Bear Basics and its Obvious Respobsibility to Educate You

As is perfectly logical, reasonable, and noble for a group of privileged suburbanite attendees of the nation’s top public university to do, 70 students marched out of their desperately under-funded classes, tripped over half as many starving homeless, dodged twice as many bullets, and finally arrived at the Bear Basics, fully aware of the broad spectrum of problems facing the world today, and took offense to a t-shirt.

Correctly realizing that they themselves would one day be forced to buy and wear every T-shirt sold on the premises, the students continued to valiantly take offense to no less than two additional garments, demanding that they be removed.

It has always been a personal fear of mine that I might one day see a consumer item in a store and be faced with a choice of whether or not to purchase it. I am infinitely relieved to know that there are warriors out there willing to really take a stand and make sure to eliminate choices for the rest of us in this great, free society.

In a show of genuine concern for the overwhelming prevalence of possible negative choices available to consumers, the store’s vice president met with students to discuss alternative designs that portray people of color positively.

These students probably have a divine right, as the sole guardians and ambassadors of knowledge (as endowed by nature of their being enrolled in a humanities major at Berkeley), to determine between themselves how everything should be portrayed on clothing that other people wear.

"We're at Berkeley, which is supposed to be one of the most open and diverse campuses," one brave student said, solidly defending her position that rigid bans should exist to prevent the private sale of merchandise featuring vague messages that possibly reflect viewpoints not in perfect alignment with her own. "This is ignorance projected on a T-shirt," she went on to objectively argue, effectively explaining why it should be illegal for anyone else to choose to wear it.

Well said. In the name of freedom of speech, expression, and diversity of perspective, take down those T-shirts!