That's my thought process this morning after having read the comments on our Facebook page about the line that began to form Thursday to get tickets to buy the new Nike Air Jordan 11 Retro Gamma shoe Saturday.
The comments were pretty typical when dealing with a racist gentry: “Oh, my God,” and I'm paraphrasing here, “They're out buying $185 shoes while I'm sittin' at home paying for all their babies,” or, “Must be nice to have no job and buy expensive kicks.”
This week I have learned a lot of judgment and making assumptions, from the line at Hibbett Sports to all the Duck Dynasty flap, which is not at all a freedom of speech issue, but a decision by a private company to indefinitely suspend, not fire, someone.
Pardon me, but your assumptions are showing and they're not in the least bit flattering and maybe I should have stood in line just to see what folks would say.
“Oh, there's that Lance, squandering my advertising money on a new pair of shoes, making me pay for his illegitimate babies. Oh! The humanity! How dare he go out and spend money in the local economy?”
The point is it is not your money — it is the money of the people sitting out in the cold and they have a right to buy whatever they want with it, without your comments, without your outmoded way of thinking and without your poorly veiled racial barbs.
I didn't ask anyone out there Thursday night whether they were on the dole, had a job or were in school. Judging from what I could base on their ages, most were probably in their late teens and 20s, most probably students, all wanting to buy a limited edition pair of shoes with the brand of someone they very much respect.
And let's be clear, these are not shoes, as someone sagely said on our Facebook page, that are used to mow the lawn, they are collector's items to be worn sparingly, if worn at all, and take some effort, like camping out, to get them.
It would be like Crocs coming out with a limited edition “shoe” every year or so that would drive white folks so mad they would stand in line just to get a chance to have a pair. I would find this extremely funny that folks would stand in line for a pair of Crocs anyway that I would have to get on my own Facebook business page and say something like, “Oh, cashing in daddy's trust fund or embezzle much?”
It would be nice for once if people would mind their own business and see this for what it was, me trying to inform readers who may have seen the lines starting to form and some cash infused into a local business.
It's kind of sad to me we are living in a country where a group of predominantly young black males and females can't stand in a line to buy something they want without being accused of sucking the welfare system dry or having no job.
On second thought, I'm glad I didn't stand in that line because there's no telling what would have been said about me — Lance Martin
