Poll: Adidas Slave Shoes

[yeti585]

I don't see what is so offensive about it. Maybe Adidas was going to make the shoe's commercial say something like "A slave to the game". Other then the mention of slavery that wouldn't even be offensive, but then again slavery is offensive because anyone can be enslaved.

Some might draw parallels with slavery and the ubiquitous poor working conditions of most shoe makers.

"B-but... but that's Nike!" No, just kidding. But, does the fault lay in the pen or the ear?

They're also just offensively ugly.

They might look good in another color. For example, nonexistent?

 

[Smeatza]

Also, whether you like to admit it or not, the slave trade and the civil rights struggles that followed are the single most important events in the history of the USA, perhaps even the world.

You have no rational reason to say that at all. Many events were much bigger, for the US, but especially for the world.

The highest, likely heavily exagerated estimate, is 12 million people across 3 centuries. Stalin's reign alone is said to have claimed well over 20 million lives. The Second World War claimed 62 to 79 million lives in just five years.

The Iraqi civil war for instance has claimed well over 2,5 million lives in just a few years, and causing millions to flee, with a much greater demographic impact.


The only reason you hear so much of this is because some black people in the US are horrible self-absorbed and completely ignorant about any event current, past or future outside of their town, state and especially country.

I'd say they need to get over themselves and get a life.

And yet the persecution and genocide of Jews is often considered to be the most important thing about WW2, in spite of the fact that comparitively less lives were lost compared to, lets' say, the Russians.

Okay, perhaps it was an exaggeration to say they were the most important events in history. But they were definitely some of the most important events, and certainly a contender for the most important events in the history of the USA.

The immediate effects of the slave trade and the subsequent persecution of African-Americans is still felt by millions today, in the USA, where this potentially inappropriate product was being marketed.

I don't think it's really possible to rank atrocities by importance, but the enslavement and persecution of Africans is certainly more relevant to the USA than Stalin or Hitler's genocides.

 

[Rawne1980]

Depends on what you mean by offensive.

Offensive in regards to slavery? Nope, we haven't seen slavery for a damned long time and being from the UK it's not exactly a huge topic anyway.

Offensive to the eyes? Indeed they are.

 

[Dragonclaw]

I don't think they are nearly as offensive as they are stupid looking.

 

[aba1]

I can't believe it's actually reached this point.
Where hip hop culture (and therefore it's clothes) has become so clueless, so vacuous, that it's forgotten about the slave trade?

Maybe you can tell us what the point is of endlessly dragging on and on about a very small event that occurred centuries ago and which nobody alive today has witnessed?

And yes, very fucking small, because there's much bigger historical events with a much larger impact today, like the First World War.

I'm with Daedalus here. Because trivialising this sort of thing brings it closer to being acceptable. I'm not sure how you can't understand this.

Or maybe simply not making a deal of it will allow people to not let it rule there lives and the sheer idea will become a obscure and silly idea something so ridiculous it is laughable. We can finally start to view it in the way it should be as something from another time when people did stupid things well more stupid than now.

OT: I think these would actually sell decently if they were coloured black and red and sold to a goth/ emo demographic.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Well I dont find them offensive but I'm sure someone who is struggling to make a living and feed a family making them might

 

[him over there]

I can't believe it's actually reached this point.
Where hip hop culture (and therefore it's clothes) has become so clueless, so vacuous, that it's forgotten about the slave trade?

Maybe you can tell us what the point is of endlessly dragging on and on about a very small event that occurred centuries ago and which nobody alive today has witnessed?

And yes, very fucking small, because there's much bigger historical events with a much larger impact today, like the First World War.

I'm with Daedalus here. Because trivialising this sort of thing brings it closer to being acceptable. I'm not sure how you can't understand this.

Or maybe simply not making a deal of it will allow people to not let it rule there lives and the sheer idea will become a obscure and silly idea something so ridiculous it is laughable. We can finally start to view it in the way it should be as something from another time when people did stupid things well more stupid than now.

OT: I think these would actually sell decently if they were coloured black and red and sold to a goth/ emo demographic.

Adidas is too mainstream though, got to create a sub brand from the parent company to sell stuff to trendy people who hate your company.

 

[aba1]

I can't believe it's actually reached this point.
Where hip hop culture (and therefore it's clothes) has become so clueless, so vacuous, that it's forgotten about the slave trade?

Maybe you can tell us what the point is of endlessly dragging on and on about a very small event that occurred centuries ago and which nobody alive today has witnessed?

And yes, very fucking small, because there's much bigger historical events with a much larger impact today, like the First World War.

I'm with Daedalus here. Because trivialising this sort of thing brings it closer to being acceptable. I'm not sure how you can't understand this.

Or maybe simply not making a deal of it will allow people to not let it rule there lives and the sheer idea will become a obscure and silly idea something so ridiculous it is laughable. We can finally start to view it in the way it should be as something from another time when people did stupid things well more stupid than now.

OT: I think these would actually sell decently if they were coloured black and red and sold to a goth/ emo demographic.

Adidas is too mainstream though, got to create a sub brand from the parent company to sell stuff to trendy people who hate your company.

hahaha your probably right

 

[Smeatza]

It was the first time ever in history there was such a well-planned and advanced genocide from what was pretty much a peacetime situation (because the Jews were not a coherent group that had hostile contacts with the Germans). It was the first time killing was approached as an industrial operation with modern means.

It was also a turning point for Christianity as a whole, because after the Holocaust, suddenly Christians everywhere were confronted with the consequences of their active or latent hatred against other religions. This hadn't been the case before on such a scale.

Slavery however was normal at the time pretty much everywhere, and always had been normal anywhere before that. Slavery is still quite normal today in west Africa and the Middle East.

The writing not in bold is irrelevant to the USA when compared to the enslavement and persecution of Africans. The part in bold is factually incorrect.

As you may well know, slavery is illegal in the US and has been for quite a while. The idea that there's effects to be felt is lunacy.

If you're really trying to say the lasting effects of hundreds of years of slavery and persecution have dissappeared in less than a century, I have no option but to believe you are being deliberately obtuse.

I could reel off all the statistics that prove there's still an issue but I'm sure you've heard it all before and simply just don't care.

But I assume you're also going to harass and acuse some BDSM enthousiasts? They use cuffs after all. Heck, there's even 'slaves' there. Black people who are slaves even. Oh, the horror.

Again, you are being deliberately obtuse, my issue was with the fact they were almost certainly being marketed towards the hip hop culture.

Seen as we're getting dangerously off topic, and I'm not getting anything constructive out of you, I'm done here.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I find them offensive to my sense of sight because they're ugly as sin. That's about it.

 

[antidonkey]

I'm curious as to why everyone immediately jumped to slavery? There's at least one other class of person, for lack of a better word, that's been know to wear shackles. Offensive? No. Stupid? Yes. Ugly? Very much so.

 

[Slycne]

Because clearly shackles were never used for anything but the detainment of slaves.

That's almost akin to saying that we should boycott them because they are breaking copyright law and evoking imagery of Disney's Robin Hood film.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

Yes, let's just look at anything that might symbolise something and assume it does! [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory]

Logic!

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

...could they have made those shoes a more gaudy color?

My fucking eyes, those are ugly.

 

[lacktheknack]

I find it offensive for unrelated reasons.

https://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/workers-rights/adidas

As dry and downplayed as that link is, Adidas HAS been caught in child labor scandals in the past, and it made me pretty ticked to see these shoes with that in mind.

 

[StoneSycst]

I think everyone's just overreacting, Adidas is just trying to make more of its shoes accessible to the people who make them.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Utterly ridiculous

If you want to get offended by something, you can. The most ridiculous thing about these "this is offensive" things, is that in a huge majority of the cases someone is thinking someone is getting offended by it, rather than one feeling genuinely offended because of a straightforward proper reason.