Shackles on my feet

25th June 2012   ·   0 Comments

By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor

A.D.I.D.A.S. = All Day I Dream About Slavery? Kunte Kinte shoes? Oh, hell no.

Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the sand for the past two weeks you’ve witnessed the hoopla over Adidas’ presentation of what amounts to slave shoes — tennis shoes with lemon-yellow shackles to attach to the wearer’s ankles.

I like a joke as much as the next cat, but there is nothing cute, clever or hip about fashioning shackles to sneakers that are likely to be worn daily by millions of Black and brown youth. Or anyone for that matter.

For this writer, a single glance at the shoes was enough to conjure up images of violent raids on African villages by those seeking men, women and children to sell to European traders; thousands of kidnapped African souls languishing in slave fortresses along the coast of West Africa waiting to be loaded and shackled in spoon-like fashion into the belly of gigantic vessels to destinations unknown to them; millions of Africans being thrown overboard or jumping into shark-infested Atlantic waters rather than submit to the will of their oppressors, so much so that W.E. DuBois would later write that these ancestors’ sacred remains are “the bare bleached bones that line the lanes of seven seas”; husbands, wives, sons and daughters being sold on the auction block and centuries of enslavement at the hands of their oppressors. It also brought to mind European powers carving up Africa like a pie during the Berlin Conference and the many ways Europeans continue to rape and exploit Africa for its mineral wealth, oil, raw products and cheap human labor.

If any single item underscores the disconnect between Black and White America, this is it.

The creators and sellers of these shoes were able to brush aside all that human suffering, anguish and tragedy in order to take a shot at scoring big with uninformed consumers.

This is the epitome of cultural insularity, a fundamental lack of respect for the history and culture of people of African descent. Anyone who knows and appreciates anything about the ordeal enslaved Africans endured at the hands their oppressors during the Maafa (African Holocaust) also knows that the history of the Black experience in the Western Hemisphere has special meaning for the descendants of those who survived the Middle Passage.

Estimates of the number of African men, women and children affected by the Transatlantic Slave Trade range from 10 million to 60 million continental Africans, many of them targeted because of a certain agricultural skill they possessed while others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Those numbers include African villagers killed during village raids, people who died or were killed because they were sick during the long, arduous trips to the West Coast of Africa, those who died of suffocation, dementia and a host of other illnesses in the slave fortresses before they were taking to the “New World,” those who died from a host of diseases as they languished in urine, feces, bile and vomit in the belly of slave ships, those who were thrown overboard so that unscrupulous slave traders could collect on slave cargo insurance policies, those killed during violent uprisings on the high seas and those Africans who defiantly jumped overboard to their deaths rather than bow to an oppressor.

It would be hard to imagine someone taking a similar dig, intentional or otherwise, at the Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

Very few people talk about the enslavement of Anglo-Saxons by Romans or the fact that the Moors were credited with civilizing and modernizing Spain during their rule of that nation.

There are, of course, Black folks who would have proudly worn those slave shoes and might still get a chance to buy a pair on the black market (pun definitely not intended). Adidas’ decision to pull the shoes after they caused an uproar simply means that the company doesn’t want to deal with a PR nightmare right now. But later? Who knows?

It is infuriating and sad to think that some of us are so lost and confused that we would actually spend our hard-earned dollars supporting a product as fraught with negative energy and suffering as these Adidas shackle shoes. I mean, we have to draw the line somewhere.

Some of us have already gone way overboard by shelling out big bucks for $300 shoes, platinum- and diamond-covered fangs, car rims that cost more than some of us make in six months, ridiculously priced sports cars and colossal mansions where one would be hard-pressed to find a single book about the history of Black people.

Too many of our young people who go to the military do so in order to come home and get nice cars, jewelry and rims, not a free college education.

We can and must do better.

Before you get too down on twenty somethings and thirty somethings who might actually think it is cool to wear these slave shoes, keep in mind that these younger Black folks are a product of their environment. Their knowledge of self and their history is a direct reflection of what they learned in their families, schools, churches and communities. If they are lost, confused and myopic, it is because they were raised by adults who did not take the time to make sure these young people fully grasp the African experience.

As the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. is fond of saying, “Sick villages raise sick children.”

And as the late Marcus Garvey often said, “A people without knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots.”

Our children and grandchildren are those rootless trees blowing hither and beyond with the arrival of every air current that comes along.

Some of us who have reached the age of 40 and beyond have our own issues to work out. Far too many of us still have issues with us and hate ourselves because we have bought into white supremacist doctrines that place Europeans at the top of the totem pole and Africans at the other end. Some of us do everything we can to make ourselves more acceptable to others such as relaxing our hair, getting blue contact lenses, dyeing our hair blonde, refusing to learn anything at all about the history and greatness of Africa. Many of us have been convinced that in order to be successful, we have to move as far away from our authentic African selves as possible, even if that means losing our soul and identity in the process.

There are some of us in the Black community with what some might call positions of influence who might do some good for others if we were so inclined. Some of us, for example, have access to grants and scholarships that could be used to ensure that young people who fight hard to make their dreams come true every day could get a college education. Instead, we “hook up” the children of our friends, loved ones and colleagues with these grants and scholarship, even though we must know on some level that the latter group of kids hail from families that can afford to pay for college. Every time we make a conscious decision to give these grants and scholarships to kids who really don’t need them, that constitutes an act of shameless greed and betrayal of the community.

Many of these same folks pat themselves on the back, often sending out a slew of press releases about the good work they’re doing to help those less fortunate and telling anyone who will listen about their tireless work for the have-nots.

Many of these same folks will be paid handsomely to go to seminars and conferences and deliver speeches about the lingering effects of racism on communities of color and what what can be done to close the racial divide. Seldom do they talk about how their propensity for mimicking their oppressors continues to impede Black progress, growth and development.

Make no doubt about it. Those in communities of color who turn their backs on others who look like them will one day have to answer to their ancestors and the Creator for everything they do and choose not to do. They will be judged and dealt with accordingly.

Every now and then I hear a comment by a young Black person about how his or her generation don’t get all bent out of shape by all “that racism stuff” the way their parents and grandparents do. That’s because they do not know their history and have no understanding of how white supremacy has continued to evolve since 20 African indentured servants landed at Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, a year before the “Pilgrims” arrived.

Since so many of us don’t seem to know that Kemet (Egypt) is in Africa —not the Middle East — and that Africa today has modern cities with hotels and great sites for tourists to visit and learn from, it is no wonder that people like one of my childhood friends get crazy looks every time he talks about visiting Egypt or moving to Ethiopia.

Back to Adidas. Frankly, I wouldn’t shed a tear if the company that manufactures Adidas products burns to the ground but I know that would only hurt the many workers in China, Pakistan and Indonesia who are already likely being overworked and underpaid in these sweat factories.

The unwritten story here is that German-based company is outsourcing its sneaker production to the aforementioned nations because it has struck deals with those governments to allow the company to pay desperate inhabitants of those lands slave wages to build expensive Adidas shackle shoes to be sold to youth from communities of color in the U.S. who are themselves making slave wages — if they’re even fortunate enough to find a legitimate job — and who must get creative about finding ways to raise money for these overpriced shoes. Even if that means selling narcotics, boosting merchandise or getting money the “ski-mask way.”

Jesse Jackson has already threatened to launch a nationwide boycott of Adidas stores if the shoes hit the market.

“It is a symbol too strong, too powerful, and too negative to be trivialized,” Jackson said. “I’m astonished Adidas would be this insensitive and allow this to happen.”

More infuriating than the disturbing message that the image of the shoe sends is the idea that someone in a position with decision-making po­wer sees nothing wrong with selling this filth to people of African descent. That would be like marketing replicas of the tools used by Adolf Hitler to exterminate Jews to their Jewish American descendants today. Totally unacceptable.

While I support a boycott of Adidas or any company that disrespects and denigrates Black people, I also support a worldwide campaign aimed at combating white supremacy and helping Black people to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery and move forward as a people with clarity, courage, vision and a sense of purpose.

All power to the people.

This article was originally published in the June 25, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper