National Urban League Slams Nike For $315 Price Tag On New LeBron Shoes
The National Urban League is speaking out against Nike and their upcoming release of the most expensive shoe in Nike history at a whopping $315.
Nike’s basketball ads in the 1980s and early 90s featuring Michael Jordan and Spike Lee’s alter ego Mars Blackmon popularized the famous line “Money, it’s gotta be the shoes!”
Fast forward to 2012 – Nike is still selling sneakers and charging big-time money for them. This fall, the sneaker giant is expected to unveil its ‘LeBron X’ sneaker and if you want to wear them, it will cost a cool $315 according to the Wall Street Journal.
The National Urban League wants no part of it.
The civil rights organization has slammed Nike for charging so much for the shoe and is encouraging parents not to spend their money on an “empty status symbol.” The group’s president Marc Morial has asked Nike to scrap its plans to release the show altogether:
“I ask Nike – and the parents whose children are targeted in this misdirected campaign – to join us in our efforts to empower young people to value their own talents – athletic and otherwise – above material tokens and work together for broader access to the economic mainstream.”
The urban league released a statement earlier today, where Morial describes the LeBron James sneaker as representing “twisted priorities and confused values.”
Earlier in the statement, Morial says: “To release such an outrageously overpriced product while the nation is struggling to overcome an unemployment crisis is insensitive at best.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, this version of the ‘LeBron X’ sneaker includes its own electronics and will be the most expensive shoe in Nike history.
Would you buy these for your child or let them spend their hard earned money to purchase them?
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Marc Morial is an idiot. Now he is blaming the unemployment rate on expensive sneakers or at the very least is suggesting that a way to help people get jobs is for the parents to not buy the $315 shoes. It’s an insult to parents across America, he is suggesting that is his right and duty to tell the American mothers and fathers to help your children and not buy this pair of sneakers as if the parents weren’t capable of making that determination themselves. Why isn’t he telling parents to make sure their kids stay in school, stay away from guns and drugs and get a college degree? Why isn’t he banging on GM’s doors in Detroit and demanding that Cadillac stop selling Escalades or at the very least lower the price so more jobs are created (lol)? NOOOOOOO, his decision/answer is to hammer NIKE about the cost of a pair of sneakers. Nevermind the small business owners who sell them, nevermind the NIKE employees who get paid to make them……. What an idiot.