Boycotts: still blacks' best weapon

Guess what I discovered about myself en route to the forum onthe PUSH boycott of Nike, the wonder shoe manufacturer.

I am indeed a penny-pincher and an aging square.

This week I was stunned to learn that those puffy shoes thatpresumably can make you leap into the stratosphere may cost from $125to $150 a pair.

It is unbelievable to me that anybody other than a professionalathlete or somebody with a unique foot ailment would spend that kindof money on two gym shoes.

But I learned something more significant during the daily forumon Nike vs. PUSH. It is that the brilliant heads ofmultimillion-dollar corporations can err in everyday human relations. Specifically, Nike committed a public relations error in opting fora public confrontation over the proposed PUSH covenant.

Regardless of what newspaper reports say, very few sensibleblack adults will encourage young African-Americans - particularlythe disadvantaged - to spend $100 on a pair of gym shoes. Prior tothe current debate, few of us knew about the price tag. Such gymshoe sales will be discouraged in black communities, even after theNike debate is ended. Here's why:

The argument from those black supporters of Nike is not onlyimpractical, but cuts against the very grain of black history. Notonly are some of the black defenders of Nike unworthy of carryingPUSH's sneakers, their logic runs counter to the use of the majordefensive and offensive weapon available to blacks.

The greatest single tangible instrument that African-Americanshave at this moment is the weight of their numbers. Blacks are 12percent of the nation's population, but in certain key cities theyrange from 15 percent to 60 percent.

Only through strategic use of their numbers have they been ableto win concessions that flow normally to other races.

In this century, the bloc vote in politics, Supreme Courtappeals, "selective purchasing" (a euphemism for the boycott) in themarketplace, and mass demonstrations have been blacks' only weaponsin the quest for education and modest equity.

And today the importance of the offensive and defensive use ofblacks' numbers, including the boycott, looms greater as a negativereshaping of the U.S. Supreme Court is visible on the horizon.

To urge blacks to rely totally on themselves - the old bootstrapbusiness - instead of making demands on those who profit from theirpurchases and ballots, is like telling Rosa Parks, E.D. Nixon, MartinLuther King Jr. and all the heroes and heroines of the 1955Montgomery Improvement Association they should have started their ownbus company instead of protesting Jim Crow transportation in Alabama.

Vernon Jarrett is a member of the Chicago Sun-Times editorialboard.