No one knows how many black Bart shirts have been sold, since all are unlicensed items. The demand, though, has been brisk. “Everybody likes the Simpsons,” says Toosdi Douglas of Los Angeles, who paid $24 for black Bart mooning and saying, “Kiss the butt of this.” Another Bart booster from Jamaica, N.Y., insists that race isn’t the issue. “I like his attitude on TV,” he says. “He doesn’t give a damn about anything.”
Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea for blacks to be embracing a notorious underachiever. “We’re at this stage where we need to improve our image as a people,” says Kmar Kashif, 32, of Long Island. “We need a positive message, but Bart is a brat, a knucklehead.” Barbara Cadow, a University of Southern California psychologist, says she was initially surprised by the trend but now realizes that “many blacks identify with Bart because he does struggle, he does have his problems, but somehow, the smart-mouthed kid makes it through.”
Probably no one was more amused by the appearance of another Simpson than the comic strip’s creator, Matt Groening. While Groening doesn’t like the idea of a bootleg Bart “making millions for people,” he does say that his character is like Santa Claus: “No one knows what color he really is.” Then he pauses a moment and adds, “Nowadays, copyright infringement is the sincerest form of flattery.”
