Adidas Cancels Shackles Shoes

I'm not sure who's working for Adidas these days or who's brilliant idea it was to create these shoes but they tried it and it failed faster than Madonna's last album.  According to the Boston Herald  Adidas announced Monday evening that they would be canceling their plans to release the shackle sneakers after the huge public outcry. You can read the full story at the link at the bottom.  Apparently we're supposed to believe that the creative minds behind the shoe's design NEVER EVER considered they could possibly be seen as offensive, to them millions of urban youths running around with bright orange shackles around their ankles wasn't racially reckless, it was just another day in the 'hood. 

Now that I've said all that I do want to issue a quick PSA.  I don't care what race, religion, creed, nationality, age or species you are, please do not tell me to get over slavery.  I know it sounds random but as I was reading through some of the comments on websites like CNN or The Huffington Post,  I saw a number of people either eluding or just out right saying that black people should get over slavery.  This isn't the first time I've heard this in fact when I was in high school (a long three years ago) many of my paler peers would say statements very similar to this so instead of getting into an extend rant about this I just want to state a few facts:

• No one kindly asks Jewish Americans to just forget about the Holocaust (which they shouldn't)
• No one would EVER tell the families of September 11th victims to just get over the attacks and move on
• No one asks the Native Americans to drop any hard feelings about the rape of their land and the attempted genocide committed against their people
• And No one would ever dare to tell any group of American to simply get over Pearl Harbor because well it happened a long time ago

See generally when it comes to the deplorable acts carried out against people of color Americans have a funny habit of wanting people to simply forget about it.  Instead of owing up to their bad behavior they sweep the events under the rug and deflect.  See because after all it's not their fault that they did something wrong, it's yours for not letting bygones be bygones, but I digress.

Boston Herald Article