You gotta believe in something
10th September 2018 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
Nike has done it now.
The sports apparel giant has taken a stand for social justice and has shown where it stands in the ongoing debate about NFL player protests during the presentation of the national anthem.
The Beaverton, Oregon-based company which provides uniforms for college football and NFL athletes as well as athletes in virtually every sport under the sun, had to know that not everyone would be pleased with its decision to feature former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in a new campaign with the slogan “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.” But it did it anyway.
Since the story broke, there have been videos posted on social media of angry folks burning Nike merchandise and venting online about the company’s decision to embrace Kaepernick, who kicked off the NFL player protests during the 2016 football season when he began to sit during the national anthem. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback later decided to kneel during the national anthem after discussing the issue with U.S. war veterans.
Given that Nike has such a huge share of the international market and will become even more popular among consumers from Black and Brown communities, it is not difficult to see why Nike might have been willing to roll the dice and shake things up a little bit.
The company remains wildly popular among young consumers and recently inked a new deal with the National Football League to continue to produce its uniforms.
Beyond that, the decision to feature Colin Kaepernick was just “bad-ass.”
And bad-ass sells and resonates with younger consumers.
Those who were most offended by the new ad campaign were probably among the consumers least likely to spend their hard-earned dollars on Nike apparel.
Over the course of the summer, one of the sports radio networks has been airing a comment from a talk-show host that maintains that Colin Kaepernick has no case to be made against the NFL team owners because the First Amendment doesn’t protect him from decisions made by these businessmen who run private businesses.
That might not be entirely true when you consider that nearly all of the NFL’s team owners have benefited from the use of public funds to renovate facilities and build new stadiums.
The bottom line is that Kaepernick will have his day in court and, thanks to Nike, will be riding a fresh wave of support.
History will show that when it was time to stand up by taking a knee, Colin Kaepernick stood tall.
He didn’t have all the answers and has shown that he still has a lot of learning and studying to do about the history of struggle among people of African descent in the United States.
He has made some questionable comments that have raised eyebrows about his grasp of history and politics, but he also raised $1 million to distribute to groups fighting for social justice.
Like each of us, he is a work in progress.
It is all the more remarkable that he was somehow able to seize the day and use his platform as an NFL athletes to raise awareness about the plight of Black, Brown and poor people in the United States.
He inspired many other NFL and NBA athletes to follow his lead, in addition to inspiring high school and college football players, college cheerleaders and soccer players around the world to take similar stands.
What do you think all of the people around the world that he has inspired think about Nike’s bold new ad campaign?
This article originally published in the September 10, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
