Black Is The New Brown? Texas Longhorn Coach Brings Strong Opinions

New Texas Longhorn coach Charlie Strong has inspired fashion.

Here is what happens in a hyper-sensitive racial society.

My wife was surfing the web and came across this story in yahoo about the t-shirt you see to the left. Apparently, someone decided that this was a good idea.

Her first response was outrage.  Black is the new Brown.  The point of the t-shirt is that a black man has taken over for former coach Mack Brown.  If this was meant to be a clever play on words, it worked.  If this was not intended to offend anyone it did not work.

The question that remains is what was the intent of this t-shirt?  If some stupid racist person, who is presumably not black or brown skinned, created this shirt then what was the message they hoped to convey?

The moment I looked at this shirt I thought to myself that this shirt would be a hit in inner-city Texas where the Longhorns are a community treasure and now they have a black coach too.  Being the first black coach at Texas is a really big deal and it would be hard to imagine that a lot of black people in Texas are not thrilled with the decision.  Someone might have been so thrilled that they decided to create an image of black pride from this hire.  You know, like all of that African pride wear that inundated the 90's.

My main reason for this theory is that this item was being sold online for 16.95.  Maybe its just me, but I can't imagine anybody except some really proud black person wearing this shirt in fear that it would send the wrong message if not seen as an item of great pride.

The bigger issue is that this t-shirt created a firestorm of criticism even though no one even knows who created it and what is the meaning behind it.  But that is the American way.  It is a lot easier to be offended before we understand why we are offended than to quench our anger with facts and details.