'No More Towelheads','No More Ragheads' CafePress Shirts Upset Sikh Coalition

'No More Towelheads,' 'No More Ragheads' CafePress Shirts Upset Sikh Coalition

Huffington Post ( USA ) - Updated: 2/17/12

Members of the Sikh community are upset after finding shirts with the phrases "No More Ragheads" and "No More Towelheads" being sold on the merchandise website CafePress.

The slurs, which refer to people who wear turbans, could potentially incite violence and bigotry toward Sikhs and potentially members of the Muslim community, Rajdeep Singh, the Sikh Coalition's director of law and policy, told The Huffington Post.

Singh said he recently read an article describing the popularity of merchandise with similar messages. Disturbed by this, he decided to conduct a search for himself and stumbled across the shirts.

On Feb. 17, the Sikh Coalition drafted an open letter to Bob Marino, CEO of CafePress, asking the company to stop selling the shirts, issue an apology and enforce a better internal controls system to prevent similar merchandise from being sold in the future.

The group also attached a petition that received nearly 2,000 online signatures on Friday.

While some might see the shirts as harmless, Singh says it's hard to see past the messages.

"That's not just demeaning, that's threatening, and that's the problem," Singh told HuffPost, pointing to hate crimes and violence against members of the Sikh community in the post-9/11 environment.

Since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Skihs have reported a rise in verbal and physical attacks against members of their community, The Blaze reports.

Just this week, the FBI were called in to investigate vandalism on Muslim and Sikh buildings in Detroit, according the the Associated Press.

Singh says he hopes the group's efforts gain support beyond the Sikh community.

"This isn't a concern of just the Sikh community, it's a concern of people anywhere," he said.

The Huffington Post made several requests to CafePress for comment but has not received a response. As of Friday afternoon, the shirts were no longer available on the website.

According to a description on its site, CafePress "offers sellers complete e-commerce services to independently create and sell a wide variety of products."
A variety of other shirts with controversial messages have ruffled the feathers of several organizations in recent months.

In August, J.C. Penny stores responded to public outcry regarding girls' shirts embroidered with the message: "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me."

The company eventually pulled the product and issued an apology stating they "agree that the 'Too pretty' t-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message."

Urban Outfitters also stopped selling a women's shirt with the phrase "Eat less" in 2010, after some said the company was promoting unhealthy habits.

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source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1285240.html

 
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I'm surprised that they listened and have taken those 2 Ts off the website.
Looking at the other merchandise I notice quite a number of anti islam, muslim humour and generally anti religion material that is available.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/united-states/38077-no-more-towelheads-no-more-ragheads.html
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=38077

Its amazing that other bodies have not taken any action yet. The Sikh coalition appears to be the first and succesful body to succeed.

Its so sad that sikhs are being mistaken for muslims. In the USA especially some people just do not see Sikhs they see them as muslims. In detroit a Gudwara was vandalised with anti muslim phrases. How stupid are they?

OneD10s ji a racist sees all except self with disdain. Do you really want to be an exception in such stupid's mind? I would not. Let these people treat us as Muslims. It makes no difference as the core part of why is their racism belief. You think if they did not do a Gurdwara it will be a show of respect or acceptance of Sikhs? I doubt it but it surely will make us feel special. How special is it to be special in the mind of an azhole! Such people need to learn and act and then we may have a sustained solution.

Sat Sri Akal.

Veer Ji

A racist sees himself with disdain but projects it on others,If a mosque is saved from vandalism by a Gurdwara it is because they are brothers.

Jios, you give too much to the racists, true racism is no more than ignorance and stupidity.

I would go as far as to say racism per se does not exist, if anything it is the fear and lack of understanding of anything that is different to the perceived norm, be it skin colour, sexual orientation, size, lack of hair, too much hair, accent, eye colour, the list goes on....

Harry Haller ji would you call it "relativism" or "differentiation".

We are born to live through differentiate in almost all of our sensory perceptive inputs. We see light from dark, sweet from sour, cold from hot, pungent from nice, soft from hard.



Sorry just noticed that the above illustration may be racist in the use of skin tones, eye color, nose shape, ear shape, lip color, tongue color, hand color . I should have posted a black-white skeytch instead. Bloody hell that will be racist too! Any ideas. May be I have done wrong associations!. One just can not win .


The issue of racism comes when we assign wrong values to perceptions of sensory inputs.

I will say the following,