A couple of years ago, I went on a weekend thing with my wife, her sister and her sister’s son.
Nice kid, art major, but like many kids, kind of clueless about certain things. We were going out to eat one night, and he comes down wearing a Che shirt.
We had the following conversation:
ME: “Do you know who that guy is on your shirt?”
NEPHEW: “Ummm...he’s a revolutionary guy?”
ME: “Yeah. Do you know what kind of “revolutionary guy”?”
NEPHEW: Umm...no.
ME: “It was his job to have people who disagreed with Castro dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their families, and then the families were sometimes murdered. This guy was the one who did it.”
NEPHEW: “Um...I just kind of like the shirt.”
ME: “Ah.”
My wife didn’t give me the evil eye because she understood my point, but I am the mean conservative in my wife’s family. My mother-in-law used to goad me once in a while (she is EXTREMELY liberal) but when I made it known that I would express my views regardless of the company, she stopped.
I don’t talk politics around people whose politics I am unsure of because I do believe it is rude to do so, but if someone brings it up first, I’m not going to just sit there.
It is kind of funny, my two nephews who are both freshmen in college...uber liberals that they are, understand that if you want to swim in the water with sharks, you gotta have the gear to survive, so they only test me obliquely...:) I am not mean or nasty, but I make sure they hear the side their professors aren’t going to give them. If they ask. And I am prepared to back it up with facts, which they can understand.
Well said.
Cameron Diaz wore one of these shirts in South America on one of her Hollywood Tours : she got ripped by the locals who know the real Che deal from personal experiences...
She was shocked !
She no longer wore the shirt in South America.