Bomani Jones has spent his morning co-hosting ESPN’s Mike & Mike in place of Mike Golic, and he has been trending on Twitter as a result of it. But it’s not because of anything that Jones—the host of ESPN’s The Right Time—actually said during the show. Instead, it’s because of the T-shirt that he chose to wear during his Mike & Mike appearance. Here it is:
The shirt—which, according to a Hardball Talk story, was created by a company called Shelf Life Clothing almost a decade ago and is a hot seller on Canadian Indian reservations—is designed to look like a Cleveland Indians shirt...except that it features the word “Caucasians” in place of the word “Indians” and a caricature of a white person in place of the Indians’ mascot Chief Wahoo. It also has a dollar sign in place of Chief Wahoo’s feather.
While speaking with First Take host Molly Qerim about the shirt on Mike & Mike, Jones joked that he decided to wear the shirt because “it was clean.” But obviously, he did it for a bigger reason than just that. Jones has been vocal about the Indians’ continued use of Chief Wahoo on his show, and on Mike & Mike, he said that there’s “no defense” for the Indians using Chief Wahoo as a mascot on their official merchandise at this point.
Obviously, all of this got a big reaction on Twitter. Some people called Jones out for wearing the shirt:
Others supported his decision to wear the shirt (and we should point out that, at first glance, there were way more people who loved the shirt than hated it):
And at one point, Jones himself even took to Twitter to respond to the controversy his shirt caused. When someone directed this tweet to him:
He shot back with this to soldify his point:
But the overwhelming response to Jones wearing the shirt has actually been “Where can I get that shirt?!”
If you can still get one (there are a lot of people looking for it right now!), you can buy it here. You should also go and check out the feature we ran on Bomani a few months back here while you wait for your shirt to arrive.
Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com.
[via Sporting News]
