Stephen Curry wears sneakers with Bruce Lee quote

NBA super start Stephen Curry wore a pair of specially designed sneakers on a court.

According to Yahoo Sports and others, Curry wore sneakers with an image of legendary martial artist and actor Bruce Lee from Hong Kong for an away game with the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday to condemn hate crimes against Asians in the U.S. and commemorate the victims of a mass shooting in Atlanta last month.

The sneakers were designed with the Bruce Lee Foundation for the game. The yellow and black sneakers, which remind of Lee’s trademark yellow tracksuit, feature an image of Lee’s face on one side and his family on the other with one of Lee’s quotes, “Under the heavens, there is but one family.” It was his answer to a TV interviewer asking if he thought he was Chinese or American in 1971. Lee also added that he wanted to consider himself as a human being. The sneakers worn by Curry on Sunday will be auctioned off, and the proceeds will go to the bereaved families of the Atlanta shooting.

Curry decided to wear the sneakers out of his respect for Lee. Lee actively voiced for human rights and peace aside from being a great actor and martial artist. Lee is known to have been subject to racial discrimination in Hollywood. “He pushed himself to be greater than he knew he could and to impact people along the way,” Curry recently said to a U.S. sports media. “Disgust, horror, and outright anger at why any violence keeps happening in our country,” he said on growing hate crimes against Asians.

“I think Stephen’s gesture is a beautiful example of allyship and solidarity in action,” Shannon Lee, the CEO of the Bruce Lee Foundation and his daughter, said on Curry’s sneakers. “I am honored he would choose my father and my family as the symbol for the idea that we are all one family.” Shannon criticized then-President Donald Trump for his ‘Kung flu’ remarks as racially discriminatory in June last year during an interview with NBC. Trump often used the derogatory term to emphasize that the new COVID-19 virus originated in China. “My father fought against racism in his movies,” she said, adding that Trump’s remarks were against the teaching of her father.


Jae-Dong Yu jarrett@donga.com