German sports apparel maker Adidas has withdrawn its plans to sell a controversial sneaker featuring affixed rubber shackles after the company generated significant criticism when advertising the shoe on its Facebook page.
The high-top sneakers, dubbed the JS Roundhouse Mids, were expected to be released in August, according to the Adidas Originals Facebook page. “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?” a caption below a photo of the sneakers read.
The June 14 post prompted plenty of criticism from around the Web, with many of those commenting saying they felt the shackle invoked the painful image of slavery.
“Wow obviously there was no one of color in the room when the marketing/product team ok’d this,” said a commenter, identifying herself as MsRodwell on nicekicks.com.
“I literally froze up when I saw a new design from Adidas set to hit stores in August,” Dr. Boyce Watkins said in a post for the website Your Black World.
Though dismissing the criticism in a written statement by defending the sneaker’s designer, Jeremy Scott, as having a “quirky” and “lighthearted” style, Adidas nonetheless said Monday that it planned to cancel the shoe’s release.
Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University’s premiere racist, is permanently frozen.
– as with shower caps, they would have sold millions.
Who is blind enough to miss the patently obvious ghetto prison-time-as-badge-of-honor and mistake this for a slavery reference? Must work for PMSNBC.
Beam me up, Scotty…
…There’s no intelligent life on this planet.
But we already knew that!
Yet I see plenty of cars with chain-encircled license-plate holders (and have for years and years), driven exclusively by black people. Wassup with that? =0[.]o=
I guess I’m really off targt, but when I think of shackles, I think of prisoners in jail or prison….. oh well, not the first time I’ve seen something no one else saw…
Why do you think it was in prison overalls orange? Of course cultural sensitivity demands no one mention the obvious.