I never knew, but can’t say I’m surprised to read that Nike has been doing Black History Month awareness sneakers and accessories over the last decade. That’s cool. I can understand it. Not to mention the vast majority of Nike’s target audience is probably African-American, and all that corresponding jazz, it makes sense, and is obviously done with the best of intentions.
However, seeing what the 2016 BHM collection of sneakers and accessories looks like, I can’t help but wonder – was trying to look like all of Bill Cosby’s sweaters really the goal in mind?
I get it, ultimately the patterns and designs aren’t necessarily “Bill Cosby designs,” but based on actual African heritage artwork, it’s just the fact that for the better part of two decades, Bill Cosby was wearing such patters and designs on his patented Cosby Sweaters, that they’ve inherently become more symbolic with the man that ended up being a serial rapist, and not so much of an entire culture.
Seriously, every single one of these BHM option offerings by Nike looks like a different Cosby Sweater slapped onto a shoe. If these things existed in the 80s and 90s, they would undoubtedly be worn by Cliff Huxtable in coordination to whatever color vomit of a sweater he was wearing in that particular episode.
I can’t be the only person who’s seeing this, and without bothering to cross check, I’m going to assume that I’m not. That being said, Nike couldn’t have chosen a worse time to trot these looks out, given the fact that currently, Bill Cosby is on the cusp of going to prison for maybe a decade for having been discovered to have sexually assaulted around 50 different women. And now Nike is going to release an entire line of limited edition shoes that look identical to the sweaters the said sexual deviant was renown for wearing? Bad timing, Nike.
Seriously, they couldn’t have just held off a year on the shoes for the Cosby heat to dissipate some, and then just released some generic Air Jordans, Air Kobes, Air LeBrons or whatever the fuck they’re called anymore these days, with palettes of red, green and yellow?
Not that this is going to really slow down the sales of these gaudy shoes, but I’m hoping that there will be some people out there that also thinks that these shoes look a little too much like Cosby sweaters to want them, but knowing how the world operates today, maybe that’s exactly why people who normally wouldn’t want to drop $150+ on a pair of shoes, just might.
Zip-zop-zippidy-zoop-Jell-O puddin,’ get your own pair of rapist sweater shoes by Nike, this February! All in the name of Black History Month!
