Collegiate Times

While I understand that the shirts originally came out for basketball season, I think it's a poor choice of words to have "Hokies on Fire" for wildfire victims...

Though I understand what your saying, I think its clear that the students are doing a great thing here. The Hokies on Fire idea had obviously began far before the wildfires had occurred so there was probably no way to change the name of the program. The way that they have advertised the campaign, "Fighting fire with fire" is a clever way to alleviate such concerns about insensitivity. GO HOKIES UNITED AND SGA!

The name came before the fires happened. It is an unfortunate coincidence. Look at it as Hokies fighting fire with fire.

Can't say I agree that the coincidence is OK. That would be like someone supporting the Tech tragedy with a charity gun auction. I don't think SGA needed to revise the shirts, but their attempt to be sympathetic actually highlighted how out-of-touch with sensitivity they are. A slogan does not make this OK.

The slogan comes form the old NBA games where players used to get on fire when they made consecutive shots. I think you are over analyzing it. Its hard to change something after it has been printed on a shirt

To "Anonymous Coward": Please find me one wildfire victim who actually thinks this is offensive. If you think you can, I believe you are the one that is out of touch with reality when it comes to sensitivity.

I by no means was saying that the SGA or anyone else was being offensive. I realize why these shirts were made. I just think to say "Hokies on Fire" and for their president to say "The tie-dye design will have a cool effect because when students jump up and down, it will look like a big flame in the audience" is in poor choice. Its a great thing to be raising money, but the wording is poor. Though I do like the "fighting fire with fire" idea...

Sorry to keep the debate going, but what is wrong with saying it will make the audience look like a flame? Are flames inappropriate? If it gets out of hand, couldn't we just do the wave to extinguish it? The shirt is a show of Hokie spirit first, and a means for charity second. Also, I have to take issue with your analogy from earlier. A gun is the means by which the Tech tragedy was perpetrated. Of course it would be in bad taste to sell guns for such a cause. But to make for a proper analogy, we would have to sell matchbooks and gasoline, or perhaps lightning bolts or downed power lines, to raise money for the fire victims, since those are implements of starting fires. T-shirts, while flammable, usually aren't used for such a purpose.

Again, I understand that the shirts by themselves are very innocent, and to have the student body look like a fire is pretty cool, for a basketball game. To try and cross these over for charity, though done so with good intentions and charitable hokie spirit, is inappropriate. It would be like one of those NCAA Hockey schools making "He Shoots, He Scores!" shirts for their season, with the idea of having the student body wear them to a game so that they all look like a bullet, a cannon, or whatever, AND then try and cross it over and offer all the proceeds for the Hokie Memorial Fund. While the intention would be great, would everyone really be ok with "He Shoots, He Scores" shirts being sold for that? Now, I don't live in blacksburg, so I'm only going off of what I read here, but if they are marketing this with a "fight fire with fire" than I think that's actually very clever. I have already ordered my shirt, even before I knew the money was going for charity. I just know that if my house burned down, the last thing I would think is "cool" would be be the fans looking like a huge flame....I love the fact that the SGA is doing something for these victims, it's just the wording is all...

The t-shirt design and campaign were decided before the California wildfires took place. See this not as an oddly named fundraiser, but instead an otherwise profitable t-shirt sale sacrificed for a good cause.

Point taken, anonymous, and thanks for the more apt analogy! However, I still think that there is a difference between a natural disaster that left fewer dead than most heat waves and a terrifying act of immediate, brutal violence. Miami Hurricanes, Iowa State Cyclones, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Colorado Avalanche; numerous teams take their monikers from the fact that certain unfortunate disasters are just a part of life in some areas of the country. Who knows, we may be only a few more fires away from seeing the San Diego Flames take the field. Are these teams insensitive as well? Had the Hokies on Fire slogan never existed, perhaps nobody in the SGA would have ever had the idea to donate funds to the California relief effort. As I see it, the choice comes down to a) SGA gives no money to the effort at all, or b) SGA gives money raised through Hokies on Fire. I happen to think that b) will always trump a), even in the minds of the victims. I agree that a "He Shoots, He Scores" effort would be a tough pill to swallow, but again, the subtle difference is that people were actually shot, whereas few, if any, were actually lit aflame by the wildfires (and those who died were most likely killed in the line of duty as firefighters, not as civilians). Not that a firefighter's death is less important, just that it's a bit more expected than getting executed attending class.

There's nothing wrong with the T-shirts. There's nothing wrong with donating money to the wildfire victims. What's wrong is tying the two together. It seems like spin in the worst sense of the word. And Jason, I'm just not a big fan of a "our tragedy is bigger than yours" mentality. No one deserves a tragedy, and losing your home, or even the "more expected" death of a firefighter, is still tragic and shouldn't be trivialized with this association.

I'm not a "fan" of comparing tragedies, but let's remember that you're the one that first drew the comparison. I just pointed out that, in the VT case, there is an element of malicious, murderous intent that, in my opinion, makes it much worse than the wildfires. I've heard your argument and don't agree that we need to be more sensitive about the matter. Without extensive research done on the actual psychological impact of the campaign on the wildfire victims, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

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