Atrios writes, we respond:

Atrios makes the following comments in a recent post:

Celebrate Diversity

oy. I've been trying to figure out how to write this post for a couple of hours. I want to make clear that this isn't a shot at instapundit, cheap or otherwise, but something I think it's necessary to point out. I'm no fan of the guy, and think he's quite frequently been the transmitter of some truly hateful ideas (blaming the victims of genocide, for one), but in this case I think he's just clueless.

In the previous post someone linked to a conservative t-shirt seller, proudly featuring Reynolds wearing this T-shirt. Now, Glenn's a gun fan and I imagine he's just celebrating the joys of guns, or whatever, but this shirt is no joke. There's a serious subtext here which is totally obvious to me that I think should be pointed out. Now, I don't think everyone who has purchased a shirt like this has purchased it with the subtext in mind, but nonetheless the message is clear.

The caption is "celebrate diversity." The colors of the caption are commonly used pan-African colors: red, yellow, and green. While, for many, the "joke" (though, I'm not sure why it's funny) is that here diversity is a diversity of guns. Ha ha. But, look, the clear message here is that the way to celebrate diversity, particularly that pan-African diversity, is to buy a bunch of fucking guns. In other words, celebrate diversity by arming yourself.

oy.

We say, what can you do except laugh at the guy? Here, for your amusement, we make fun of the esteemed Professor Reynolds as he celebrates sartorial diversity:



NOTE: We wanted a few more images representing diversity but time was limited and so we only have a triptych at the moment.

UPDATE: Steve Gilliard has lots to say about the shirt and Reynold's wearing of it: (emph add)

• I think Glenn Reynolds is either the most clueless law professor at the University of Tennessee or the kind of sick racist who doesn't have the balls to wear a Klan robe or burn a cross.
• I mean, where does he keep this shirt, next to his Wehrmacht World Tour and Hitler: No More Mister Nice Guy shirts.

So our joke image was congruent with Gilliard's thinking. Quite a coincidence. (We didn't see his post until we finished ours.)

posted by Quiddity at 8/04/2004 03:06:00 AM