Adidas Sandal Scandal Proves ‘Woke’ Isn’t Quite Dead Yet

By Paul Angel

Woke is dead, they said, but rumors of its demise are greatly exaggerated, judging from at least one trending news item. Just recently, the Adidas shoe company has come under fire from Mexican officials for allegedly committing one of the deadliest sins of the woke chumocracy, that of “cultural appropriation.”

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Evidently, Willy Chavarria, a high-profile fashion designer, admitted his Adidas Oaxaca Slip-On sandal design was inspired by a leather sandal made and worn by the people in the Qaxacan region of Mexico. These sandals are called  huaraches. To be precise, the term refers specifically to sandals made by the Purépecha people of Michoa­cán, Mexico, well-known for their skill in weaving cloth and leather.

About the great Sandal Scandal, Associated Press had this to say:

Mexican artisans and authorities say [Adidas’] intricate leather braids look strikingly similar to the traditional footwear known as huaraches made by the indigenous people in Oaxaca, produced mostly in the town of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag.

In short, the huarache is made of thin strips of leather that crisscross the top of the foot. These strips are attached to a  sole. Pretty simple, really; a design that resembles leather sandals worn by primitive and advanced peoples around the globe for ages.

President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum, however, wants some pesos for the Purépechas. Sheinbaum told reporters: “It’s collective intellectual property. There must be compensation. The Heritage Law must be complied with.” She beamed when announcing that the cultural appropriators  from Adidas had agreed to meet, knowing they were a shoe-in to offer an obligatory mea culpa to atone for the cultural appropriation heresy.

Chavarria apologized, and took sole responsibility for the alleged theft of the huarache design. But don’t blame him. He ab-shoe-lutely had to do it to avoid being canceled.

Marketing geniuses for Espiritu, one of the companies distributing the Oaxaca Slip-On, went so far as to claim that the huarache-style sandal is “the first shoe ever invented.”

In fact, the oldest leather footwear in the world found thus far dates to 3500 B.C. It was discovered in the Areni-1 Cave Complex located in southern Armenia.

Truth be told, the huarache sandal is not even the second or third oldest shoe we know of. Those honors belong to the footwear of 3,300-year-old Ötzi (the famous frozen “mummy” found entombed in ice on the Austrian-Italian Alps), and  2,000-year-old Roman sandals and boots fished out of bogs and wetland sites such as Vindolanda Fort on Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.

Conversely, the Purépechas have only been making their leather sandals for a handful of centuries, not five or more millennia.

But that is beside the point. Just because Europeans may have invented shoes first does not mean other cultures across the world cannot wear woven leather footwear or be inspired to make something similar.

If we were to start pointing cultural appropriation fingers, where would this madness stop?

For instance, when famed explorer Henry Morton Stanley entered the untamed rainforests of Africa just 154 years ago, he emerged with some amazing stories to tell.

One possibly apocryphal tale from his African adventures goes something like this: When Stanley arrived atop his donkey cart in one remote African village, he was welcomed by the native people of the tribe, all of whom were rotating their heads in circles.

Stanley, believing this was their  traditional greeting, thus began making circles with his head, as well. He soon realized the natives were not greeting him but following the mesmerizing rotation of the spokes of his cart wheels. Though it was the 1870s, they had never seen a wheel!

Were we to apply the logic of the woke, this might mean that anyone of African descent would be banned from driving a car because they’d be culturally appropriating the wheel.

The incredibly advanced Mayans never utilized the wheel, either, except in toys. Applying woke logic, does this mean that Central Americans would not be allowed to make their own cars?

It might also mean that American Indians would be banned from playing in modern orchestras since their own people developed only a very limited set of musical instruments. The Aztecs, for instance, only had a basic repertoire of instruments. This included clay flutes, whistles, conch-shell trumpets, gourd rattles, and drums, certainly not violins, harps, and oboes.

Does it mean that whites cannot beat on a hollow log because Africans may have done it first? Or blow on a long tube of hollowed-out eucalyptus because Australian aborigines did that before we crafted the coronet?

Does this all mean I can’t take a camel ride or use Arabic numerals?

What about spaghetti? Is spaghetti off limits because the Chinese invented noodles? And forget about spaghetti sauce. It’s made with the tomato, which originated in pre-Columbian western South America.

What about pants? Some say the Mongols invented pants. I need pants. The only job where you can show up for work without pants is if you’re an activities director at a nudist colony.

And how about electricity? Nuclear power? Advanced medical machinery and life-saving drugs? Jet airliners and high-speed trains? Refrigerators, stoves, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, and dishwashers? Rocket ships and deep-sea submersibles? Forget the sandals—I want all that!

Should those whose cultures did not invent the items above be denied their use? Of course not. But where does the “cultural appropriation” lunacy and the souped-up identity politics end? Sadly, when they say “woke is dead,” it ain’t. It sits patiently at the edge of an empty grave—sneering.

Paul Angel is the Managing Editor of AFP. He can be reached at Angel@AmericanFreePress.net.

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