National | Sports

Offensive? Parody 'Caucasians' t-shirt draws strong reactions

Thursday, August 9, 2018

An African American business owner is getting death threats after exposing the hypocrisy of the Washington NFL team's racist mascot.

In a thread on Twitter, Frederick Joseph wore his "Caucasians" t-shirt in New York City last month and was surprised by the way some people reacted. One woman told him it was "disrespectful" but didn't feel the same way about the team's offensive imagery.

"I asked her if she would have said the same if I had on the actually team shirt or another team using disrespectful branding," Joseph wrote on Twitter. "She said 'no, because that’s the logo!'"

The Hypocrisy of Racist Logos:

Last weekend I decided to wear this shirt, I figured it would catch some by surprise but I didn’t expect people to be as trash as they were. pic.twitter.com/DW5n6QEmOl
— Frederick Joseph (@FredTJoseph) July 31, 2018

Joseph's experiment went viral, drawing hundreds of thousands of engagements on the social media platform. But it's also drawn negative attention to his marketing agency

“I’m getting death threats on my business website,” Joseph told Washington Post columnist Theresa Vargas.

Joseph, who created the #BlackPantherChallenge and raised more than $950,000 to send youth to watch the breakout Black Panther film, thinks his race had something to do with the way some people reacted.

"As the standard, when white people wear offensive displays, there is no second thought, and they certainly don’t receive the vitriol I continue to receive," he wrote on USA Today.

An entrepreneur in Washington state appears to have confirmed that theory. Micah Baldwin put on the same t-shirt last week, he wrote on Twitter.

Wore this shirt today. Reactions? Folks loved it and asked if they could take pictures.

Wildly different from @FredTJoseph’s experience.

I wonder why? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/t0vxL9KDFt
— Micah Baldwin (@micah) August 4, 2018