Native American shoes?

[dallassiouxfan]

http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/26/news/compa...sion=2007092607

Not sure if this has been posted but thought it was interesting

[darell1976]

42.80 a pair. Just for Indians. What about other obese childen and adults of other races who can't afford shoes like this. Why just this one race. Thats horrible!!!!

[PCM]

Stand by for complaints in 3, 2, 1...

[Sioux-cia]

I think it's a great gesture. I hope it works.

On the Navajo reservation, the Navajo people are very traditional but I see the new generation moving away from their traditions. One of those traditions was explained to me as follows,

A 40 something woman (and those listening said they had the same tradition growing up) told me that as a child her father would get all his children up before dawn daily, rain or shine. He than had them run east to meet the sun as it came up. By doing this, they would get the blessings of the 'holy ones' (spirits?) who were also welcoming the sun. Those that slept in were subject to illness, bad luck and poor productivity.

This tradition, as you can see, promotes health through it's cardiovascular work out. Unfortunately, this tradition is not widely practiced, in town anyway. If giving Native Americans Nike workout shoes to promote exercise will help them back to this type of tradition, JUST DO IT!! It's your tax dollars that are supporting Indian Health Services. Why knock it??

Edit:

And, it's not your money paying for the shoes!!

[ScottM]

Nobody will buy them because they're priced too inexpensively. The "shoe whores", usually people who collect multiple pairs of athletic shoes but never use them on a court or a field, will shun them in favor of more expensive flavors. Maybe Nike should have just made a sizeable $$$ donation to health agencies in Indian Country, and avoided the pretense of actually giving two sh&ts about Indians.

[SiouxMD]

No complaints here...just a comment.

Nike is selling these shoes at the wholesale price...likely a net financial gain/loss of ZERO for Nike (not including any PR gain).

One might conclude that Nike is doing less for 10,000 Native Americans (WHOLESALE) than 13,000 New Orleans teenagers (FREE).

[Torpedo]

I don't understand why anyone would complain about this. The big thing here is that they have engineered a shoe specifically for Native Americans and the way their feet are traditionally shaped. The fact that they are selling them at wholesale doesn't really matter. Nike could give the Native communities a million pairs of free shoes, but it wouldn't really help as much as this. Having a shoe that doesn't match your feet is utterly useless in any athletic endeavors. This is the first shoe ever that has been crafted to fit the classical Native American foot. And trust me, they aren't doing it as a completely philanthropic act. It is marketing, no matter how you look at it. They will be building a brand loyalty among the Natives that buy these shoes, and I don't need to tell you that Nike sells more than just shoes.

[Siouxmama]

"The reason I like it is that, even if there's not a big Native American market, it gives people the impression there is a constituency that deserves attention," said John Dickson, a member of the executive council of the Native American Leadership Alliance in Washington, D.C.

Is he really saying "It gives people the impression that we care."

I may have read that entirely wrong.

Another thing. Where I come from, there were more people from the reservation wearing Nike, Reebok, Adidas, etc, than shoes from Payless. Didn't matter what the cost was.

[PCM]

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