So I was looking through my RSS feeds, and I saw this on boingboing:
It's about how Nike is making a new line of shoes called the "Air Native N7" especially designed for Native Americans' feet. Apparently they've done lots of research and found that shoes on the market today just don't cut it for them. There are a lot of "cultural nods" in the design as well. I thought it was a really cool idea, so I thought I'd just post a short link to it in the blog.
Then I read the comments on boingboing, and I had to comment on them. Most of them are appalling.
I could say that they are the typical things that you might hear from any cynical observer of the modern Native American. It might be true. It doesn't make it a good thing. First there's all the talk of casinos... but I did have another question. Why is it that whenever a company or a group tries to do something cool like this, they get completely torn apart? Nike must have some respect for the Native Americans if they go through the trouble of studying their feet and crafting a shoe especially for them. At any rate, they have more respect for the Native Americans than boingboing readers/commenters. Read the comments on boingboing and tell me if I'm overreacting.
Posted by Shenlon at September 26, 2007 04:44 PM