That time I helped sell racist T-shirts at a street festival

I’ve told this story here before, but it was many years ago and I can’t find that post. Also, I’m old now, and repeating stories is an old person’s prerogative. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this story lately as a thing that worked — a limited, particular, and accidental, but still somewhat successful attempt to harness public sentiment against the same kind of hateful ideology that has, in the decades since then, reshaped American politics and religion. So I want to return to this story, later, to think about what actually happened here and what was and wasn’t accomplished and how or why it “worked.” For now, though, here’s the story …

This happened on my first day in a new apartment and a new town. I had just moved out to Media, Pennsylvania, and was still getting all my stuff settled into a small apartment above a shop on State Street. That’s the main business street in the center of town, and it’s got a real Main Street USA atmosphere. The old armory across the street from my apartment hadn’t yet been turned into a Trader Joe’s, but there was still a supermarket within walking distance, and a half-dozen coffee shops, four pizza places, and more restaurants and bars than I’d manage to visit over the next 15 years of living there.

I loved that neighborhood. It was lively, and friendly, and inviting, and diverse. And the very first morning I woke up in that apartment I stepped out my front door and into a street festival. The trolley line was shut down for the day and vendors’ tents lined the street for blocks in either direction. All the businesses there in downtown had set up tables in front of their restaurants and shops. It was a terrific introduction to my new home — a chance to browse every shop and gallery on the street while casually sampling a slice from each of those pizzerias and figuring out which was going to be my new go-to place,

It was just about a perfect day … up until I got to the row of vendors set up just east of the old theater. One tent was a boardwalk-style T-shirt seller with a mostly typical array of that stuff, a lot of it leaning heavily into jingoistic patriotic schlock — star-spangled eagles and “These colors don’t run” type stuff plus a lot of 1990s NRA slogans. But some of what this vendor had on display was just straight-up racist. His “The South Will Rise Again” T-shirts might have been open to other interpretations if he hadn’t stacked them next to his “White Pride” T-shirts.

I had been having such a good day and just loving the vibe of my new neighborhood and then this guy had to come along.

So I picked up one of his “White Pride” T-shirts and said to the guy, “You know, Media loves to call itself ‘Everybody’s Hometown,’ a place where everybody is supposed to be welcome. And so, my friend, do you think maybe you could put these shirts back in the box while you’re here?”

That “my friend” just kind of popped out because his tent was set up right in front of the Media Theater, which hosts touring companies of hit musicals and old standards. My friends’ mom had gone to see The Music Man there, and so part of what popped into my head when I saw this vendor’s nasty shirts was “We’ve got trouble right here in River City” and that had me talking like Robert Preston.

Anyway, I was trying to be as polite as possible, to offer this guy a suggestion or a request while keeping things as friendly as I could.

But that was not how he responded. He immediately escalated, jumping to his feet and getting up in my face like Earl Weaver going after an umpire, shouting at the top of his voice: “Fuck you! You think you can come into my fucking tent and tell me how to run my fucking business? This is America and I can fucking sell whatever I fucking want! Fuck you! What’re you gonna do about it?”

And somehow his red-faced anger pushed me completely over into Prof. Harold Hill mode. I smiled my biggest smile and said, “What am I going to do about it? My good man, I’m going to help you.”

I stepped out in front of his little tent and started shouting like a carnival barker: “Raaaaacist T-shirts! Step right up and get your raaaaacist T-shirts. Come get your racist T-shirts from the racist man!”

I was throwing in every sales-pitch cliché I could think of from TV commercials to Tom Waits lyrics, babbling near-nonsense at the top of my lungs: “Step right up! Be the first on your block to be be the worst on your block in your brand new racist T-shirt!” Or, “What good is it to go around hating everybody, being pants-wetting scared of everybody, if nobody knows? Say it loud and say it proud with your racist T-shirt!”

This started to draw a small crowd, and I welcomed them into the bit: “You sir! You look like you’re an intelligent man and a decent human being … well move along, buddy! There’s nothing for people like you here, we’re selling racist T-shirts. You, ma’am. Did your Mama raise you right? Well then move along! We’re just looking for raaaaaacist people to buy our raaaaacist T-shirts.

I tried to get the vendor himself involved, but he wasn’t having it. “$15 is a bargain, ladies and gentlemen, a bargain! That barely covers the cost of our top-quality, 100-percent cotton …” I turned to ask him. “Are these 100% cotton?” He’s fuming and shouting furiously into his cellphone, so he doesn’t answer. I turned back to the crowd, “These top-quality, 100% cotton/poly blend T-shirts. You pay for the materials, we provide the racism absolutely free as our gift to you!”

This went on for about 15 minutes. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but it felt like a very long time. It’s more than two “Hotel Californias,” if you think about it. And, trust me, 15 minutes of some guy enthusiastically promoting “raaaaaacist T-shirts” at the top of his lungs in the middle of a street festival is actually a very long time indeed.

Fortunately just as I was starting to lose my voice, the cops arrived.

That’s apparently who the vendor had been calling on his phone. Happily for me, he had spoken to the police with the same spittle-flecked, profane fury that he’d greeted me with, so they’d already just about had it with that guy before they even arrived on the scene. He was screaming at them to arrest me as they walked up, so I grabbed a soda and took a little set break as he walked off with the officers for an animated, hand-waving conversation in which he kept pointing over at me angrily.

Eventually one of the cops then comes over my way and waves me to follow him away from the crowd. “Look,” he says, “this guy agreed to put those shirts away and not sell that stuff here as long as we get you to promise to leave him alone. You OK with that?”

I was OK with that.

But I had another question for the local police.

“I like Pinocchio’s,” he said. “Little Anthony’s for ‘steaks.”

He was so right about the ‘steaks at Little Anthony’s. If you’re ever in Everybody’s Hometown, give ’em a try.