Forgive me. Your humans are uniquely self-aggrandizing.

There are many races of elves where I’m from, but all of them wear shoes. It may be of some small comfort to you to know that they don’t suffer from any systematic oppression, and simply choose to do so because they value the protection from cold, parasites, thorns, snakes, hot coals, bird shit, etc.

There was one druid who didn't, now that I think of it. I'm not sure if it was because he wanted to be closer to nature or because he was a werewolf.