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Adidas pulls all-white Black History Month sneaker after social media backlash

Posted at 7:23 AM, Feb 05, 2019
and last updated 2019-02-05 10:23:00-05

The Adidas slogan may be "impossible is nothing," but there's some things even the infamous shoe brand can't do — and designing a sneaker to honor Black History Month is one of them, according to the backlash on social media.

Adidas is pulling a shoe it designed to commemorate Black History Month after customers and social media users expressed confusion and disappointment in the design. The running shoe is an all-white edition of their existing Ultraboost Uncaged collection. And while the website doesn't specify what materials were used to make the shoe, one Twitter user said a store employee told her they were made of cotton.

People on social media weren't impressed.

From the white design to the cotton material to even the name of the shoe, people took to Twitter to tell Adidas exactly what they thought of their Black History Month design.

Following the backlash, the company decided to remove the shoe from the collection. Adidas released the following statement regarding their decision:

Adidas released a new collection in celebration of Black History Month featuring designs inspired by the Harlem Renaissance. It includes footwear and apparel across a variety of categories. Toward the latter stages of the design process, we added a running shoe to the collection that we later felt did not reflect the spirit or philosophy of how adidas believes we should recognize and honor Black History Month. After careful consideration, we have decided to withdraw the product from the collection.

There are other items in the Black History Month collection that are slated to be available February 5, including three other black sneakers with pops of purple and shades of red and orange.