Rebels!
Also for some reason, I keep reading that as “fabulously” which makes it even more funny.
They are probably wearing them to get noticed. Perhaps it will work?
You’re just on the other side of that particular imagery, that’s all.
I have an airport on my lawn so I’d be doubly sensitive to this sort of display.
At least this time, white supremecists found a symbol for something that actually won something! That is better then they usually do.
It’s no different than kids getting stupid, offensive tattoos… except hats are easier to remove.
This is off-topic, but let’s not let ignorance go unfought. Che’s conscience and revolutionary nature were stoked by the brutal attacks against the Guatemalan people by the U.S.A. at the behest of the United Fruit Company.
Oh, come on. Most kids wore Che shirts because he wrote a fun book about road trips. Not all, but most.
For some reason people often approach me at airports with questions. I usually go out of my way to help. I’d love to be approached by a MAGA hat wearing person, so that I could smile and say, “fuck off” with impunity.
Making Airport Grouches Abusive
I’m guessing that most kids wear or wore Che shirts because it was a cool image and made them feel all rebellious, despite their knowledge of Che being limited to “he’s got his head on a t-shirt and something about Cuba”. Whereas I’m also guessing that kids wear MAGA hats because “it winds up liberal snowflakes”. I suspect only a minority of either had or have given a great deal of thought to any deeper sociopolitical ramifications of their chosen symbols.
To the OP: if your gripe is just the hats, and the wearers are not otherwise being obnoxious (or no more obnoxious than other airport denizens), I’d suggest ignoring them. If they’re trying to wind you up and you let them, they’ve won, and if they’re not, it’s still not worth getting wound up about. And if they are being obnoxious, gripe about that and not the hats.
I am sure they all have cell phones ready and charged. Can either go viral with getting accosted for wearing a red hat or shooting up a school. Considering the options I think their rout is more productive.
We can only hope that they will be routed, hopefully in 2020.
Do you actually call him that?
Hmm, I am of mixed minds on this. It is against the Flag Code (non-enforceable, but still a good guide for respect) to wear the flag as clothing.
So, in a way, they are disrespecting the rebel flag by doing so, but they are probably ignorant enough to think that they are promoting it. Wonder how they would feel if you pointed it out?
Most people don’t know who Che is. He is, if talked about at all in High School level history, a paragraph. When people first think of Che, they think of “Revolution!”, and who doesn’t like to be the rebel? With revolution, of course, inevitably comes violence, and people should be mindful of that. A touch of ignorance with some rebellious tendencies makes the image of Che attractive to impressionable youth.
There is not the same case for Hitler. There is little ignorance as to what he has done and is best known for. Che fails by a few orders of magnitude the damage that Hitler did.
Do you feel that these teens are wearing MAGA hats out of a misguided ideology?
I don’t think that I would, but I’d be tempted to out troll them.
“Yeah! MAGA! Let’s build that wall and keep those [depending on how committed you are, insert ethnic slur here]'s out. Shoot them in the head if they try to get in!”
I could go on, but channeling MAGAts hurts my brain. Just go to any Fox News story and write down some of the comments on an index card for reference if you ever need it.
Only on message boards, to differentiate him from #2 and #3 son. Or if I’m channeling Charlie Chan.
It’s against the Flag Code to wear a rebel flag as a bathing suit?
I feel that these teens are wearing it because they are stupid and hope people get mad and bitch about them, maybe on a message board.
I must admit my ignorance. When I was in college in those dark times before the internet, I didn’t know any details about Che. Not even that Che wasn’t his real name. So when my fellow liberal collegians had Che posters on their wall, or wore CCCP T shirts unironically, I didn’t really understand the deeper implications. All I know is Che looked cool in his jaunty beret and Jesus beard. (I did like the parody poster I saw once where he didn’t have his famous hat and he was totally MPB underneath.)
If I knew then what I know now, I’d have put up this poster, had it existed.
Maybe these kids aren’t any smarter than I was at their age. Who can say?
Ooh, that’s so META! And edgy! Wow, I have to go rethink my whole world view now.
The Onion used to sell a t-shirt featuring that iconic Che image. It was Che wearing a Che t-shirt.