By: Deric Muhammad
Rosa is a factory worker in an impoverished Third World country. She makes Air Jordan’s for a living. She walks several miles to work 7 days a week and makes approximately 3 dollars a day. She’s the breadwinner of the family so it’s either factory work or prostitution. She chooses the former to avoid the latter.
Rosa’s handiwork is so exemplary that a single pair of the shoes that she makes retail for 180 to 250 U.S. dollars. She barely makes that much in 3 months. So Rosa naturally wonders who are the rich folks that can afford to pay this kind of money for the sneakers she makes. Little does she know that it is inner-city youth, who are not rich at all, who drive the market for name brand sneakers made for meager pennies and sold for big dollars.
The bottomless pit of profit in between Rosa’s slave wages and the senseless sneaker addiction of inner-city youth are major corporations like Nike, Adidas, Reebok and others. I call them “sneaker pimps”, because they exploit the poverty-stricken condition of third world countries and the lack of self-knowledge of urban youngsters amassing fortunes worth billions leaving the callous hands that make the shoes and the misguided minds that purchase them in dire straits.
What is it about name brand sneakers, called “tennie shoes” in the south and “gym shoes” in the Midwest, that make them a necessity to our people? Why do the latest Air Force Ones’, Air Yeezy’s, Chuck Taylor’s or LeBrons make us feel better about ourselves. Why does singer Chris Brown sing “You’re Like Jordans on Saturday” when expressing how special his female companion is in his song “With You”?
A new pair of shoes could make any one feel good; especially a people who are descendents of slaves that picked cotton barefoot for nearly 300 years. But, as the young folks would say, “let’s keep it one hundred”. A people who are “last hired and first fired” that suffer collectively economically cannot afford a $700 pair of Kanye West Nike Sneakers (called Air Yeezy’s). Our youth have become emotionally attached to things which offer them an identity, because we have failed to provide them with a root in their history, culture, God and self.
Believe it or not, there was a time when the only time you saw men wearing basketball sneakers was when they were playing basketball. Hip-hop culture and it’s influence popularized athletic apparel when groups like Run-DMC decided that “their Adidas” would be the uniform of the day whether they were on the block in Hollis Queens New York or at the White House. Earlier artists, like Grand Master Flash and Melle Mel wore hard bottomed shoes, but when Run-DMC took off so did the profits of Adidas.
Our entertainment and sports icons are tapped regularly as pitch men for these companies. If Phil Knight were to create a sneaker and put his personal signature on it he may have to give them away, because no one would buy them. So he pays influential demigods like Michael Jordan, Kanye West and others millions of dollars to use their popular names to popularize Nike shoes. The athlete/celebrity makes decent money, but the masses of the people are caught up in the illusion that buying a pair of shoes will get them closer to being ‘just like mike.’ In the year 2006 Nike reportedly spent $476 million on endorsement deals. However, the company profited 15 billion dollars that year. You do the numbers.
Nike is a term associated with the “Greek Goddess of victory.” The question that must be asked is “a victory for whom.” This transnational business set-up is certainly not a victory for sweatshop employees in poor nations who can hardly feed their families. And we must make clear the fact that there is no victory for us, as a people, in purchasing overpriced sneakers. The only victor in this relationship is, “money in middle”, the corporation. Just as the Greeks acquired knowledge from the Egyptians and ultimately claimed it as their own and used it against our forefathers, companies like Nike acquire billions of dollars from our communities, claim it as it’s own and give very little back.
Rap artists who allow television cameras into their homes to tape shows like MTV Cribs often brag about owning thousands of pairs of sneakers, some given to them by apparel companies in hopes that they can influence the hip-hop generation to desire to own hundreds of pairs of sneakers, as well. Unfortunately, most of these artists end up in financial trouble and while there may be some resale value for their jewels, called “bling bling”, there is no resale value for a pair of shoes.
We have to break the news to poor urban youth that Air Force One’s don’t make you a better person. We must diligently and consistently teach them that they should not judge their peers by the price tag of their shoes. We must make very clear to them that we, along with our brothers and sisters in sweat shops across the globe, are being “sneaker pimped”, by these corporations and if we are not careful the hip-hop generation could go down in history as a “generation of suckers.” Who will tell our youth that they must accept their own and be themselves?
NBA superstar, Stephen Marbury, made a revolutionary pivot towards self-empowerment in the Black community when he released his “Starbury” line of sneakers and apparel retailing for 10-20 dollars. These affordable prices, attached to the name of one of our most celebrated athletes, helped many single mothers and hard working fathers who can’t afford to buy the latest high dollar kicks for their children. I appreciated Marbury’s move, I have supported it and I think you should too (www.starbury.com).
If we as a people were to collectively save the exorbitant amounts we spend on sneakers we could probably purchase one of the Third World countries where these sneakers are manufactured. We could pay Rosa a decent salary and sell our own shoes to our own people at a reasonable price. Even Phil Knights grandchildren would buy from us, because urban youth set the trends for suburban America. If this ideas sounds “too much like right, then this generation has been taught “too much like wrong.” Get the sneaker pimps out of your pocket.
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