Adidas Pulls ‘Shackles’ Shoe Amid Controversy

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Shortly after Adidas (PINK:ADDYY) posted a photo of its JS Roundhouse Mids sneakers to its Adidas Originals Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) page, the German athletic apparel designer received a barrage of comments about the shoe. Some comments were supportive, others critical. Yesterday the company announced its decision to pull the controversial sneakers.

If the criticisms were only about the sneakers being ugly, there wouldn’t be a problem because thousands of others found them cool. Instead, the shoe, complete with bright yellow rubber shackles, conjured images of slavery for many individuals.

“Racism is in every culture, religion and among every nations, everyone of us at one time or the other were prejudice of the other,” one person wrote in the comment section below the photo. “An image that will be a constant reminder of a set of people being abused and degraded in the past; that is globally displayed should be removed.”

In addition to the photo receiving more than 3,800 comments, it was shared by about 8,700 Facebook users. Some shared the photo to express their anger with the product being pulled, while others shared to display their distaste.

“What were they thinking,” one Facebook user wrote. “An entire conference room of people thought this was a good idea?”

In an official statement, Adidas apologized for the offensive sneakers and said the shoe “is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott’s outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery,” The Associated Press reported. “Since the shoe debuted on our Facebook page ahead of its market release in August, Adidas has received both favorable and critical feedback. We apologize if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace.”


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2012/06/adidas-pulls-shackles-shoe-amid-controversy/.

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