Hopefully without seeming like a reflexive Obama/Obama supporter defender, this is clearly a joke. I think all college/otherwise young guys at one time or another say or have their friends say "Bros before Hoes" in reference to hanging with their friends. Its just a way of chiding buddies who prioritize their significant others over their friends. I've heard girls say it the opposite way too.
It certainly isn't a racial reference and IMO it isn't really a sexist one either, its just a cultural reference applied to the presidential race.
Additionally I've heard women say it as "Chicks before Dicks."
Actually, it pretty much just makes me want to re-watch the guy scenes from "40 Year Old Virgin" again. They kill me.
I'm pretty offended by it actually. At the same time, I have a friend who loves to say it and every time he does it cracks me up. Odd how I'm still offended even still. Maybe because "bro" is not a derogatory term. "Ho" is...despite what people want to make it.
Not to mention that a hoe is a farm or garden implement, and a 'ho is the colloquial term for whore.
Leave it to me to correct the spelling, not the sentiment, though.
Bethany, what's the plural of "'ho"????
Reasons to love m-pyre, no 586: Every discussion can (and frequently will) include a grammar analysis. 
That crossed my mind as well. I think it would be ho's.
AP style is hos.
How nerdastic am I for knowing that?
For further fascinating discussion on the plurality of the word ho, please see:
http://newsbusters.org/node/11941
Priceless.
Thanks, B!
Indeed. Well, when I see "hos" I think "Bonanza" as in, big Hoss. Others might immediately put a mental "e" on the end...but I can't go with the AP! And in this particular case, why not be incorrect??
Can't we all just applaud me for making a Dallas friend who's also a grammar nerd? Hello!!!!
Since we're talking grammar and sexism, who better to incorporate next than Shakespeare himself, who I believe started this whole colloquialism when he coined the term "Prose Before Hos"
I'm sorry, but I have to laugh also, that a white guy had the "balls" to wear this in public! And I too take issue with the ho reference, but it seems to have become an "acceptable" term with the younger generation who do not seem to take any offense at all....this is my observation from talking to my own two kids over the years about using this word, ho. But, now if it was a white guy running against her I don't think a shirt like this would be around....it's just that like it or not....the black music performers have made this an "okay" reference to all women regardless of the womans color....we are all ho's .....lol
You should kick around the gates of my kids high school or middle school. Pick either.
You'll hear all the ho(e) references you could ever want/need/stomach/laugh at/cringe...everything.
When boys are calling boys ho(e)'s, you know it's out of control.
Funnily enough, if you wanna see a sitiuation go to near fist fight status, watch what happens when one girl calls the other, "whore."
Oh no she didn't.
Difference? Got me...
Just for the record: I'm not a Hillary supporter myself. (I've gone from Kucinich to Edwards to Obama and now find myself thinking, in desperation as the candidates both annoy me with their platitudes and obscene fund raising, "shit, Ralph, maybe...")
But tee-shirts (or remarks) like that one make me really sad. Sad to be a woman in this country and sad to be the mom of a daughter.
Did anyone else read this story in New York Magazine a week or so ago?
http://nymag.com/news/features/46011/
Here's one excerpt of the piece:
Sexism is often so subtle, threading its insidious way through many aspects of our existence, that anyone who talks about it risks sounding like an overzealous lunatic at worst—scrutinizing every interaction for gender-specific offenses, dichotomizing the world into victim and oppressor—or trivial at best. “Even the brightest movement women found themselves engaged in sullen public colloquies about the inequities of dishwashing and the intolerable humiliations of being observed by construction workers on Sixth Avenue,” Joan Didion once wrote. And so, in our reluctance to appear nagging, scolding, hectoring, or petty, many of us have made a practice of enduring minor affronts, not realizing that a failure to decry the smaller indignities can foster blindness to the larger ones. We then find ourselves shocked when one of the smartest, most qualified women ever to run for public office is called “fishwife-y” by a female pundit on national television.
But go read the story for yourself -- it's really interesting. And so are the comments that follow.
http://nymag.com/news/features/46011/
First, I wish those pinche frat boy types would just get over it and explore their sexual orientation. I would assume as a person who at least understands my male privilege, is in solidarity with my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, and as a straight dude - in all that is facecious yet true - that to me, it's hos before bros.
Having said that, I think both Obama and Clinton have, are and will continue to sell their asses for any vote they can get!
Oh, and the shirt's really sexist. But what do I call politicians - male or female (let's not forget that it's really a myth that sexworkers are all women) who are, um, well, you know, selling their asses?
with my tongue still in my cheek and silliness, sarcasm and satire dripping like sweat from my brow...
your friend,
Well, call me the pig that I am, but I laughed. It was not a Ha Ha Ha, in my defense, but more of a Hoooo Ho Ho. Balls indeed. There is so much subtlety in that shirt... It is all around incorrect, both visually and verbally. I still laughed while shaking my head. Maybe it is because I'm neither a Bro nor a Ho, but I once bought a hoe at a yard sale for $2 even though I already had one. Does that make me the yard pimp now that I have two hoes?
This is so cracking me up!
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