Conquerors and Colonizers

Tides of primal hate will soon be sweeping the West and, in some places, have already arrived.

“The Last Days of Tenochtitlan—Conquest of Mexico” by William de Leftwich Dodge (1899).

Did you know the iconic Nike Cortez was named after the Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortés? If you’ve seen “Forest Gump” or “Stranger Things,” you’ve seen these low-profile cruisers.

Nike launched them as the company’s first track shoe in 1972. The creators, Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, originally wanted to call it “The Aztec,” but Adidas beat them to it with their Azteca Gold offering. So they went with the name of the man who sacked Tenochtitlan, the seat of Aztec power, and brought down their empire. Why name a shoe after the losers anyway? Nike, after all, is the goddess of victory.

Karl Martini

The Cortez is still in fashion, although Cortés is not, having been deemed a “colonizer.” You probably saw denunciations of those Spaniards who tamed the New World on Columbus Day. But the irony is that their conquest was made possible by the brutality of the Aztecs, the original colonizers. Of course, we don’t call them that. Whites, Europeans, and Westerners have that exclusive privilege today.