See What Crawls Out When You Roll Over the Rotten Log?

The barking moonbat wing of the Left has gone bugshit over Rachel Lucas's favorite T-Shirt. Well, Glenn Reynolds owns one, (I own one, too) so Atrios thought it must be racist, and wrote a post about it. Here's his take:

Now, Glenn's a gun fan and I imagine he's just celebrating the joys of guns, or whatever, but this shirt is no joke. There's a serious subtext here which is totally obvious to me that I think should be pointed out. Now, I don't think everyone who has purchased a shirt like this has purchased it with the subtext in mind, but nonetheless the message is clear.
The caption is "celebrate diversity." The colors of the caption are commonly used pan-African colors: red, yellow, and green. While, for many, the "joke" (though, I'm not sure why it's funny) is that here diversity is a diversity of guns. Ha ha. But, look, the clear message here is that the way to celebrate diversity, particularly that pan-African diversity, is to buy a bunch of fucking guns. In other words, celebrate diversity by arming yourself.

And your problem with that is....? But no, it means "celebrate diversity" by buying a bunch of different guns. (The "fucking guns" is a dead giveaway that Atrios is not a "gun fan." Please pardon my stating the obvious.)
You'll note that the shirt doesn't say "Hey white folk! Celebrate diversity!" Nope, it's an equal opportunity shirt! Everybody join in! All colors of the rainbow, you too can join the nation of responsible citizens who own guns! It's not just for white crackers anymore!

But the commenters ran with it. Here's a sample of the bile from the more loving, more caring, colorblind, fuzzy-bunny Left.

I read a much darker subtext into that.
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(A)nd, I presume, shoot as many pan-Africans as possible, maybe even a few queers, since the colors are also reminiscent of the gay flag.
Welcome to more and more fascism.

Nope, they get to buy guns, too!

I thought it was more sinister than even your interpretation. I read it as "Celebrate Diversity -- kill a black person."

You get secret messages passed to you in your alphabet soup, too, don't you?

Maybe Instapoodle can be encouraged to play Russian Roulette more often.

Nothing like the Compassionate Left, is there?

...it says to me "kill the black, brown, yellow, red, ...". Sometimes I wonder if women and non-whites just get it, because they have encountered it so much.

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The subtext is much darker and the "kill a nigger because he stole your job because of affirmative action" is even there. (Now it's morphed into "because he stole your JOB." It's a T-SHIRT, you oversensitive idiot.)

I think you put as charitable a spin on it as possible, Atrios, but the fact that it took you several hours to decide how to frame your thoughts on it I think is a resonable indicator of how deeply disturbing you find it.

The fact that you saw it, reacted in such a way as to say to yourself, "No, that can't be right. They can't mean THAT", and then give them the benefit of the doubt to the extent you reasonably could, well, I think that speaks volumes in and of itself. Your thought processes - if you want to actually characterize them as such - certainly speak volumes about you.

Right wingers equate guns with power.
Mao: Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

This, the right wing endorses greatly. This is why they are always sore losers in elections. And now MAO is a right-winger? How far left is THIS guy? As for "sore losers," who is it that hasn't gotten over the 2000 election?

The message I see is"Here's what you can do with your goddamned diversity!" There is a subtext of hate in that t-shirt. Only what you put there.

The fact that the shirt is (I would presume) purposefully vague enough to lend itself to these ugly interpretations, would make me uncomfortable to wear it -- regardless of my stance on gun rights.

That's called "freedom of choice" where it comes to freedom of speech. At least this guy's not a complete whack job.

How about a t-shirt with "Republican Diversity" as the text--and show a bunch of grave markers?
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The t-shirt celebrates guns and hints how they could be used. If it was worn in public in Toronto it would cause problems because it is a very aggressive shirt.Only because Canada doesn't have a right to free speech, and I could insert a Canadian joke here, but I choose not to.

I read it as an anti-minority statement.

HOW? Minorities have the same right to buy guns as anybody.

One could draw the 'kill Africans' inference, but that's a stretch. These guys are racists and all that, but the point of the T-Shirt is pro-gun rights, and anti-diversity-type legislation, nothing else.

No, it's just pro-gun rights. For everybody.

Of course this is the same guy who wrote:

We need guns, and when the technology permits, we're gonna need automatic guns, or automatic tasers, or whatever. If Bushco wants to become the next Hitler, he's gonna have to answer Mr. Colt - which I don't own *yet*, but I may soon. I'm tired of being scared of some black van screaching up to my front door, with me being defenseless. F that. Come and get me aholes, but first, say hello to my leetle friend!

Well, hell! Celebrate diversity and get a Smith & Wesson too, while you're at it!

The only person who would wear this shirt is, quite literally, a racist piece of shit.

Smile when you say that.

There is no doubt that this shirt has a wink-and-nudge racist message behind it, and I think any right-winger would get it.

Nope. Only you overly sensitive Lefties.

Don't call him racist. He'll pull out the old line "My sister in law is African" routine, which of course is a show stopper.

It is, isn't it? Just like the fact that Bush has a black National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. But they can't really be "black" because they're just "house niggers" workin' for da man.

More of that Leftist compassion and caring.

But wait! There's more!

Sorry, but the message of that hideous shirt is pretty clear to me. If it had been beer, I would have thought, ha! Cute! Be diverse in your choice of getting drunk. This is guns, though. And not just guns, hand guns. Be diverse in your choice of killing.
And don't think these miserable, twisted wingnuts don't know EXACTLY what it means.

We sure do, but the "twisted wingnuts" seem to be on YOUR side, my friend.

I thought Glenn was urging us to buy an assortment of guns, go to Africa and shoot as many blacks as possible. The subtext was crystal clear to me and I'm outraged. How do they get away with this!?

Because most people don't think like barking moonbats with their panties wingnuts in a twist?

The t-shirt, and the entire website, are indicative of mental illness.

Funny, I was thinking precisely the same thing about Atrios's site and these comments!

I actually saw someone wearing that shirt last night in West Oakland. Someone who happened to African-American. I must say that, in that context, I thought the shirt was fucking phat.

There, see? Apparently that t-shirt owner got the idea. But also apparently it's up to the moonbat Left to inform him of just how misguided he must be to wear something so offensive.

You're right. It is phat!

So of course, that poster must have been a right-wing plant. No black African-American could possibly misinterpret the meaning of that shirt, right?

I invite Instapundit or anyone else who finds the shirt amusing to don it proudly on the streets of East LA, the Tenderloin, Gary, IN, Detroit or DC (away from the Capitol, of course), especially around 2am.

I invite all supporters of gun control to do precisely the same thing! Go to those areas at that time completely unarmed! And tell us just how safe you are!

Anyway, there's more, but that's enough and more than enough, don't you think?

I did leave a comment of my own, though:

First, I own the shirt. It's humorous to me. Second, I do not, did not and cannot interpret it the way (many of) you have. If you want to accuse me of being "a racist piece of shit," I suggest you do it to my face. And third, if you hate that T-shirt, you're gonna loathe this one.

The link is to the "72 Virgins Dating Service" T-shirt.

THAT drew some traffic!