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R.I.P Shirts
"R.I.P. shirts are becoming really common and an urban tradition."
By Amy Saechao
Nowadays, you can’t walk around East Oakland and other areas without seeing at least one person with an airbrushed shirt on. What are on the airbrushed shirts? Some are what people would call “hood” shirts, displaying the name of a certain turf or phrase, but most shirts are R.I.P., otherwise known as rest in peace or “I miss you” shirts.
R.I.P. shirts are becoming really common and an urban tradition. They’re found mostly in places where there are high homicide rates. Known widely in Oakland, airbrushed shirts are almost like a requirement. When someone passes, it’s almost like it’s an expectation for family members and friends to order up to twenty R.I.P. shirts, hoodies, or pants in recognition of the deceased.
It’s almost like a funeral because, when someone dies, a funeral is usually held. In this case, when someone dies, a type of clothing is ordered and worn. The shirts are a form or art, expressing love for the dead and making sure they won’t be forgotten. However, I feel that they are just too common.
For school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I intern at an airbrush site called Mix It Up. Learning everything is cool and the mentors are also cool, but I’ve noticed that almost all the customers come in to order R.I.P. or “I miss you” shirts and hoodies.
It’s really sad because the many R.I.P. shirts being ordered represent all the people dying and the “I miss you” shirts also represent either deaths, or affection towards people who are locked up in jail. I remember reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about R.I.P. shirts that included Mix It Up, and seeing that there was an order for a R.I.P. shirt for a little two-year-old girl who died because her mother’s boyfriend killed her when she didn’t give him the PlayStation.
I don’t have any problems with the shirts at all. I think they are beautiful and outspoken. It’s just what they stand for that bothers me. You wouldn’t even be able to count all the owners of different shirts in Oakland alone because there are so many. One of those reasons is because the area has such a high homicide rate.
The shirts are now widely known and highly common. R.I.P. shirts are becoming very popular within the Bay Area, and its popularity is now spreading out of the state. The whole situation is just so sad.
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