the shirts first turned up at a shop in front of the neighborhood Starbucks in the middle of last month, more than 100 of the shirts have been sold every five days. The man who brought the thoughtful product into the world is a 31-year-old named Michael Kenny who would like to make it clear that he is Canadian.
However, Mr. Kenny claims this is all in good fun and he is not anti-American:
Worry no. 2 is that people tend to associate the shirts with anti-Americanism. He says quite a few people have challenged him about the message. But his response is: Oh, there’s nothing to it. It’s all just good fun. American whites are Caucasians, but that doesn’t mean all Caucasians are Americans. Now, wouldn’t it be nice if Koreans knew that too?
Now would he sell t-shirts to people of black skin color saying that they are not Nigerians? Or better yet maybe he should start selling t-shirts that say “I’m not a Low Quality English Teacher”. What’s the difference between this hate speech and bashing Americans?