it's just a t-shirt

Title: Controversial Compton Shirts

Source: Huffington Post

Author:  Alexis Kleinman

Article date: 9/25/13

What? Forever 21, has made shirts that say Compton, and N.W.A (which is a famous rap group from Compton) and a lot of people were upset. Many took to twitter and were outraged not only at the exploitation (?) of Compton but the fact that the models sporting the shirts were skinny white girls. One person even said that a skinny white girl would know what N.W.A was. But all misplaced anger aside, the uproar worked. Forever 21 pulled the line. Losing money and needing to replace a line will cost forever 21 greatly.

Quotes:

·      “A quick google search for "Forever 21 Compton tee" leads to a page on the store's website that reads "We're sorry. This item is no longer available." The same thing happens if you search for "Forever 21 NWA tee."

·      From Twitter:

“got the three skinniest, whitest looking models they could find and dressed them up in NWA shirts. WTF”

“They didn’t even use a black model"

“these little teenage white chick’s have no idea what NWA is.”

Argument:

Its “cultural appropriation.” Pull the line V.S who cares, it’s just a city, just a music group.

This relates to economics because consumer is king. All these people who supposedly shop at forever 21 were upset so forever 21 listened and pulled the Compton line. The people voted with their money for the product to be removed so it was.

This will also affect forever 21’s budget. By spending money on design and production and making none back from consumers they are losing large amounts of capital. Perhaps future production will suffer.

 Personally I feel that it shouldn’t matter. I mean I understand why forever 21 pulled the line – they want to be on the good side of media etc, but it’s equally as wrong to be upset that the clothes were on white models as it is to exploit a culture. I feel that forever 21 did what it had to, but the whole thing is just kind of stupid. Like what’s the big deal really? Maybe it’s a good thing; maybe it will actually spread the word of Compton. Couldn’t Compton use good publicity after so much negative?

*** Also, Mrs. Boettcher please check your email, I emailed you about some grade issues. ***