I love Neighborhoodies , generally. I have more custom clothes from them that I care to think about. In their last e-mail newsletter they included, along with their other 50 new "readymades" (clever pop culture referencing tees and hoodies for much less than completely custom items) was a design that had images of Obama and Clinton with the text "Bros before hoes."
I was appalled, and immediately emailed them about it: "I love Neighborhoodies, but I can't get behind a readymade that calls Hillary Clinton a ho! Wtf, neighborhoodies?? Misogyny is not okay."
Cameron from Neighborhoodies responded: "You misunderstood! It means that Obama and Hilary are bros! We love Hillz 4evs."
My last response: "It doesn't really look that way to me. "Bro" is not usually a term for a woman. You guys might want to rethink that one. Just saying."
I've posted up about this on my own blog, and showed a friend the design IRL, and they reacted the same way. It just seems so utterly bizarre to me, coming from a company that "love[s] Hillz 4evz." I'm not crazy, right?? Maybe if more people emailed them about it they might edit the design to be more clearly pro-woman/Hillary or pull it entirely.
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"You misunderstood! It means that Obama and Hilary are bros! We love Hillz 4evs."
that is just straight up bullshit. I went and looked at that design, and that is just disgusting. Through out the entire race between Clinton and Obama, I heard more comments made about Hillary Clinton's pant suits than her policies. I was a strong Clinton supporter, but couldn't have an intelligent discussion about her politics with very many people because all they wanted to do is talk about her clothes and her body. That pissed me off to no end. To describe this design as "kicking her while she's down" would be the understatement of the year.
The typical use of the word "ho" is designed to keep women from asserting their sexual independence. Women who initiate relationships, of even go up and talk to guys they find attractive are called "hoes". Even if that design meant that Clinton and Obama are "bros", displaying that word is an attack on all women, and thus an attack on Hillary Clinton. They do not "love Hillz 4evs" or they wouldn't insult her gender.
Oh, come on, Cameron. You and I both know that's bullshit. At least own up.
"You misunderstood! It means that Obama and Hilary are bros! We love Hillz 4evs."
Please, that's just pathetically weak. It's really rather insulting that Cameron thought you could be cowed into accepting that the shirt wasn't calling Clinton a ho (even if only for a cheap laugh). Plausible deniability my ass.
And I'm guessing that calling Obama a "bro" is somewhat racist, too.