Obama T-Shirts August 18, 2009

Walking into a Wal-Mart in any American small-town is a daunting experience, entirely uniform. As you approach across the parking-lot, heat radiates off the pavement hitting the underside of your chin. Looking around, you see people walking to and from their enormous cars, laden with countless shopping bags full of easy cheese, fishing line, televisions and cheap t-shirts. Upon reaching the entrance, there is a whoosh sound as the automatic doors part. And then the cold hits you. The penetrating refrigerated cold, exacerbated by the complete exclusion of any natural light and the hum of the deep freezers. The ceiling reaches up, cathedral like, higher than could possibly be needed. Ornamentation adorns only the packaging of the products and nothing of the vast utilitarian selling space. This is Mecca. This is home. Every two years or so, I go to visit my aunt and uncle in West Virginia, and we always go here.

It is hard to convey the degree to which Wal-Mart is the moral-mometer of American attitudes. A truly ubiquitous shopping experience, it sells anything and everything you can possibly need at rock-bottom prices. Being a giant corporation, Wal-Mart has its fair share of vocal opponents. But, the cheapness and breadth of its stock mean that at some point or other almost everyone shops at Wal-Mart. It is only natural then that Wal-Mart would seek to stock the most middle of the road products. Selling things that the majority of the nation want to buy. Seen like this, Wal-Mart is the ultimate mean of the most average American consumer.

This summer I made my bi-annual pilgrimage. We parked the Toyota truck and crossed the oceanic tarmac. I was most excited to repeat a success from previous years; buying presents for a few friends back in England; namely, semi-ironic t-shirts with American flags, eagles and inspiring patriotic slogans. Back in the good ole’ Bush II days of 2006, almost all of the t-shirts had conveyed unquestionably patriotic slogans of blind support for the internationally despised leader. The countless racks of shirts in patriotic base colours (navy blue, white and red) showed soaring eagles, flags blown elegantly by wind, and unmistakably American slogans ranging form ’support our troops’ to ‘the land of the brave’ ‘the best things in life are free: America!’

So it was with mixed feelings that I found this year to be ‘different’. When I found the now single rack selling patriotic shirts, I was at first greatly annoyed. Where are the damn shirts? Its nearly the fourth of July! what will people wear? After over-reacting by cursing to myself in the isle, I realized I was thinking something else. Relief. The lack of these worryingly patriotic shirts suggested that the America of Wal-Mart had moved on. The Bush days of unthinking militancy and Americo-centrism, where more sober if not over. Yes, America still thinks it is the centre of the world, and there are flags everywhere. Its just that now, they are not as big.

With a heavy-heart I manage to buy only one shirt worthy of trans-Atlantic transport, and helped my aunt back to the car with what can only be described as American sized quantities of food to be deep frozen at eaten the next summer I return.

A week, later and I was in the airport, ready to go home, mildly distraught at having failed to make the acquisitions many of my friends depended on. I sat in the departure gate reading, dejected. However, there was to be a wonderful surprise. A t-shirt stall, selling one type of t-shirt: the Obama shirt. All shapes, colours and sizes. Obama, with that toothy smile. Promptly, I bought five.

The phrase “heart on sleeve” is perhaps more literal than we give credit. An American’s heart is most usually worn on his chest. On a grey fruit of the loom xxl crew neck, sometimes tucked in. For me, it is really hard to gauge how my home country feels about itself now, loosing wars, in a financial mess and what not. But, it seems that something has changed. If Obama has done nothing, he has replaced the adornment of many American’s t-shirts; making them less aggressive and confrontational. Now, instead of militant slogans and bald eagles that seem to put off the rest of the world, I get to wear shirts with cheesy smiles and presidential motifs. There is hope after all.