Boycotting a Shoe Company Won't Save Kanye

*written before Nike's announcement to let him go. The thoughts here stand:

Boycotting a shoe company won't save anyone.  Even the child labourers at Nike got learned that.  Making a symbolic stand is too easy to effect change. It's like tearing down statues of other people, but neglecting to replace them with ones of your own.  It's just product, people. 

roxane gay

@rgay

It’s clear that

@adidas

has made their decision about where they stand on antisemitism. Now their creative partners (ahem) and consumers can decide how they feel about

@adidas

’s complicity.

So long as you got your adidas before Kanye started getting publicity for his rants, you can still wear em without anybody judging you, right?  It's just... don't be buying new product or you're an anti-semite, right?  Poor folk can't afford to toss they shoes to make a vague social point aren't gonna be namecalled for their brand of shoe here, right? "Complicity", ooh that's a big word.  How many people on his way up do you think were complicitous in making "Ye" the man he is today?  Start with the Kardashian klan.  Do you think their role in his life has helped or harmed him?  How about all the people who promoted his career and made money off his music?  Did they help shape the man or his viewpoints, do you think?

No, sister.

That's not gonna catch on that anybody caught in adidas hates the Jews.  If only we could simply "shun" Kanye, take his kids from him, and wave a magic wand to fix him.  If only -- for all his money -- he could buy peace in his family.  That's his big problem now... He knows he can't.

The people thinking they can fix the Kanye West's of the world by boycotting adidas, say, are still in denial.  The man is in an extended custody battle -- and clearly, he's struggling.  The correct answer is:  do not cover in the press this private issue that affects none of us.  Give it no airtime.  What business is it of ours?  But the press pushes, and records, and thinks Celebrities today always have something to say, on every issue...

When they push and the man erupts, now they want to turn and blame others?  The people who have purchased adidas products in the past, who buy for footwear not the current spokesperson, of which Kanye apparently is one?

Let it go, folks.  Donate money to local mental health treatment centers if you care to make change in America.  Don't blame the shoes.