Our Story
It all started when I saw an online discussion involving a few people who wanted to make stickers to replace Fruitvale BART station with "Oscar Grant" on BART system maps. I thought to myself, what if we could replace every BART station name with Bay Area icons of social justice? Why shouldn't we live in a world where we can take a ten car train to Angela Davis International Airport, or to Ohlone cities like Huchian or Ramaytush? How would this altered geography change our perception of what is truly important?
The Decolonized Area Rapid Transit (DART) design evolved out a "crowdsourced" process where the station names were discussed through Facebook comments. 40-60 people made suggestions for different local social justice heroes, some less known than others, which in itself was an educational process as commenters advocated for different communities.
The Impact
Whoever owns one of these DART t-shirts will be a proud, walking map of the "other Bay Area" – where we don't honor conquistadors, missionaries, big money developers, and colonization. Instead, we honor activists and intellectuals in labor, gay rights, racial justice, civil rights, indigenous self-determination, women's rights, queer rights, disability rights, and more. We also recognize that we live on and benefit from occupied indigenous lands by emphasizing Ohlone names for local places.
The finished DART map is a wonderful educational tool that will have people asking questions and educating themselves about names and causes they may not be familiar with. With so many Bay Area social justice icons and heroes to be proud of, it's the perfect discussion starter and an awesome way to rep your home.
What We Need & What You Get
I'm committed to having these tshirts silkscreened by local artists. Why? On-demand printing websites commonly use heat transfer printing, which usually results in lower-quality, blocky prints. By silkscreening, the result is more pleasing to the eye and sense of touch.
On-demand printing also send our money out to a faceless national corporation, whereas silkscreening locally keeps money in the community and supports local artists. It's my way of keeping resources circulating locally.
Silkscreening is a process where each color in the design needs to be separated and printed. The DART design contains six colors - black, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. The overall cost breaks down like this:
Film output: $5 per color x 6 = $30
Screens: $25 per color x 6 = $150
Pantone color match: $10 per color x 6 = $60
Six color tshirt printing: $2.78 per tshirt x total quantity 72 = $221.76
PRINTING TOTAL: $461.76 + 8.75% tax = $502.16
If we don't reach the entire goal, the money raised will still be used to print tshirts, though it will be an appropriately reduced quantity.
When finished, these tshirts will be offered for sale in a select number of locally-owned Bay Area shops. A certain percentage (to be determined) of the income from sales will be donated to local causes.
Remember, if you donate a certain amount of money now towards the printing, you automatically reserve a shirt for yourself!
Other Ways You Can Help
You can help by getting the word out on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and anywhere else you can reach friends, comrades, and colleagues who are proud to live in or be from the Bay Area. Any donation helps, no matter how small.
