Originally Posted by
PresRDC
Except that the very people who are most likely to react negatively to the t-shirt are the same people who are most unlikely to understand what it says. In other words, what causes them to react is not what it says, but the fact that it is in Arabic.
"We will not be silent" is not a comforting phrase in ANY language. It's sending a message that the person/party advertising that slogan on their shirt is upset with something and want everyone else to see that message. Whatever the phrase is referring to (and quite frankly, I don't know and I don't care), it's ok for it to be on a shirt...but it's very poor judgement to wear that shirt in an airport. The fact that it's in Arabic does NOT get to me, as I have said before. I know the difference between hard-working, innocent Arabic people such as this man and the radical terrorists. Just because these two unqiue types share a similar language does not give me or anyone the right to identify all Arabs as terrorists.
Understanding what it says is NOT the responsibility of all the other people. It's a shirt that was obviously created with VERY little information to share with others in mind. It's a very "insider" shirt, in that it does not say what exactly they will not be silent about.