Dream Defenders: SHEIN Stole Our Assata Shakur Image

A multi-billion-dollar corporation that dabbles in fashion, not activism, has been accused of stealing from a non-profit activist organization an image of legendary civil rights activist Assata Shakur, and the organization that got co-opted by an exploitative capitalist machine is rightfully not having it.

Dream Defenders, a Black-led, feminist, socialist, abolitionist, and internationalist political formation fighting for a world without prisons, police, capitalism, and imperialism, said that on July 19, SHEIN, a women’s apparel corporation, “swiped a popular graphic design honoring the life and legacy” of Assata Shakur, who passed away last September, and would have been celebrating her 79th birthday earlier this month.

“I made this graphic with love to honor the life and legacy of Assata Shakur—who, even upon the day of her death, was disparaged on social media by prominent celebrities and politicians as nothing more than a criminal,” Fe Worthington, the graphic designer behind Dream Defender’s branding and visual storytelling, said, according to a statement sent to NewsOne. “This graphic was not made for commercial use or financial gain. This graphic was never mocked up on a t-shirt.”

Worthington isn’t lying about all of the mainstream anti-Assata nonsense that came as a reaction to news of her passing. In fact, mainstream media outlets made it a point to highlight the fact that Shakur was a wanted fugitive, and, as we previously reported, FBI Director Kash Patel demanded that people stop celebrating her life because “mourning her is spitting on the badge and the blood of every cop who gave their life in service,” because, according to the federal government, she murdered New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973.

Here’s what I wrote in that report:

So, Patel didn’t include anything about the all-white jury that convicted her, or that she was convicted without physical evidence, or that a surgeon who examined her said it was “anatomically impossible” that she shot Foerster in the way that was reported, and that it was “anatomically necessary” for her arms to have been raised for her to receive the bullet wounds she did in the shootout. Patel also didn’t bother mentioning the extensive history of law enforcement’s efforts to sabotage the civil rights and Black liberation movements, including the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, and the outright malicious killing of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton.

So, now we’ve gone from corporate entities that don’t care about pro-Black revolutions demonizing Shakur to corporate entities that don’t care about pro-Black revolutions using her legacy to make a quick buck.

According to Dream Defenders, the organization sent SHEIN a cease-and-desist notice, but the only response the organization has gotten from the company is a link to a page for the artist responsible for the image to file her complaint.

Here’s more of Dream Defenders’ statement:

SHEIN is, unfortunately, one of the largest clothing retailers in the world and a multibillion dollar corporation that relies on slave labor to create cheap clothing that harms the environment and exploits poor and working-class people. Their profits are maximized by the same type of individuals who were bold enough to celebrate the death of a freedom fighter. 

The irony is also that SHEIN stole this design from a Black, anti-capitalist non-profit that stands against everything they are. Black legacy and lived experiences have only ever been “respected” when it’s to turn a profit, for the white gaze and mass consumption. 

For Worthington, it’s especially disheartening as Black and marginalized creators compete with artificial intelligence and the theft of their own creative and intellectual properties. 

“In a world where the work Black and brown artists create are stolen by AI and mega-corporations to fuel a system that keeps the same Black and brown people oppressed,” she adds, “it is so important to continue to create from the heart—channeling emotions, experience and heritage—the way only humankind can.” 

SHEIN has had this promotion going for more than 24 hours. Dream Defenders, which is prepared to take legal action, has requested that the company cease and desist—remove the design from its social networks and the t-shirt item from its online store. 

Yeah — we can’t allow the corporate world to co-opt the movement whenever it’s convenient for it, especially if that co-opting includes stealing from Black creatives. We need to call them out every time and take legal action when our hands are forced.

RIP Assata Shakur. You are missed, you are revered, your legacy lives on, and we won’t allow it to be sullied by people and corporations that don’t fight for or care about Black liberation.

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