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Originally Posted by dmbrhs
People aren't focusing on the real problem here: they're ugly as hell.
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Originally Posted by dmbrhs
People aren't focusing on the real problem here: they're ugly as hell.
Method Man wrote
What's next, a hoodie inspired by GI Joe's "Storm Shadow" that includes a full-zip white hood?
Congratulations, that's one of the most ignorant things I've ever had the misfortune of reading on this site. Go to sleep.Originally Posted by Method Man
smfhsensitive $@* people. I swear bruh... people need to get over racism. +%%%%* lames
I bet the same people who got a problem with the shoe enjoy Tyler Perry movies and enjoy watching VH1 exploit black people on their shows and enforcing the stereotypes of black people... VH1 is doing more damage than a stupid shoe ...
Originally Posted by SneakerHeathen
seriously, Tim Wise needs to publish a book for white people titled "Privilege: Do's and Dont's".
I think pulling the shoe when clearly the artist/designer's intention was to pay tribute to a toy is giving power to something that isnt really there.
So... connecting shackles to mass incarceration and slavery is "giving power to something that isn't really there?"
Really?
If your world is SO far removed from the very possibility of shackles used for their intended purpose, you're to be envied. Not everyone is so fortunate. These differing perspectives are precisely that: DIFFERENT. It's not that one person is right and the other is wrong, it's that you're viewing the same object within entirely different contexts. If knowing more about where the designer is coming from is helpful, so, too, is learning more about where the criticism is coming from.
Consider that mental associations involving handcuffs vary considerably in quantity and variety from those involving shackles - being chained at the feet. When you transform an object, you run the risk of transforming its meaning. When you take handcuffs off of a plush monster and affix them to the ankles of human beings, I think it's fair to say that something changes in the process.
What that image calls to mind is, of course, related to the way you experience the world. If you're privileged enough to only associate shackles with a cartoon monster, that's certainly a nice position to be in. That doesn't mean that other people are WRONG to associate shackles with... you know.... shackles - as they've actually been used in the real world. That doesn't strike me as a tremendous reach, and I'll certainly forgive people for considering it a rather inappropriate source of levity.
Personally, sporting shackles as a fad strikes me as inherently insensitive. (Less so, obviously, than if it were deliberately marketed as "Kinte-kitsch," but still disrespectful nonetheless.)
In South Korea, apparently there are (or were a few years ago) entire chains of Nazi and Hitler-themed bars: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2053797,00.html
As the article insists, "It wasn't long ago that Korea shook off its own authoritarian past. But the flirtation with things Nazi doesn't reflect an attraction to such politics. Nor does Korea, with no Jewish community to speak of, have an anti-Semitic streak. For many of the young people at the Fifth Reich, it's simply a fashion statement, with part of the appeal being the taboo nature of the symbols."
If nothing else, doesn't that strike you as a touch ignorant?
Sitting there and debating whether or not the proprietors and clientele of such bars are rabid anti-Semites is, in a sense, beside the point. They don't have to be driven by hatred to cause harm.
I think some people just want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to wear, say, or do something insensitive, but they refuse to allow anyone else to consider them insensitive for doing so. (If that isn't the epitome of entitlement...)
You can say, "it wasn't my intention to upset you", but once it's clear that your actions ARE upsetting someone you're then making a conscious decision to continue upsetting them anyway - and THAT is truly insensitive.
Part of majority privilege is the assumption that the way you see things is the way things objectively ARE - and that any deviation from the norm is somehow errant or delusional. It's like when you have all these TV shows set in New York with all White casts and they eventually resort to tokenism in response to criticism. Did it only become a problem when people complained about it - or was it ALWAYS a problem?
It's incredibly difficult to be within a minority and be unaware of majority perspectives. The inverse isn't true. That you don't see something doesn't mean that it isn't there or that it isn't valid. It just means that YOU don't see it. And there could be a very good reason for that.
This. I highly doubt that the designer didn't foresee this backlash anyway, just chose to push it anyway. It's a shoe with cuffs/shackles. A poor idea to begin with no matter what the inspiration was.Originally Posted by Method Man
Now that you know it's offensive to many people, however, you can no longer claim ignorance. Do you continue to stand on somebody's foot, knowing you're causing them undue pain, or do you move? Adidas moved.
........THIS is reaching.Originally Posted by AIRMATT
So anytime a pair of hand cuffs are depicted or bought by white people or chicks for kinky games = racist????
@@%%* seriously...
People need to stop reaching and looking for controversy where there is none...