Asian girl, thanks for your rant - if you read any of my comments, you would see I'm totally open to others' dissenting opinions. I'm not saying that you or people who disagree with me are racist, semi-racist, etc. - these are just opinions, not Gospel. Some people feel shirts like this are empowering or cute or whatever. That's fine. I'm just not a fan.

And of course I walked into a mall and bought clothes I thought were cool - it's just disturbing (TO ME) to think that fetishization is being commoditized to the masses.

just to be clear, 50% of gothamist was born in the city, grew up in brooklyn well before it was cool, went to high school in the city, went to college in the city, and lives in the city presently.

Dammit. Where is my "Everybody Loves an Asian Jewish Girl" t-shirt? I feel so marginalized for not being, uh, marginalized by Urban Outfitters.

I think they are all dumb and silly - others may disagree, but I was struck by the Asian shirt because that's the first one I saw. Then I realized there were others and felt that they were lame as well.

I still don't see the difference between this shirt and the other ones mentioned ("Jewish Girl", "Italian Girl", etc).

Or are you guys saying that they're all dumb and silly - or just this one?

The icky creepy guy can do what he wants. The protests are aimed at

1. the guys in charge of the company and

2.the non creeps, who might think these shirts are cool because they have no idea that these shirts might be offensive to someone else.

People make choices all the time based on what's civil, what's rude, what's offensive. Even most free thinkers. Seriously, unless you live under a bridge or in the woods, you make those choices every day. Can't really function in society very well without making those choices. Anyone who lives in this crowded city who claims that they say what they want when they want to whomever they want and survives more than a couple of days is full of it.

Protesting these shirts is one way to inform people that may not have much direct intimate contact with people who don't look exactly like them that they may want to take this other perspective into account when deciding if they will wear thses shirts. The protests really are directed in large part at the civil people who do take others feelings into account in most situations but may be clueless in this situation. Again, though, I am not suggsting these shirts be banned. Actually, after a couple of protest, the shirts might be a good way of identifyinghte loser-creeps in our midst, then again, though they maynot realize it,they are already pretty easy to spot.

honey, that's a great point. And there have been many great points on both sides, but I want to remind everyone to try to stay on topic. The debate is great and getting upset at what I/Gothamist feel about the shirt is totally valid and we love your feedback. But the personal attacks/questions are out-of-line. I want to put a quick end to them, so here goes: Yes, I'm from NJ, and I do consider myself a NYer; does that mean American citizens not born in the U.S. aren't American? Just asking. Gothamist is produced by a Asians AND Jews. Just because there's a lot fetishes and exploitation out there, it doesn't mean we have to sit back at every time. I, as an Asian woman, was offended by this shirt. I understand that some people weren't, and appreciate their comments why it isn't. Oh, and if having an Asian boyfriend would make me pro-Asian, I assume that eating Asian food at all meals, watching Asian programming, going to Asia for my vacations, voting only for Asians (hey - I won't be voting at all) would go with it. And then what about my half-Asian relatives and friends - can they only marry half-Asians as well, since they apparently can't be pro-Asian? I'm not buying that logic at all.

'Gay or Guido' was also details- they do one every month

i think in certain situations worn by certain people, those shirts would be amusing.

This speaks volumes. Only pre-approved people can say pre-approved things. Thanks Ms. arbiter of taste and propriety. It'd break my fat old heart if you disapproved.

Peel back the mask on a free-thinker and see the fundamentalist control freak underneath.

I just noticed how much caterwauling about "offensiveness" comes from girls complaining about "creepy," and "icky" guys. Get outta high school. You have to share the world with us "icky" folk. Get over it.

I just wonder how some young, say, 15 y-o asian girl would feel being in an elevator with some guy wearing that shirt. Or what if her science teacher wore that thing? Pretty creepy. Heck, I'm 33 and would be creeped out by a guy wearing the Latina version. Well, unless it was my Southern Baptist -raised white husband--but I might tell him to wear it only at home. And never in front of my mother. i think in certain situations worn by certain people, those shirts would be amusing. The problem is those shirts are being pushed to everyone and those of us who know the whole scary stalking thing up close from personal experience or through what friends have gone to, these shirts just seem to make that seem acceptable and so why not protest because of the effect they may have on some creeps. THey shouldn't be banned, but the makers and sellers probably have no idea of the the subtext some of us see in those shirts and the top guy inthe company who approved thse probably doesn't have a sister or daughter or other loved one who might feel really creeped out by seeing a bunch of random guys inthose shirts.

Well, I'm afraid I just can't comment. I'm a white male and my relatives came to this country as far back as 350 years ago. I can't poke fun at any minorities. I can't even have fun with racial stereotypes. In the minds of minorities and "progressive" whites I represent evil corporate America. I'm barely allowed an opinion in these matters, unless I'm a college professor offering an academic viewpoint on race. I'm a white guy with roots in colonial America. I guess I'll go back to my fascist corporate America white collar job now.

what is really amusing is that this is all appearing on perhaps the most cliche of all "New York" blogs out there.

Come on. You've got it all. This may as well be the UWS. It's produced by Asians who are obsessed with Jews (strangely even 70-ish Jewish actors) and trying to fit in and be all "New Yorkie" when the writer is from New Jersey. I wonder if this Chung girl is so "pro-Asian" that she actually has an Asian boyfriend. Doubt it.

It's all a bunch of cliches and exploitation and fetishes out there. Give it up people.

Speaking as a white dad to two asian daughters, one of whom had to go through the whole asian fetish stalker problem as a college student, I'm of two minds on this kind of shirt.

On one hand, I want to encourage a positive self-image in my daughters. I identify with the sentiment and I don't get a sexual connotation when I read it. I can think of a lot more offensive ways to fill in the blank: "Everyone _____s an asian girl." Would it be better is it said "Everyone is in awe of an asian woman"? or "You'd better respect an asian woman or she'll kick your ass"?

On the other hand, I'm not sure I fully appreciate the fetishist issue and its effect on asian women. I hear about fetishist complaints, but I also hear "Asians are invisible" complaints. It seems to me that one side effect of getting attention is getting undesired attention.

I rememv=ber that a few months back Esquire did a simimilar thing called "Gay or Guido," but I don't recall the same faux-outrage anywhere. Maybe it's because so-called "Guidos" are a group Gothamist readers consider themselves superior to.

But they also consider themselves superior to the "suburban kids" who shop at Urban Outfitters, because they (Gothamist readers) are hip city dwellers. Yet they look down on the "guidos," who are actual natives of the city.

Ironies abound. It makes my head hurt. Or it would if I hadn't thought of one thing. The urban hipster is generally speaking someone who thought himself a misunderstood outcast in his home enviornment, so he left for the city, where he finds all the other poor misunderstood souls and they all get together and refashion the city in their own image. And create a mini-society as snobbish and exclusionary as the one that excluded them, with their own set of outcasts: "guidos" "fratboys" "suburban kids" "rednecks" etc. I'm not a member of any of those groups, nor do I deny that they probably do the same things, but those groups don't present themselves to the world as paragons of liberated free-thinking.

I've never thought of Asian girls as subservient. Hmmm. Am I the only one?

vote with your wallet...end of story

The issue I see, and perhaps I'm mixing up misogyny and racism, is that there are some dangerous subtexts to how Asian women are seen - certainly this goes for other races, but as an Asian women, I did feel the shirt was a little out of line. "Everyone loves an Asian Girl" seems to open up the can of worms "because they are subservient lotus blossoms and they are exotic." I don't know, I personally didn't find the shirts THAT clever - it's fine if all of you did.

And I've felt tiny factory's "I'm not North Korean" was more a tweak to people who assume that if someone is Asian, they are Chinese or North Korean, as in "Communist" and "bad." The purview is admittedly different if the creator is Asian, though.

Yes, I was a suburban kid. I just shudder to think that kids will see this and be really excited that this is what edgy fashion should be. That Urban Outfitters positions itself as the harbinger of what's cool, weathered, thrift store style t-shirts with less than clever bromides selling for $20+. Abercrombie and Fitch bothers me in the same way.

There's no easy middle ground, damning and loving corporations in the same breath. But I can be as horrified by what a small company (anyone remember Ghettopoly) or a big corporation does as well as love what a small and big companies do. It *is* a matter of being better educated about things, but it's hard to know at what cost. Certainly, there are things in my life I don't want to give up that are corporation-created.

Someone please explain to me how those "Everybody Loves..." t-shirts are racist. I think that shirt would look hot on an Asian girl.

Several thoughts came to mind as I read this thread...

1."But the "Everybody Loves..." line of shirts... just wants us to make one that says, "Fuck Urban Outfitters, I'll Just Go To The Salvation Army While We Leave These to the Suburban Kids,"

Wasn't Gothamist a suburban kid once? Don't many of Gothamist's readers, non-native New Yorkers themselves, hail from the suburbs? Gothamist's elitist phrasing strikes me as a case of "I wouldn't want to be a member of a club that could claim me as a member"...

2. What's with the corporation bashing? Look at yourselves, readers. The computer on which you read Gothamist was manufactured and marketed by a corporation. As was the DVD player and iPod you enjoy. And virtually all of the output of pop culture---"Law & Order", MLB, movies---that Gothamist chronicles.

I imagine that many of Gothamist's contributors and readers are children of privilege. That's why these anti-suburban, anti-corporate comments strike me as classist and hypocritical.