Apparently, and see the comments posted on the Adrants link above to see more about this, that image was designed by an artist named Barry Mcgee who seems to be of Asian-American heritage.
McGee said to be a world-renowned artist and that image on the Addidas is one of his characters. One commenter on Adrants says that “by being Asian he is certainly allowed to subvert the traditional or racist images and reapproiate them for his own use. I see nothing wrong with it. It’s very similair to Black people calling each other n——. I see nothing wrong with it. And Kudos to Adidas for actually doing somethig cool…”

Photo of the artist here.

Yes and that constantly bugs me too, its ok for them to call each other the n word but if anyone else does then its racist. Just don’t get me started on that kind of thing, imagine if there was a White music awards, it would be closed down immediatly and yet theres no problem with having Black music awards.

I don’t get it, so these shoes are for cowards? wink, wink.

Hey only half of that guy is allowed to draw that! The other half is a freaking racist.. Like, damn, I think I discovered a paradox.

This shoe was designed by Barry McGee, whose is half Asian.

“that art is obviously the a response to racism…”

It isn’t obvious to me, and I’d bet it isn’t obvious to 99.5% of the people who see it.

I see it as more infantile than anything. Who’s the target audience? Eighth graders?

And let’s not get carried away with pretentious pseudo-sophistication, either. The statement, “by being Asian he is certainly allowed to subvert the traditional or racist images and reapproiate them for his own use” is just silly.

Just don’t get me started on that kind of thing, imagine if there was a White music awards, it would be closed down immediatly and yet theres no problem with having Black music awards.

It’s ironic that the sarcastic response I made to this puerile bit of racist self-pity was deleted in a thread about supposed racism directed against Asians. So racism is only bad when directed against Asians, eh Ampontan?

For the record, George, Ampontan did not delete your comment, I did. And I edited your comment again when you repeated it.

Japundit is a place to discuss Japan and Asia.

If you want to discuss U.S. race relations there are plenty of places to do so. This is not one of them.

JP

Amida there is a pretty clear difference between personal relationships and people sharing the same race.
And curious george i would love to hear how me thinking that the fact a black music awards can exist is racist. Yes clearly me thinking that racist shouldn’t determine if people can apply for something is racist. Whereas you who thinks people should be divided by race is in the right.

I know people who would be offended by the design on those shoes and the fact its called the yellow series. I don’t see how its cool at all really O.o

I fail to see the difference between the two races. So why exactly is one entitled to a club and the other not?

From an article about the artist:

Mr. McGee, 38, is one of four children of a Chinese-American secretary and an Irish-American car-body repairman. Twenty years ago a friend introduced him to graffiti and he began tagging all over San Francisco with the name Twist. He quickly became famous within the subculture for his innovative combinations of text and image and his artfully shaded spray-paint renderings of down-and-outers and giant screws.

Graffiti appeals to him because it is both transgressive and populist, exhibitionistic and anonymous. “You’re all over the place, but no one knows who you are,” said Mr. McGee, a tall, slender man who acts and dresses more like an awkward teenager than the successful artist he has become. “Some people are enraged and some people are applauding. If there were a mission statement for graffiti, that would be it.”

But tagging is no way to earn a living, so he enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts in printmaking in 1991. “I wasn’t trying to turn graffiti into an art form,” he said during a recent interview here. “I just wanted to learn about art. I wanted to learn this game.” As for his fellow graffitists, “I don’t think they even knew I was going to art school.”

Early on he was championed by San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where he has shown many times. He will be included in “Beautiful Losers,” a show there celebrating skateboard culture that opens on Saturday.

“His work is great, and I’m surprised at how he’s been able to keep it vital and unpredictable,” said the center’s visual arts curator, René de Guzman. “It hasn’t softened — in fact, it’s getting more edgy.”

Mr. de Guzman points to the installation Mr. McGee did with the tagger Josh Lazcano for the center’s 10th-anniversary show last fall. They piled VCR’s and TV sets inside a graffiti-covered truck arranged to look as if it had crashed near the center’s front door. Despite a sign reading “Don’t Call 911 — This Is a Work of Art,” the volume of anxious calls led the police to demand the truck’s removal.

The incident fits nicely into the arc of Mr. McGee’s career, which has been made by breaking the rules. Although he is shown by important dealers, he has taken the unusual step of shunning gallery representation, whereby a gallery owner promotes an artist in exchange for exclusive rights to sell his work. Instead, Mr. McGee calls himself “a free agent” and often sells his work through nonprofit and artist-run galleries. He is also known for doing his installations at the last minute, allowing curators little control.

“He has kept that outlaw — not only sensibility, but also way of relating to a museum, which can be tremendously challenging,” Ms. Platow said. “I knew in my heart that I could rely on him. Everyone else went a little crazy. Now we laugh about it.”

Mr. McGee said: “I just try to get away with as much as I can. I don’t think that’s very radical in the art world. It seems pretty tame compared to hanging off a rooftop or a freeway sign.”

Now that he’s a father — Mr. McGee’s wife, the artist Margaret Kilgallen, died of breast cancer in 2001 just a few weeks after giving birth to their daughter, Asha — he no longer takes those kinds of risks for graffiti. But he is not entirely out of the game. “There are a couple of places I like to keep up on,” he said, although these days “my graffiti is so anonymous, no one could know who’s doing it.”

Mr. McGee’s continued involvement has kept his street credibility alive. “He’s the icon, the godfather,” said Shawn Whisenant, 22, an aspiring artist known as AKO who is currently in jail in nearby Napa on felony graffiti charges. “You can still walk around San Francisco and see little `Twist’ things that he does. It’s not like he’s turned his back on the culture.”

Nor does Mr. Whisenant fault his idol for going legit. “It’s great that he’s expanded into the art world,” he said. “Because who really wants to be a 40-year-old guy running around the streets?”

The point is, the mainstream ISN’T supposed to get it. It’s supposed to be offensive to many and appreciated by few, just like graffiti in general. If you want to call that racist, then that’s your opinion, but as someone else said, I’d guess that this is McGee’s own demented way of offering his own commentary on the racism issue.

I think the drawing on the shoe seems racist
but it kind of looks like the artist. He drew
it so let it depict himself not our culture and
who would want to buy that kind of shoe with a
racist picture on it anyways!!!
Adriane

There is a news story on yahoo and newspapers today, about a Chinese-American human rights group criticizing this image today. LINK anyone?