• Tue, Oct 30 - 2:44 pm ET

Urban Outfitters Silently Removes Che Guevara Shirts Amid (Another) Controversy, Claims They ‘Sold Out’

Via NBC Latino

You know how kids at your high school used to own Che Guevara shirts and trucker hats, and you could tell they thought they were being cool, statement-making and edgy in the same way studded belts and Ramones patches seemed to work in middle school? Sadly, those kids will have to find their Che merchandise other than the depths of Urban Outfitters endless pseudo-political tee piles.

Apparently, UO decided to remove literally all their Guevara merchandise after some people complained that profiting on a shirt featuring a dictator who may have overseen hundreds of murders is probably not an okay thing to do. An open letter by Thor Halversson of Human Rights Foundation written to Urban Outfitters CEO Ted Marlow voiced concerns on what promoting Guevara’s image as a positive revolutionary means for their audiences.

As a nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense of human rights, we would like to bring your attention to Guevara’s bloody and anti-democratic legacy.

Although Guevara’s image has appeared on countless items for consumption over the last few decades as a symbol of change for the better, Guevara’s actual record is that of a brutal tyrant who suppressed individual freedom in Cuba and murdered those who challenged his worldview.

Oddly enough, just a few hours after posting the letter, Halversson was told that UO had ceased carrying at Che Guevara merchandise. Opting to find out for himself, he called a store to get a statement. Halversson told Huffington Post,  ”I got the single most bizarre phone call ever. They said that they had sold out of everything literally that day.”

Yes, there are people who genuinely believe in Guevara’s image, messages and what he stands/stood for. However, there are also quite a lot who feel that commercializing somebody they view as a murderer and dictator is not something anybody should condone, particularly when the majority of buyers are so young and, in general, often more easily influenced.

The majority of my qualms with this, though, come from the fact that UO is so obviously trying to stifle any form of backlash against their clothing by simply removing it as quickly as possible from the Internet and shelves, yet not wanting to admit guilt in any way, shape or form. To me, that’s not doing it right.

[via Huffpo]

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  • Holden

    Ugh. I’m so repulsed by this for two polarized reasons. Not so much the the obvious contradictions of a right-wing-led corporate retailer marketing towards a left-wing demographic, which is so cliched and predictable that I’m not the least bit surprsied anymore, but by these increasingly inane accusations that Che Guevara was essentially a Stalinist warlord who randomly killed thousands of people.

    I’ve read a lot about Che over the years and yes, he fought for the revolution, but he was hardly in charge of running Cuba after the fact. Fidel actually wanted him out of the limelight because of his overt Marxist-politics (the revolution had not yet gone Communist, and Fidel didn’t want the bad press) and he was put in charge of prosecuting the prisoners of war in the La Cabana Garrison. There were plenty of questionable executions that took place (particularly one instance where Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, killed about 70 captured soldiers seemingly at random) but at La Cabana, by best estimates, 55-100 people were executed, and bear in mind these were not ‘random dissenters’ but key members of a brutal dictatorship who commited war crimes and atrocities against the Cuban people under Batista. We live in a country where Governor Rick Perry brags about executing 234 people in texas and is met with a chorus of cheers from the American people. Why is the Human Rights Foundation not calling him a war criminal or a dictator? (And NO, Che was not a tyrant, or a dictator, because he was never in charge of Cuba or any other nation) Furthermore, the trials, while swift, were actually surprisingly detailed and fairly prosecuted.

    I’m quoting from Che: A Revolutionary Life, widely considered one of the most consumate and accurate bigoraphies written about him, according to Orlando Borrego, a tribunal president who actually worked under Che in La Cabana: “Our paramount concerns were to ensure that the sense of morality and justice prevailed, that no injustice was committed. In that, Che was very careful. Nobody was shot for hitting a prisoner, but if there was extreme torture and killings and death, then yes – they were condemned to death… The whole case was analyzed, all the witnesses were seen, and the relatives of the dead or tortured person came, or the tortured person himself, and in the tribunal, displaying his body, he would reveal all the tortures he recieved.” And from another officer, “In about one hundred days we carried out about fifty-five executions by firing squad, and we got a lot of flak for it, but we gave each case due and fair consideration and didnt come to our decisions lightly.”

    Would be nice if the prisoners in Guantanamo were entitled to this sort of judicial process? It was also reported Che pardoned as many people as he could, but further details are sketchy, so I’m out of quotes. Anyway, a few years later or so later, Che had a falling out with Fidel, which led to him taking off to the Congo, and later Bolivia where he ultimately was killed. Now I’m not an avid proponent of capital punishment, and there were probably some questionable deaths in the jungles during his battles (um, hello, Guerilla Warfare anyone?) but I still greatly admire the guy for tirelessly devoting himself to defending the disenfranchised and speaking out AGAINST injustices around the world. He was also a great speaker, an avid reader and intellectual who met with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de-Beauvoir, organized the cuban military academy where schooled the soldiers in civics, history, geography, economics, current affairs as well as organized “chess classes, an equestrian team, sports events, and arranged for art exhibits, concerts, and theater productions to be held at La Cabana.” Yes, theater productions. Hardly a labor camp where he “imprisoned the gays.” And believe it or not he was also a doting father who could be seen walking around the barracks holding his daughter Hildita’s hand.(I’ve seen pictures and its adorable.) Sure, he was hardly perfect, sure he had his faults and I certainly dont see eye to eye with all his views politically and respect those who don’t, (and I agree his image has no place in Urban Outfitters) but he was hardly the f-ing ‘genocidal tyrant’ everyone keeps making him out to be. For christsakes, people need to do some actual research. (Not you, Samantha)

    Whew. That was probably unneccesarily long. I get worked up some times. :p

    • Lastango

      Che was a butcher. You are either a fraud or a fool. I don’t much care which.

  • Alyssa

    I’m so done with Urban Outfitters and their faux alt-hipster facade. There have just been to many controversies that lead me to believe that the people running the place are just a bunch of ignorant pricks (The CEO is openly anti-gay just as a side note). Not to mention their clothes are horribly overpriced and are of extremely cheap quality.