(Insert obligatory Eli Porter quote here)

Being that a few days have already passed, intentions to make a post about the Nike+ Human Race began to wane.  But upon making the daily blog rounds the past couple days, I saw little mention regarding the event that was boasted as the largest global run.  This was a reminder of the empirical fact that most bloggers tend to be lazy and out of shape [1].

2/3’s of FOBBDeep, Mark and myself, took part in the 10K run in Los Angeles, running from Exposition Park through Figueroa St to Washington Blvd to USC and back.  Beginning at 8:31:08 pm and with 12,000+ in attendance, Nike demonstrated how easy it was to sell $30 dry fit t-shirts.  As much as it was meant to represent global human unity, it was basically a free commercial shoot for Nike, where the extras paid to work.

Not to forget, the underlying theme of post-racial politics that was presented through the double entendre name of the event: The Human Race.  Nike wants us to forget the exploitation of third world countries, since we are all one anyways.  Kumbaya!  We can now all hold hands and eat granola together while we wear Nike products.

Okay, that’s enough cynicism, even for me.

Real talk, a grandly organized and fun event took place.  As a matter of fact, Mark lost his mobile and the human race came through to return it.  If this wasn’t a display that we should not lose faith in the human race, then I don’t know what is.  At the closing, Kanye performed for 45 minutes, even blessing the participants with an exclusive new cut.  Common came on midway through Yeezy’s set for “Get Em High” and did three solo tracks.  Even though he rocked the stage, just one word of advice to Kanye: Follow the lead of the runners you performed for and start running; your breath control needs hella work.

And don’t think I didn’t represent:

“Obama for mankind” -Young Jeezy [2]

To end: As a unit FOBBDeep = perhaps the most physically fit Fil-Am/Hip-Hop/political/pop culture blog posse.

[1]Actually, this might just be true for Hip-Hop blogs
[2]Problematic gender politics belongs strictly to the quoted rapper.

-Ninoy Brown

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 12:25 am and is filed under Consumerism, Ethnography, Pop Culture, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.