August 3, 2015
Watch: Dimwitted KKK-Follower Caught Wearing Hip-Hop Brand Shoes
EDGE READ TIME: 2 MIN.
Fashion and irony clashed last weekend during a Confederate Flag rally in Georgia when a man with a Ku Klux Klan tattoo was spotted sporting a pair of shoes associated with hip-hop culture and African-American Pride, Raw Story reports.
While reporting from a white supremacist rally held in Stone Mountain Park, located 30-minutes outside of Atlanta, journalist George Chidi noticed something amiss - a man with a Ku Klux Klan tattoo wearing a pair of FUBU sneakers.
FUBU, a brand born in the largely African-American neighborhood of Hollis, New York, has long been associated with hip-hop culture.
The following conversation transpired:
Chidi: One thing I wanted to mention - the shoes that you're wearing.
Man with KKK tattoo: Yeah? What's the matter with them?
Chidi: That brand - FUBU
Man with KKK tattoo: What's the matter with the shoes I'm wearing? They're black and white.
Chidi: It's the brand FUBU. FUBU stands for "For Us By Us."
Man with KKK tattoo: I don't care what it's by. I bought them. I can buy them.
Chidi: There was a black man who created the brand for African-American pride.
Man with KKK tattoo: Those shoes you're wearing were probably designed by some white guy in the '20's. But does that make you stop wearing them shoes because I white man designed them?
At its peak in 1998, FUBU has grossed over $350 million in annual worldwide sales and has received several honors for their entrepreneurial achievements including two Congressional Awards, two NAACP Awards and the Online Hip-Hop Award.
"I don't hate you. I hate not you," the FUBU shoe-lover said. "I hate what your people are doing to this country."
Stone Mountain Park is best known for it's enormous bas-relief on its north face, the largest bas-relief in the world. The carving depicts three Confederate figures during the Civil War: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis.