Bros before ...

Rakes? Lawn mowers? Wait ... wait ... it's on the tip of my tongue.

Published May 8, 2007 5:21AM (EDT)

So there's lots of depressing stuff going on in the world right now, but here's something that's just plain silly: This political T-shirt, supposedly supporting Barack Obama, that boasts the slogan "Bros Before Hoes." Get it? Because there's, like, a picture of Hillary Clinton above the "hoes" part?

You could argue that it's sexist; you could argue that there's some sort of veiled racism in the "bros" part -- but that seems like a bit of an overreaction. What gets me personally about this T-shirt is the bad spelling. Has Don Imus taught us nothing? Sure, the Los Angeles Times uses "hoes," but according to the Associated Press (as discussed on NewsBusters), the plural of "ho" is "hos." (The article is accompanied by a Fox News graphic titled "Whore-ible Spelling.") Regardless of your take on the T-shirt, though, we all have to agree on one point: It makes it seem that Obama's running against a politically adept gardening tool.

Our suggestion: Skip the political world altogether and go nerdy. Busted Tees offers the bard variety, featuring a cartoon of William Shakespeare over the words "Prose Before Hos," which I find much wittier than the Obama version. Still not so nice to the ladies, but at least it follows the AP stylebook.


By Catherine Price

Catherine Price is an award-winning journalist and author of Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We Think About Food. Her written and multimedia work has appeared in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, O: The Oprah Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Mother Jones, PARADE, Health Magazine, and Outside. Price lives in Philadelphia.

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