Edmonton brewery facing backlash over T-shirt design
Posted September 15, 2022 12:51 pm.
An Edmonton brewing company is facing backlash after giving away 500 T-shirts for a community initiative.
It’s not the initiative itself that caused a problem, but the design of the shirt.
The T-shirts say “be more kind day” with a graphic above with hands in the shape of what the brewer says is supposed to be a heart.
According to the deaf community, the sign can be mistaken for the word “vagina.”
Crystal Jones is one of many who took to Twitter to share with Arcadia Brewing co. the meaning behind the sign. Jones says “I hope people can understand that good intentions can cause harm to a community. It’s important that individuals, businesses, and organizations reach out to any specific population and ask for feedback.”
Darren McGeown, the owner of Arcadia says, “It was not our intent to make the design a female body part. I felt quite evident that it was a heart shape so I did feel bad about that. I hope to be better in the future for sure”.
Members of the deaf community are taking this as an opportunity to educate. Jones says “Hearing people need to understand that American sign language is a rich, complex and expressive language. Many hearing people co-opt sign language, hand shapes and gestures not really understanding what they mean.”
The owner of Arcadia says while he did learn a valuable lesson, he’s disappointed the real meaning behind this community initiative was lost.
“I do a lot of this work to motivate and inspire people to do community work and there are just a lot of sad people on Twitter who turned it into a negative which is ridiculous,” explained McGeown.
The incident is not stopping Arcadia Brewing Co. from continuing community initiatives. Right now, one dollar from each pint of various beers is being donated to local charities.
