[youtube]http://youtu.be/lmiatrTB2tY[/youtube]
A few days ago, we reported on a purported shirt design by Vital Remains vocalist Brian Werner. In a Facebook post he quickly deleted, he stated that his merch company, Xcommunicated Clothing, was coming out with a shirt capitalizing on the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. “The Trayvon,” according to his description and an attached picture, would consist of “Trayvon,” written in a graffiti font, riddled with bullet holes, with “Stand Your Ground” written on the back. We took issue with it for a few reasons, and he was condemned by the metal blogosphere for the design, who have seen some pretty tasteless merch designs over the years.
Earlier today, Werner took to YouTube to fire back at a few websites in particular (not us though!) that demonized him. The first thing he does is state that the “Trayvon” shirt idea was a total joke idea that was in bad taste that he came up with after a night of drinking with his tattoo artist. He states that anyone offended by that should stop watching South Park. The thing about South Park, however, is that it’s topical and its satire is razor sharp. The only people that would find the shirt design really funny would find it funny because that black guy got shot. In the video, he responds to the racism charge by having former New York Giants and Seattle Seahawks tight end Travis Beckum appear in the video with him. Basically, it’s the visual equivalent to “some of my best friends are black.” He tells Beckum a pretty unfunny black joke and Beckum doesn’t beat the shit out of him, which means, well, something apparently.
Beckum has a point in that no one reached out directly to him before condemning the shirt. And given the he’s cleaning and cocking guns throughout the whole video, we know what side of the Trayvon Martin debate he’s on. At least he responded via the above video, stating that it was a joke done in poor taste. We’re not quite ready to lump him in with South Park and George Carlin, who he references in the video, as a renowned humorist and satirist, though.
