Wired868 Wired868 for smart sport news and opinion
At one point in the life of every young cricket enthusiast in the Caribbean, there comes that eureka moment when you realise that: Maybe, I can make a living off of doing this!
Training becomes meaningful, you pay more attention to your diet, seek out the best coaches you can find and absorb hours of footage of contemporary cricket stars.
You turn down party invitations from your friends, say “no” to vacation jobs, swallow your pride in the company of arrogant, discourteous sport administrators and, after years and years of sacrifice, you get your chance on the big stage. And you take it.
Adidas say they want you to be their next global cricket star; you hi-five your agent and sign on the dotted line.
And then, they do this!
(Courtesy @adidascricket)
Editor’s Note: So is Adidas’ caricature all in good fun? Or wrong, wrong, wrong? Let us know.
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Ok Lasana Liburd, so you had your laugh and found a forum to share it. The image is racist and depressing as it depict a black man with buck teeth and squint eyes. I guess that if you was living in the past you would have seen no problem with the whites planting their swards in out skulls and chest. It seems like a hell of a time for you to smile and warble when you should be calling for a boycott of their products. By you sharing this propaganda shows how little respect you have for your people. I promise to stay out of Wired868 and their bias administrators but I’m back. If they don’t like me, let them stand in line with the others who is waiting for me to give a …k.
St Ann’s Hospital is really severely underpopulated oui
Comprehension wasn’t one of your stronger areas in school, was it, Kerron? Lol.
You’re with us for your first two sentences. After that… Lol.
Sometimes when I see a man inviting me to join him in the gutter… The best thing I can do is walk on by. Lol.
I am confused. Isn’t the article criticising adidas by saying they’re playing the adidarse? You want wired868 — a news and commentary site– to call for a boycott Kerron? How about you? Call for one.
Would you join me? Some things are best left alone but by sharing it he has stimulated the mind of others and they are now depicting the African man in a negative way. did you observed the person he tagged in the post? they are persons who have a large following and was meant to attract a wide cross section of the population. I have already said what I think of LL and his administrators. I hope that you are not standing in the line.
ohhh goooood….yuh mean ah next one escape from that place in St Anns?!!!! Wha goin on with security there boy. #nocomprehensionskills.
Prefered the last one who ranted that he bawled like a cow…it was more funny and intelligent.
I think it’s ok to disagree with and/or dislike the administrators. I am disagreeing with you in this instance though. The post forced adidascricket to give an (albeit watery) apology. It also stirred conversation. I can understand the feeling of not sharing offensive images because it makes sure more people see it. It’s why I don’t share the videos of the school girls fighting. But sometimes people need to get called out when they’re playing the ass. As a news site I can empathize with the difficulty inherent in those kinds of editorial decisions.
They did apologized but it was not as a result of this post. What he did with this post was to tag four prominent persons who has thousands of followers to spread Adidas propaganda. To make my point, just scroll down from the post and you would see members depicting the African man in a negative way to make a point. That was what I was talking about. On a brighter side tho. I like how you don’t share things that are negative and offensive in nature. Just be careful, Wired868 would want you to believe that Np publicity is bad publicity.
I’m literally squinting right now!! ????
Good afternoon
Fayola, I tagged Adidas on the post on Twitter and i was exactly the second person to complain. And I tag people who usually respond and discuss stories here.
This is a closed group so if a person has a million friends, none will be able to see it.
Mind your get a headache trying to offer sober analysis Kerron. Leave that for grown ups.
Kerron toting long time because I booted his brother or his pseudo identity for breaking group rules on posts.
WTF were these people thinking! I mean it’s so much easier to use an actual picture as they did for Kholi. To go through the effort of creating this disgusting caricature like if somebody had it in for Bravo!?
Da fack! It doh even resemble him!!
Caricature ? No, its insulting.
OK, just heard it got pulled; still in no way negates the need for an explanation.
Everyone is so thin skinned these days.
agreed….
I don’t think any of the commentors know what exactly a caricature is supposed to be.
Exactly that.
It’s a CARICATURE!!! They obviously don’t kno what that entails.. ?
He should sue and ask for an apology it’s not funny
Oh no. The sad part is I am certain that Team Adidas saw this image as complimentary to Mr. Bravo. The ignorance continues.
Don’t blush, baby. I’m sure that it just slipped bye… Maybe cricket needs some red cards…
Huh?
Adidas did not truly apologise, they have not admitted that what they did was inappropriate. ..
Yeah I still waiting for a real apology!
That is offensive and racist. A modern replica of old racist depictions of African people.
Adidas could do better than that. that pic looks so insulting.
Same twitter page portraying Kohli
This.
Their apology on twitter…adidas Cricket @adidascricket 6h6 hours ago
We see Bravo’s caricature has upset many. Apologies to those whose sentiments got hurt, this wasn’t intended. He’s our Champion.—#teamadidas
Weak like a Tim Kee apology.
Insult to injury…non apology really.
Steups … weak apology for a tasteless caricature
Apparently Tim Kee get a wuk as PR Manager in Adidas.
Keep them in their place for as far and as long as we can get away with
My honest reaction upon seeing the drawing after opening the e-mail this morning was “What the hell?” I hadn’t read the story so I thought Lasana commissioned it or something. I was wondering what was going through his head. :/
..Because they respond ONLY to political and marketing pressure..
Smh. Why does it always take this to get them to act with sense
Afra Raymond we’re on it. Simply put, this is not good enough.
Of course not! Go for it!
I tagged @adidascricket when I posted story, just after midnight.
who is going to instruct adidas …. that the only apology possible is a matched multimillion dollar project for adidas sponsored sports camps throughout the depressed areas of the country, to implement immediately. a US$6 million project approximately
and/or for that star and his team mates to use half of that money to set up their own management board and structure
but i know i am radical and revolutionary to even dream this is possible in this world.
Is he the only one? What the others look like? Links??
You can check their Twitter page. From what I saw, he is their only cricketer of African descent. And they clearly didn’t know what to do with him.
Lasana, they sponsor K. Pollard as well.
Ok. Thanks
Cricket in the Jungle.
Adidas want to lose cricket fans as customers? ?
lol not gonna happen
Why am I hearing Gypsy, like Shadow’s baseman, singing in my head “Little black boy…”? But the note in not plaintive but mocking. ?ocking wrong!
Bruh…
..Typical racist stereotype of West Indian people. One that WE and our tourism agencies and ministries all promote. You know. Sun. Sand. Sea. Coconut “milk”. Grinning people. “Paradise”. (Proceeds to vomit)..
Wtf!!! Ursa Po they should just throw bananas at him and done.
Hell no that reminds me of the adverts they ran in the late 19th century. WTH
excellent looks good on you. late 18th century is what you meant though…
I hope they are paying him in direct proportion to the size of those teeth!
Atrocious and unacceptable! (unless they have done same in the past with blue-eyed champions)
Wrong wrong wrong
If dis is praise then you shouldn’t want it.
No man. This better be from Mr Live Wire or Late O’clock News eh!!!!!
It’s a coon caricature straight from the Jim Crow era….
Shame on u !
21
I’m not sure what they were trying to achieve….
All this is missing…..is long donkey ears……Shame on wudiarse for treating one of our champions this way
Nothing is wrong with caricature, but I fail to see its relevance in this instance. If you’re celebrating Bravo, at least do him the honour of using his real image or a drawing that closely approximates it. Why randomly use a caricature?
It’s a poor caricature at best
I don’t agree that it’s poor….I think the problem with it for most people is that black people have been depicted in the past with exaggerated lips (sambo) as a derogatory gesture, and so it’s a tricky thing doing a caricature of a black person this way. However, a caricature takes a striking feature of someone and exaggerates it- for Bravo, that’s his smile. He has a beautiful smile. With a caricature, that’s what will be exaggerated. Fine. I just don’t think that this was the time to use a caricature, especially since caricatures are frequently used when making fun of people.
Robert Reid how so? dont caricature exaggerate prominent features of a person?
Yeah it’s poorly executed/drawn there are far better caricature artists out there who adidas could have paid to do it properly
it isnt poor in the least…if ppl wish to argue timing and appropriateness then fine but saying it is terribly racist for me is a stretch.
Robert, with any caricature people would have an issue. I don’t think this is the best caricature I’ve ever seen, but at the same time it’s not terrible. But art is so subjective- we can have varying opinions of the same piece of work- and that’s ok. The problem I think that people have is not with the quality of the artwork, but a sheer misunderstanding of what a caricature actually is, and so they interpret it as racist or offensive. Or like me, there is a problem with the appropriateness of this type of artwork for a message of congratulations.
Send Adidas straight to the disciplinary committee
How on earth does this go from conceptualisation to publication without someone – anyone – nixing this and, best case scenario, using it as a critical teaching moment?!
This picture says it all…..this is how our black stars are seen…. disgusting ??
This sort of thing happens when you don’t have ethnic and thought diversity about the people making decisions.
Say it again for the back of the class, Erline. Not sure if they heard!
This is wrong. Very wrong. Looks like giant chiclets.
I can even understand doing a cartoon. But that is what they see when they look at Bravo? That’s how they wish to highlight one of the best athletes in the world in his field? That is bizarre. At best!
I don’t even want to say what “at worst” would be in this case…
Wrong!
Wrong!
Wrong!
Wrong like a Crix Biscuit!
Not even a picture of the man taking his 300th wicket!!
wrong .its insulting.
I was just speechless. Still am yes…
WDMC???!!!! NO. JUST NO.
This is about to be a major problem.
typical foreign agency nonsense….clueless about everything with their myopic viewpoint of Caribbean people
oh did i forget racist?
This one really threw me yes. I couldn’t believe it. So I’m waiting to hear the consensus…
they should not have done that man!!
I thought was Gayle yes!! lol