Back in 2014, Kanye West teamed up with Nike creative director Mark Smith to design the Air Yeezy II at a cost upwards of $5,000. Shortly thereafter, one of my favorite YouTubers, FouseyTube, came up with a video concept to put a pair of the infamous Yeezy II's (Red Octobers) in front of the public eye and see how the passerby would react. The twist to the video is that FouseyTube pretends that he is homeless and asleep, then places the pricey sneakers right next to his setup. The shoes are an easy snatch, but do you think the shoes have enough power to make people compromise their morals? Watch the short clip here.
Besides the obvious materialism exposed in the video, the exchange of words after the homeless man confronts the thief exposes the inherent narrow-mindedness that exists in our culture. When confronted with the question of why he snatched the shoes, the thief responds "I don't know, I'd uh... Use them for better, something better, like uh, like a college fund, you know... Not alcohol, not a fifth of jack," as if all homeless people spend all of their money on alcohol.
In our society, especially in an intense and competitive college atmosphere, there is a tendency to see life only through one lens; we lack the ability to imagine others' points of view. We lack the ability to attempt to understand why people make certain decisions, and we lack the ability to understand why people end up in the positions that they do.
For instance, when discussing the growing wage gap with one of my roommates, he explained to me that it is the person's fault for working a low paying job, because he or she did not seize the opportunity to educate themselves better.
The fault in his argument was that he only looked back at his life and wrongly assumed that everybody had access to the same opportunities. He comes from a stable two-parent family, his dad has a PhD with a full time job, and his mom stays home to take care of the house. I love my roommate and tried to explain to him that he was not understanding the full situation, but he was blinded by his own privilege.
I have searched within myself and found that I am guilty of narrow mindedness towards money. Countless times I have told myself that if I had Donald Trump's money, I would use it more wisely than he would, assuming that the way he uses it is completely wrong. However, I have come to acknowledge the fact that I cannot judge him for how he uses his money, because I don't fully understand who he is or what motivates him to make the decisions he does. I find that media coverage fails to reveal the true layers of Donald Trump.
In my life I have failed at relationships because of a lack of maturity, then observed my so-called friends turn their backs more quickly than Judas. Like the robbers in the video, these "friends" judged my actions, wrongly believing that they had some sort of moral superiority over me.
We all have this one fake item, whether it be shoes, money, or relationships, that can blind us from the morals that were instilled in us as young children. We look at an opportunity and say all the things that we would do different than the person who made the mistake, but fail to comprehend the people involved.
Luckily, it is the judging people who aren't going to be creating any opportunities. They are the ones that will fail to grow in their relationships, fail to gain financial wisdom, and ultimately, fail to gain happiness. The people who stole the Red Octobers thought they were morally superior to the homeless man, thus, they looked like fools in front of 10 million people.
