Tag: sneakers

The Oklahoma-based real estate investment group church religious service provider known as Transformation Church that has set a seemingly new standard for throwing money in so many directions, has set the bar even higher this December.

Long gone are the days of pastor Michael Todd being simply content to wear the latest and greatest $3,000 shoes, these collectible kicks that few others in his congregation would ever be able to sniff, let alone touch, outside of a furtive swipe of the hand while supporting their crowdsurfing man o’ God.

What do you do when you’re swimming in money, good looks and you’ve already bought $20 million worth of commercial real estate but aren’t quite ready to make the jump to plant a satellite market in the saturated market of the South?

You further the spirit of Black Lives Matter via mostly-empty and economically-indefensible PR stunts.

In the newly resurgent Greenwood District sits Silhouette Sneakers & Art, “a highly-curated retail experience that brings limited and authentic sneakers and streetwear to Tulsa”. That is to say, they sell highly-priced athletic shoes that cater to sneakerheads, examples of which include Air Jordans ranging in price from $165 to $1100 and Adidas from $290.

These are the kinds of shoes that people otherwise in poverty strain their bank accounts to wear, chest-thumpable status symbols for the street. 

In a move whose arithmetic sensibilities recalls the latest proposed federal stimulus package, Transformation Church just dropped $65,000 to clean out their highly-curated inventory and get some really sweet photos. How many pairs of shoes did they get for that sum? 168.

After all, why buy $50 pairs of shoes for 1300 children when you can spend $387 each to land 168 of them? It’s a small price to pay to build solidarity with our black friends and neighbors and help make sure that 168 “kids that are in an unfortunate situation” get overpriced footwear so they can look rich, imitate Pastor Mike with his awesome kicks, and set their eyes on things of this Earth, right?

Here’s the kicker. As it turns out, the owner of Silhouette Shoes is known to street evangelists in the Tulsa area for another reason.

Venita Cooper frequently serves as a deathscort at the Tulsa child sacrifice mill. In other words, Venita and her lesbian partner have repeatedly volunteered hours to don a rainbow-vest emblazoned with “CLINIC ESCORT” so as to rush abortive parents from their vehicles into the front door of the Tulsa Women’s Clinic and help drown out the preaching of the Gospel and offers of assistance from abolitionists and other sidewalk counselors.

Venita has played a very active role, of her own free volition, to volunteer in the murder of babies, a large percentage of whom were black, in Tulsa and to draw her lesbian partner further into the same dark practice. 

This is the owner of the business Transformation Church just paid almost $400 per pair to “support” and get a photo op with. Not that the Church or Crowdsurfing Sneakersporting Pastor Mike would know any of that necessarily – like 99% of the other churches in Tulsa, the only time a member or attendee ever shows up at the abortuary is as a paying customer.

We reached out to Transformation Church for comment, but no one has responded.

What’s next for the pile of cash burning a hole in Pastor Mike’s pocket? Buying and donating 600$ T-shirts? 2000$ diamond necklaces? With the way this church is going, we wouldn’t put it past them.

Editor’s note. This article was written by Alan Maricle for Protestia. Edited slightly for brevity.