The Kicks You Wear, Vol. 251 — 🔴 Kanye West is not excused
Nor does he deserve any of your excuses
Gooooood morning, family. Welcome back to the Kicks You Wear. Thank you so much for rocking with me on this Monday morning. Hope you have a fantastic week ahead of you. Happy Indigenous People’s Day.
Finally got my General Purpose Shoes over the weekend and am now wearing the hell out of them. Shouts to my guy, Yosh, for hooking me up.
Let’s jump in.
It’s time for us to hold Kanye accountable
People always ask me “Sykes, why don’t you wear Yeezy? Why don’t you rock with Kanye?” He showed everyone exactly why on Saturday night.
What happened: West hopped back on Twitter after spending years off of the platform to spew anti-semetic messaging to all his followers.
The tweet that has since been deleted. I won’t repeat it here. Yes, it’s that bad.
Bear in mind that we’re not even a week removed from dude wearing an anti-Black “White Lives Matter” shirt as part of Yeezy Season 9. It goes without saying that both of these things are extremely problematic. But the sad part is none of it is really surprising.
The thing is Kanye has shown us that this is who he is over and over again. If you’re not a white Christian man, he doesn’t care about you that much.
This is what it was when he told us that slavery was a choice or that Harriet Tubman never freed slaves.
And also when he decided that it was OK for him to publicly harrass his wife.
A lot of this behavior has been excused, hidden under the guise of his “genius” as some hairbrained marketing strategy or explained away as a result of his mental health struggles.
Obviously, West has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And that’s something that should be taken very seriously.
But…the problem is West doesn’t. He seems to think he’s OK. And, if that’s the case, at what point is enough enough? He’s not seeking help. These things keep happening over and over again. And his platform is way too massive, powerful and influential for him to say and do the things he does with no repercussions.
Here’s the deal, y’all:
He’s now gotten to the point where he’s featuring straight up anti-Black, alt-right propaganda as part of his global brand. That’s what the White Lives Matter shirt is.
He also just quite literally threatened Jewish lives with his tweets giving powerful figures the green light to spew the same sort of hate. Who knows what sort of hate or violence that might insight from some of his followers?
There’s no separating the art from the artist on this one. Supporting his art means supporting his ways — that’s how he makes his money and continues to build his platform. I don’t support that platform, which is why I don’t wear Yeezy or listen to Kanye or consume anything Kanye. I never will.
To be clear, that’s just me. I’m not asking everyone to do the same. This isn’t me trying to convince you to take some moral high ground here — I’m not that guy.
But who I do want to hear from is all of these companies that continuously give West a platform . Complex dedicated the last 20 years of its existence to him. Netflix gave him a documentary labeling him a genius. Most of the corporate sneaker Twitter accounts rock with his every move. Brands are still lining up to work with him.
What needs to happen: It’s time to condemn this. Speak out. Say something. At the very least, give it the coverage it deserves. Because if you don’t? You’re letting the people down. And if you’re letting the people down, how can you claim to really be apart of the community?
I’m just saying.
By the way…that review from Adidas? It just got a lot more interesting.
Some deets on StockX’s authentication process
StockX has been largely secretive about their authentication process throughout the company’s entire existence. But recently, we got detail on a bit of what’s behind the curtain.
What’s new: Thanks to a piece from the Washington Post on sneaker authentication, we’ve got some small details on StockX’s authentication process.
Praveena Somasundaram of the Post writes:
For StockX’s human authenticators, the process involves more than 25 elements, starting with the shoe box. Even the box paper, which buyers tend to discard, can say something about the shoes inside, Mupas said.
“There’s some things that we can point out immediately that to a regular person that’s not an authenticator, they wouldn’t be able to see it,” Mupas said, adding that authenticators have to understand every brand and sneaker style available on the StockX platform.
The entire article is fascinating and worth checking out — especially if you’re new to the sneaker world. But I found that tidbit most interesting.
Why it matters: This feels like the first time StockX has been willing to peel back the curtain — even just a little bit — on its authentication process. Not the results, but what it actually looks like. We don’t typically get this sort of transparency.
So why now? The answer to that is an easy one. Nike discredited StockX earlier this year when it claimed it purchased fake Jordan 1s from the secondary market platform.
That sent StockX into a spiral of transparency giving us numbers what they’ve authenticated through the years and how accurate their process is.
This tidbit from the WaPo piece is a continuation of that, but diving more into what the actual process looks like and not just how effective it is.
This isn’t great for StockX, but it’s awesome for the consumer. The more we know about the process, the more we can trust it. That’s what matters most.
More sneaker thievery
As sneakers continue to morph into an asset class the way that vintage cars or art is, the more we’ll see headlines like this one.
The news: A FedEx employee stole $96,000 worth of merchandise from Foot Locker, Click On Detroit reports.
FedEx employee Morris Jones siphoned off merchandise from shipments he was supposed to be delivering to a Foot Locker store in Eastpointe, Detroit.
After realizing there were late and missing shipments, both FedEx and Foot Locker traced everything back to Jones.
Police searched Jones’ home to find the merchandise in Jones’ basement.
I said it last week and I’ll say it again: You really shouldn’t steal. But if you’re going to steal? Please don’t be this dumb about it. This man lost his employment and almost certainly will go to jail for this.
The big picture: Even with a cooling aftermarket, we’re still seeing more and more of this. It won’t be stopping anytime soon.
SPECIAL DELIVERY: Let’s talk about golf
The fusion of golf and Black culture has been of interest to me for a while — especially when it comes to sneakers. Because sneaker culture is Black culture.
What I’ve been trying to figure out is when this fusion start? And why? We explored that on this week’s episode of Special Delivery with Vibez Amateur Golf Club.
This was a treat. Shouts to Melvin Gordon, Dare Ogunbowale and Noe Vital for giving us some time. Hope y’all enjoy the conversation.
What’s droppin, bruh?
Nike Dunk Low “Clark Atlanta University” — Tuesday, October 11
Nike Air Deldon “Be True” — Tuesday, October 11
Social Status x Nike Penny 2 “Playground” — Thursday, October 13
Nike Dunk Low “Pure Platinum” — Saturday, October 15
Air Jordan 4 “Canyon Purple” — Saturday, October 15
Thank you so much for rocking with me! Appreciate y’all. Hope you have a fantastic week ahead of you.
Until next time. Peace and love. Be easy, be safe, be kind. And we out.
-Sykes 💯
Good read.