This charity shirt sends the opposite message of Melania’s jacket

By Joe Berkowitz

What: A shirt that shows how much you care.

Who: Upworthy and Good.

Why we care: The other day, I wrote about the concept of virtue-signaling. It’s something that people tend to accuse their ideological opposites of doing when loudly denouncing some form of injustice. Those who use the term tend to be incapable of empathy themselves and so assume anyone else’s empathetic gesture must be feigned. On Friday morning, Upworthy and Good teamed up to give folks a chance to make an empathetic gesture through fashion. It’s basically Virtue Signal: The Shirt, and it’s inspired by Melania Trump’s recent gesture of apathy.

As you likely recall, the First Lady traveled to the Southern border on Thursday wearing a $39 Zara jacket that read “I really don’t care, do you?” Although Melania’s spokeswoman denied there was any meaning to the jacket, her husband, the actual president, tweeted that the jacket referred to the Fake News Media, an all-purpose insult for any publication that employs fact-checkers. Whatever the jacket was intended to mean is irrelevant. As is the certainty that people like then-game show host Donald Trump would have crucified Michelle Obama for making such a poor fashion choice in a similar situation. What does matter is that Upworthy and Good have repurposed the jacket’s slogan into a shirt that reads “I really do care, don’t you?” and all proceeds from the shirt go to the charity United We Dream, an organization that fights for immigrant rights. And that my friends, is how you turn apathy lemons into empathy lemonade.

Have a look at the shirt below.

 
 

 

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