These Downtown 4 Democracy T-Shirts Are an Investment in the Future

Photo from Kim Gordon’s Instagram, @kimletgordon.

“Into” is a series dedicated to objects, artworks, garments, exhibitions, and all the things that we are into — and there really isn’t a lot more to it than that. This week: Editorial Assistant Ernesto Macias makes an investment in the future with these Downtown 4 Democracy t-shirts.

We’ll we’ve made it. The day to vote Donald Trump out of office is here. The polls will remain open until 9 pm EST in  New York and as many experts have suggested the results will probably be delayed. Regardless of how Election Day 2020 goes down, we will either have Joe Biden as president, or four more years of, let’s face it, hell on earth. Whichever way the electorate goes, the fight must go on. The past four years have been exhausting, yes, and though voting is a great way to make our voices heard, we must continue to support organizations and protect entities like Planned Parenthood, which might be at risk, regardless of who wins the election. Downtown 4 Democracy (D4D), a political committee formed in 2003 by a group of creative professionals aiming to use their cultural influence to support leading groups devoted to community organizing and grassroots voter turnout, has unveiled their latest installment of artist t-shirts, this time featuring art by Kim Gordon, Marc Hundley, Rory Rosenberg, Evie K. Horto, and the Haas Brothers. Each t-shirt is a loud statement from the artist behind it. Take for example Gordon’s “Male White Corporate Oppression” shirt—an ode to “Kool Thing,” a song she wrote with Sonic Youth in 1990. It’s sentiment equally as pertinent now as it was then.

Other shirts are concise in their message, like the Haas Brothers’s which simply reads: “The Future Is in Our Hands. VOTE,” and simply ask to, “please please please please please please please please please please please please please please VOTE!!!” The proceeds of these shirts and any of the previous releases, like Barbara Kruger’s edition or Rebbecca Pauline Jampol’s “Abortion Is Normal,” help raise funds for D4D and their mission to help organizations like Raices, Color of Change, and Planned Parenthood, which D4D raised over $200,000 with their exhibit “Abortion Is Normal: An Emergency Exhibition.” Time to get to the polls, to do vote Trump out, buy a t-shirt that will support the uphill battles ahead of us, and wear a mask. In the words of Glenn O’ Brien, a founding advisor of D4D, “Right now Downtown must come together for another kind of change.”