Once upon a time there was a guy named Michael Jordan. He was generally considered to be the greatest of all-time at the game of basketball — despite being kind of a jackass and egomaniac. His most enduring legacy, though, may be revolutionizing the fashion of athletic footwear.
In the years after he and Nike debuted the eponymous shoe, all hell broke loose. In a string of high-profile incidents (high-profile because the media decided they’d be), inner-city kids killed each other for their shoes. Finally in 1990, Sports Illustrated could no longer stand idly by. It was time for a trend piece and melodramatic headline [To read the entire article, click here].
SI Cover, "Your Sneakers or Your Life"
Who’s to blame? The kids of course. Or maybe the shoes. Definitely one of those two things or both. Murderin'-ly Fresh At the time, the fist-pumping argument generally went like this: “Kids these days have no respect for human life. They kill each other for $120-dollar shoes? It’s madness. Harumph!” Let’s get one thing clear: they weren’t inner-city kids killing each other over shoes. They were inner-city kids (Baltimore, Detroit, Houston, Atlanta) killing each other over $120 dollars. It’s like what Homer Simpson once said. Homer: Aw, twenty dollars? I wanted a peanut! Sports Illustrated goes on to offer a number of explanations for the deaths — from Jordan himself to Nike to drug dealers (interestingly not SI, the biggest marketer of sports at the time though). Said prosecutor Mark Vinson [attorney involved in one of the cases], “It’s bad when we create an image of luxury about athletic gear that it forces people to kill over it.” “Force?” I don’t know about that. If this were true (and ever were a real trend), it would still be happening today. Current prices for Jordans on Amazon range from $60 on up to $1,000 and more. What happened? Did the inner-city kids get rich? Less violent? Less fond of fly gear? Convinced that the shoe violence was fueled by drug dealers, one store manager took the matter into his own hands. Connecticut retailer Wally Grigo posted a not-so-subtle-sign in his store: “IF YOU DEAL DRUGS, WE DON’T WANT YOUR BUSINESS. SPEND YOUR MONEY SOMEWHERE ELSE.” When asked how he knew which customers were drug dealers, Grigo offered time-tested logic: “When an 18-year-old kid pulls up in a BMW, walks down the aisle saying, ‘I want this, this, this and this,’ then peels off 50′s from a stack of bills three inches thick, maybe doesn’t even wait for change, then comes back a couple weeks later and does the same thing, hey…you know what I’m saying?” Or he could be a rapper, but there’s no difference, right? Those are the only two logical explanations. As for his role in the ordeal, Nike spokesman and Mars Blackmon alter-ego Spike Lee offered the following: Everybody said last summer that my movie Do the Right Thing was going to cause 30 million black people to riot,” he says angrily. “But I haven’t heard of one garbage can being thrown through a pizzeria window, have you? I want to work with Nike to address the special problems of inner-city black youths, but the problem is not shoes. Fortunately, the media have moved on from the notion of Jordans-as-death-wishes. These days it’s Yankees fans who are committing all the crimes. [Sports Illustrated, Image via Lurpin] Fun Facts: 
Homer’s Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts.
Homer: Explain how!
Homer’s Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
Homer Simpson: Woo hoo!
