The attempt to commercialize and make popular more than 200 years of human degradation, where blacks were considered three-fifths human by our Constitution is offensive, appalling and insensitive. Removing the chains from our ankles and placing them on our shoes is no progress
For Adidas to promote the athleticism and contributions of a variety of African-American sports legends -- especially Olympic heroes Wilma Rudolph and Jesse Owens and boxing great Muhammad Ali -- and then allow such a degrading symbol of African-American history to pass through its corporate channels and move toward actual production and advertisement, is insensitive and corporately irresponsible.
These slave shoes are odious and we as a people should be called to resent and resist them. If put into production and placed on the market, protests and pickets signs will follow. Adidas cannot make a profit at the expense of commercialized human degradation.
I spend a good deal of time in America's public schools urging young men and women to pursue academic excellence. Students repeat the phrase -- strong minds break strong chains. Even if no allusion to slavery is intended, chains conjure only negative images. The only things we chain in this society are slaves, prisoners and beasts. This is exactly the kind of mindless commercialism our children need less of -- especially in young urban America where 55 percent unemployment, under 50 percent graduation rates, drugs and violence have them chained to uncertain futures already. We urge the NBA, NCAA, state high school athletic associations, Parent Teachers Associations, coaches associations, players associations and the U.S. Olympic Committee to reject these shoes. African-Americans have made too much progress since slavery to allow any company to profit by selling images reminiscent of our enslaved past.
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| 1 | United States | 46 | 29 | 29 |
| 2 | China | 38 | 27 | 23 |
| 3 | Russia | 24 | 26 | 32 |
| 4 | Great Britain | 29 | 17 | 19 |
| 5 | Germany | 11 | 19 | 14 |
| 6 | Japan | 7 | 14 | 17 |
A few words if you have a minute. First, to even insinuate that there is such a thing as black people shoes, or white people shoes, or any other people shoes is divisive and a little ridiculous. I come to the conclusion that you must think this as your shoddy attempt at journalism would have the reader believe these are intended to degrade black people. The only way these would have found their way around a black ankle was if that person chose to purchase them, making it a personal choice and not an attempt to oppress a people. Not to marginalize the black experience but there were many slaves other than black slaves. Jews for example were slaves long before your people were taken from Africa, and I'm sure there were others even before the Jews were taken. And there have been many people enslaved in between. If you ever want to bring about the change you claim to represent for equality, for peaceful co-existence between races then you need to learn to pick the right battles, because what you're doing here does not help the cause, it dilutes the message. Only when all of us humans regardless of affiliation concentrate on our similarities will our differences ever become irrelevant. Thank you for your time.
Now, I'm NOT by any means saying discrimination DOESN'T happen. Heck yes it happens, more than most of us care to admit. BUT there are some people out there, of all colors/sex/nationality/sexual orientation who have decided that they are NEVER going to be accepted so they live their lives that way. Honestly, if people spent half as much energy proving the rascist people wrong as they do complaining about them there wouldn't be any black poverty or violence to speak of. The jews did it, and they had half their race wiped out in concentration camps. And they set out to prove that they weren't a lesser race and that they weren't savages. Look where they are today.