Take off the Pretty Shirt Day
April 30, 2004
Cheerfully dressed in my Fuck STARR t-shirt, I walked around the school before yesterday’s WLUSU board of directors meeting smiling wildly. Craig appreciated my sense of style.
“You incendiary bastard!” he said.
“I’m merely a vessel for student dissatisfaction,” I protested. “My job is to voice student concerns.”
And because some students are angry enough to demand change in the STARR system, I shamelessly waltzed into the board room at 5 o’clock and grinned pleasantly at president-elect Steve Welker. Steve had a murderous look in his eyes, and his anger must have been contagious because as soon as the meeting started Anthony, the VP University Affairs, demanded I take off my shirt. He mumbled something about the decorum of the meeting.
“You should’ve told Anthony to shut the fuck up,” Stirling suggested later.
However, it was rather hot in the boardroom and for a moment I thought Anthony simply wanted to see my chest hair, so I didn’t tell him to shut up. Instead, I pulled off my shirt without hesitation even before he finished his sentence. It felt good to be shirtless in that hot room, with all those uneasy eyes watching me. To ease the awkwardness, Anthony gave me another shirt that read “without u Union is just nion.”
Surprised, I blushed as I put on my new shirt — he just rewarded my undesirable behaviour as though he wanted me to do it again. But his act of replacing the writing on my shirt with Union sanctioned writing was problematic. He took a valid student concern and replaced it with a senseless phrase (what the hell is nion, anyway?), essentially silencing dissent in the name of decorum and uniformity.
Anthony seems to enjoy his role as the Enforcer of corporate order as much as I enjoy my role as the disruptor of that order. That’s why I have to find out exactly how my shirt violated the decorum of the meeting. Is the word “fuck” too vulgar to put on a shirt? Are university students so easily offended? Or is the idea expressed too dangerous to be brought to the BoD?
This calls for further experiments with pretty shirts. Let’s all write obscenities on our shirts and waltz into the boardroom together!
Posted by Tudor at 10:59 AM in Politics | TrackBackWhile “fuck starr” is somewhat offensive, if I had’ve been at the meeting I would have counselled you to ask for a vote to compel you to remove it. The shirt contains an obscenity, and is therefore inappropriate for the boardroom, but the motion would have been in the minutes, and it would have been seen as more of a protest. Also, you should have refused to replace your shirt and instead spent the rest of the meeting topless in, yet again, protest.
However, I’m not too convinced that the protest was warranted, as the results of the investigation into STARR has yet to be completed. If you really want to wear a shirt like that you could, to avoid the whole obscenity argument, replace ‘fuck starr’ with the ever-nerdy ‘fsck /dev/starr” (or something to that effect) or alternately with a softer version of ‘fuck starr’, like ‘I don’t like STARR” or “RRATS to STARR”. That way, you would get your point across and objectors wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.
Posted by: Craig on April 30, 2004 at 03:05 PMTopless? But I love my Nion is Nion shirt — I re-decorated it this morning. I do see your point about the obscenity, and your suggestions are so good I’ll have to take them and implement them for the next board meeting.
However, I wasn’t acting as a protester this Thursday — I was acting as a director who has an obligation to express the displeasure felt by some WLUSU volunteers. I feel that it’s valid to express the anger some volunteers feel despite the fact that the review of STARR is not yet complete.
Posted by: Tudor on April 30, 2004 at 03:36 PMMaking statements during question period would be representing students. An incendiary t-shirt is a protest (whether on behalf of students or yourself), that’s all I was trying to say.
I personally like the “RRATS to STARR” idea.
Do you have a picture of the redecorated shirt?
Posted by: Craig on April 30, 2004 at 04:44 PMI simply saw the t-shirt as an extension of statements I made here, here, and here — if I was there to protest I would have taken things much further (as you suggested in your first post). I don’t think that the only way to represent the students is by bringing up concerns during question period — there are other (better?) ways of making the concerns known.
As for the re-decorated “nion is just nion” shirt, it looks something like this:
Good god, I feel I’m becoming an objectivist: A is A; nion is nion.
Posted by: Tudor on April 30, 2004 at 05:59 PMI loved that slogan, now I love it more.
Everyone loves Tautologies!
Posted by: fk on April 30, 2004 at 06:59 PMKcuf STARR?
Would that work?
Or maybe just one of those shirts with a cartoon bikini clad body,
or get a NO MA’AM shirt, that’d rock
Posted by: Infernus on April 30, 2004 at 10:49 PMI think it was the language that was innappropriate, which is a stretch since I use the word fuck like some people use “the”. I really liked your idea (was this your idea, I don’t remember.) of playing off those stupid “fcuk” shirts, so it’s twisting current branding to make a statement. “Fcuk STARR” is a wee bit more acceptable, though equally antagonistic.
RRATS to STARR!!!! That’s bloody brilliant, Craig! So clever.
Posted by: Alysia on May 01, 2004 at 01:15 PMEnglish majors do swear like fucking sailors! I’m full of profanity too, and that’s why I don’t think that seeing the word fuck on a t-shirt is such a big deal (it’s not even that antagonistic from where I’m standing — some things deserve a good fucking).
Posted by: Tudor on May 02, 2004 at 01:18 AMWithout U, the Union is more powerful. We are the Union. Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Your distinctiveness will be joined to our own.
Tudor, you’re a regular 7 of 9.
Posted by: Jason on May 03, 2004 at 12:08 AM