To all whom she encountered, she confronted them with Willie’s memory, reminding them of his life, memorializing Willie in a very public way. The day after Willie’s funeral, Candice donned her RIP T-shirt to church to honor the memory of his life. It is important to highlight this when viewing how Candice (in the opening photo) turned her RIP T-shirt into not only ordinary/everyday wear but a walking memorial. Ordinary/everyday wear is the material culture left behind that holds memories and allows for one more interaction with the dead. In this way, RIP T-shirts double as ritual wear and connect to what scholars of death material culture term “ordinary/everyday wear,” clothing owned by the deceased given significance through death. Soon after the RIP T-shirt is worn during death rituals, it becomes part of the wardrobe of the living not only during celebrations but also anywhere the wearer deems fit. There were partygoers wearing RIP T-shirts dedicated to Willie and even one wearing a RIP T-shirt dedicated to a loved one who died several years back. In addition, it is common for RIP T-shirts to be worn in combination with life events like the RIP T-shirts worn at my cousin’s 50 th birthday party. For Willie’s first postmortem birthday, my sister planned a series of events that included a new RIP T-shirt, a family bowling hour, and a joyous celebration at a nightclub that Willie frequented. RIP T-shirts are also worn to celebrate the postmortem birthday, when partygoers celebrate the day as if the decedent were living. In RIP T-shirts, the bereaved fellowship and share positive memories of the deceased, starting with the one depicted on the shirt. Mourners dressed in RIP T-shirts congregate, plates of food in hand, eating, engaged in conversation while simultaneously comforting each other through the grief. For African Americans, the RIP T-shirt has seamlessly become part of established African American funeral traditions, like the repast. Therefore, breaking bread in such a communal setting at the conclusion of all last rites is a signal to “get on with life.” And it is during this ritualized food gathering, while wearing the RIP T-shirt, that joyful memories of the decedent are shared. Appetite, a function of the living, is usually the first thing “to go” when grieving, which is why family and close friends bring food to the bereaved. The repast is the first step to normalcy for the bereaved family. RIP T-shirts celebrate the life of the decedent, which is why they are commonly worn at the repast, the meal following the funeral. As in the opening picture of Candice, who uses the T-shirt as what I term a “walking memorial,” RIP T-shirts have multiple purposes to mourners, but nevertheless, it is a ritual rooted in celebrating life. Further still, RIP T-shirts allow room for healing by metaphorically filling the void of the loved one’s absence, serving as second skin to keep him close, and even allowing mourners to fill out the imprint he left, with our own image. The T-shirts also provided solidarity, creating room for healing by memorializing his life – his place within our family and the larger community. The T-shirts unified us in our grief while signaling to the public that we were in mourning. As ritualized mourning wear, all of Willie’s immediate and extended kin, as well as his close friends, donned the RIP T-shirt at his wake. One of the first things that his mother and my sister, Aleta (affectionately called “Snooky”), did was to commission Novel T’s to create 44 official RIP (Rest in Peace) T-shirts. My 28-year-old nephew, Willie Lee “Chill” Oglesby, Jr., was murdered on November 8, 2017. AugFresh to Death: African Americans and RIP T-Shirts
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