When a T-shirt is not just a T-shirt

By MARGARET McMULLAN
Guest Columnist

Editor’s note: While Scaramouch columnist Scott Saalman awaits his Kamala Harris T-shirt, his writer friend, award-winning novelist and former Hoosier resident Margaret McMullan, serves as guest opinion writer today. Reprinted with permission from The Mississippi Independent. Thanks, Alan Huffman.

I start my loops around the airport. Walking in various public spaces wearing a “Kamala Harris for President 2024” T-shirt has become my favorite form of casual election canvassing.

I am a white woman of a certain age who doesn’t often sport a T-shirt and jeans, but today I feel like a rock star. Young people who might otherwise have ignored me nod and say, “Nice shirt!” Some reach out for a fist bump. A few want to stop and chat.

A middle-aged man shakes his head as I walk past. That’s OK. I’ve grown accustomed to occasional dismissals, concerned looks and grimaces while wearing my T-shirt in the wild, especially in states where many voters choose the opposite side.

My one-person parade is an effort to both state my personal views for public consumption and to gage the zeitgeist in these fraught political times. It’s a new approach for someone who has long held her tongue in her home state, Mississippi, which is overwhelmingly red – something that I am not.

One old guy sitting on an electric scooter at a local Walmart actually booed me after he noticed my T-shirt.

My views are legible on my chest for all the world to see. Those views do not, however, represent a chip on my shoulder.

The elderly man’s opinion is actually audible and seems to originate from a dark space that I do not particularly want to visit. Yet, here we are. I try not to take it personally. As it turns out, he is not down with talking. A childish boo is all he’s willing to muster.

I am a big believer in political debate. We all see the world differently. That is one reason I’m wearing my T-shirt – to prompt conversations.

For the past four years I’ve been surrounded by neighbors with decidedly different political views who tend to vehemently decry the current administration (which, big surprise, I support). They tend to respond angrily to differing political views. It has occurred to me that it must be tiring to be so angry all the time.

But now, I feel a sense of hope, and after holding my tongue for years, I want to engage. I want to live in a country where we look after each other, where we talk things through, where we don’t boo each other at Walmart.

For a while, I was angry, too. I even bought a T-shirt that belittled the chosen symbols of the opposing side by explicitly stating: “Your Trump flag is stupid.” But I never wore that shirt because: why be mean? It’s also not the best way to start a conversation.

Wearing a political T-shirt in the current environment can be an act of courage. How strange is that? Some people may enjoy actively hating as a pastime, as a form of entertainment, but all that hating wears a body down.

Along the way, I’m making new friends, especially while I travel. On airplanes, I take the aisle seat and straighten up so people walking past can read my T-shirt. I wish I had bigger cleavage to blast the message.

At one point during our summer travels, my husband and I get to Boston’s Logan Airport and find that our Delta flight to New Orleans has been delayed for four hours.

“No problem,” I cheerfully tell the gate agent. I even thank her. She looks more surprised than my husband at my irrational exuberance.

At gate A-21, I make eye contact with a woman in the waiting area and we both light up. She’s wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “I Am Speaking” – another ref to our candidate. We hug each other right there. Soon, we’re exchanging email addresses and phone numbers. She’s traveling to all the swing states on her own dime, freelance campaigning. She shows me cell phone pics of her grown children, who will soon join her to canvass.

Other women at A-21 gather around us. One of them lives in Louisiana and says she will be working the polls for the first time on Election Day. She’s still awaiting the arrival of her chosen T-shirt by mail. Another lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is on her way to New Orleans to visit the WWII museum with her husband, a veteran in a wheelchair. We vent about the latest chaos, only to circle back to the newfound joy of our shared campaign. This is one of the reasons I wear my T-shirt – to tap newfound positive vibes.

I feel like history has made eye contact from across the room and smiled. My T-shirt is my invitation to you to share in that joy, or to compare and contrast.

Those of us gathered at A-21 laugh while commiserating about how certain people get triggered by seeing middle-aged women wearing T-shirts talking up our candidate. We discuss the latest, unhinged ramblings of the opponent, but never say his name. We spout so many facts and details, you’d never guess we’re amateurs.

Obviously, not everyone feels as we do. That boo from the elderly man on the Walmart scooter drives the point home. But it is reassuring, in the moment, to know that we live in a country where we can agree to disagree, in public, even if it leads to occasionally awkward interactions. It is the ultimate antidote to the fear and divisiveness.

As it turns out, strangers in T-shirts are my oxygen.

Visit Margaret’s website. Contact Scott Saalman at scottsaalman@gmail.com.