Nearly 19 years ago, when I was still working as an AT&T public relations specialist, a monumental corporate-wide brouhaha was sparked by some creative graphic artist who thought it was a good idea to use a cute little monkey talking on a telephone to designate the goliath’s customers in Africa on a map of the world. Every other country of the world appearing on that cartoon map showed human figures, also on telephones.
Many, if not most, of the readers of this post might be scratching their heads, thinking, whaaa???? But those of you who are Americans of African descent are crystal clear about the cause and effect of that infamous misstep.
In America, there are certain seemingly innocuous items that, when linked in a generalized way with African Americans, are potentially incendiary enough to cause heads to roll in corporate offices. Watermelon. Fried Chicken. Red Cadillacs. Apes. Monkeys. Baboons.
Standing alone, none of these words are particularly evocative. Use them in a description of a “typical” black person, though, and drama will ensue.
The person who approved the final rendering of that stylized map, which was used in an employee publication, was mystified by the rolling thunder that image caused among the company’s thousands of African American employees. Who could deny that there were gorillas in Africa?
Disconnect.
AT&T apologizes for its 'racist cartoon' depicting African caller as a monkey - American Telephone and Telegraph
Fast forward to 2012. This time, the innocuous item in question is a pair of shoes.
These $350!!!!! pumped-up kicks were designed by quirky designer Jeremy Scott, shown above-right. Mr. Scott’s designs for Adidas have included many whimsical offerings based on cartoon characters, comic books, and kitsch.
Other Jeremy Scott for Adidas designs
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So what’s wrong with them, other than their insanely high price point and their butt ugly appearance?
When I first saw them, I thought Scott was joking about the tendency in certain urban settings to get one’s shoes taken at gunpoint if said shoes are the latest iteration of “the latest.” It would be best to “lock” your shoes up, using the rubber leg shackle. That, of course, brings up a whole ‘nother point of contention: corporations targeting inner-city kids with must-have footwear that few of them can afford.
When Jesse Jackson first saw them, he thought American black slavery. He fumed that the shoes were an obvious racist reference to the shackles in which captured Africans were transported and enslaved.
The designer, who appears to be white? He says he based the shoes on a 1980s children’s toy called My Pet Monster, which has similar shackles.
Disconnect.
On June 18, the German sports apparel manufacturer Adidas aborted its plans to market the Shackle Sneaker this summer, after its recent Facebook preview of the shoes caused considerable outrage.
Washington Post- Slaves to fashion: Jeremy Scott, Adidas and fashion’s race problem
So tell me, what do your eyes behold?
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Comments
r.
Nothing different than a young male all golded-out with shackle-necklace (http://www.jewelartjewelers.com/index.php?page=products&id=65&cat=11) or a woman who has a piece of jewelry with a lock-and-key (signifying someone having a key to her heart).
People are too sensitive sometimes.
r./
They, to me, also clearly resemble another generation shackled to the consumer paradigm, where life becomes a hideous cycle of desire and spending, and then suffering to pay for these superficial treasures that sooner or later, directly or indirectly, have created an island of garbage twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean.
As we used to say in the nooze biz, nice catch, Lezlie.
I thought, ankle collar (with the GPS locator) and I thought, Slave chains.
I'm white. Literally one look at me and your immediate mental calculation would be WASP. Fair haired, blue eyed, blond with clearly European roots.
I found them immediately offensive and insensitive. Not to mention that they are indeed, butt ugly.
Than again, my last pair of Adidas shoes were bought in 1980. They cost me about $60.00 and I thought *that* was overpriced. They had memory foam insoles, though and they were damn comfortable. They lasted a little under six months, but that was my fault for putting my feet too close to the fire on a winter night party at the beach. By the time my feet were hot enough to cause concern, I had melted the soles of my shoes.
I cannot understand why we don't, as a society, INSIST on comfortable and physically effective shoes instead of this constant stupidity of fashion for the sake of superior ego.
Disconnect on a different level.
I can't believe that, along with Michael Jackson's song that included "kick me jew me kike me" people don't take a few seconds to take their heads out of their asses and THINK before they create such things.
sheesh.
Disconnect indeed.
--r--
My heart bleeds for him Lezlie.
It is unfortunate that political correctness does still have some social weight and that some things carry baggage.. but it does and they do.
No amount of 'wish it wasn't so' or 'get over it' will change the facts.
Some wounds (be they bloody red or black) are too deep to heal.
Rated for keeping them clean and salved
is all we can hope for I think, for some time to come.
And I remember hearing the same stories about Detroit that cc mentions.
The real point of what you suggest here is that this so ingrained that we have to listen to this being an unconscious kind of design that just, I guess some would say, pop up. That's the thing: this is so much part of cultural DNA that it gives clarity -- like blue eyes or brown ... some blind ...
Thanks for sharing your thoughtful post.
Personally, I have never been aesthetically attracted to any kind of sneaker. When I was a little girl and my mom had to put them on me for our kindergarten gym class days, I would cry! So for me, all those shown are equally disagreeable.
Well, okay, not the butterfly wings ones. Those, I would wear. Too bad they didn't have them when I was in kindergarten.....
As for the shackle sneakers, when I first saw that image in the news, before I read about the controversy, I thought they were supposed to be a comment on how some people are prisoners of fashion, feeling obligated to buy the latest trendy item. I thought these sneakers were sort of ironically celebrating that - or maybe that they were a sort of parody of bondage-chic that you can see in certain sandals, and I found that kind of clever. Then I read what people were saying - and yeah, while I may not have immediately thought of that, the marketing department probably should have.
D'oh again.
Joke shackle shoes are unacceptable! But half the population living as lifelong indentured servants? Meh! Easier to question symbols than our actions. But the cover-up can't last forever and a very delicious day is coming.
In addition to the fact that the design offends, it also tells you alot about what histories are actually taught (or not) in our schools. Or about how American history IS taught (omissions, exclusions, the careful glossing over of a not so democratic past). For to say "I don't get it"(as in, why are people upset?) is actually to say "I never got it" (i.e., an honest to goodness education). It's also to admit a complete lack of curiousity about this nation's history.
And just as disturbing: considering the incarceration rates of young African American men -- thanks, to a great extent, to the racially-driven war on drugs (see Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow) -- the design of these shoes betrays a willed-ignorance concerning the plight of a significant segment of the U.S. population.
One has to wonder about the segregated life of the designer (as well as of the lives of those mystified by the reaction...
The people don't even seem to exist or matter to White America. Name a major film set on the African continent that was not about some insipid romance between otherwise useless White colonials.
In fact, what is this "Africa" business? There are actually nations there. The disrespect is so profound considering that we are dealing with an entire continent that is finding ways to get ahead without us.
The shackles are just a symbol of America's real dirty secret: we have too many stupid people here! Great post and R.