Nike Takes a Stand Against Racism by Hiring Colin Kaepernick

Nike gave former National Football League player Colin Kaepernick a job, which is more than the NFL will do. Kaepernick hasn't played football since he was the first black athlete to take a knee, silently, to protest police violence against unarmed African-Americans during the singing of the national anthem. Since then, racist Pres. Trump has railed against NFL players, black and white, who have taken a knee to protest police violence. In lock step, the NFL has taken on racism as a cause worthy of their total support. Professional black athletes must stay in the locker room if they have any thought of signalling by word or deed that they are not going to press their hands to their chests and stand during the singing of the national anthem. Otherwise they'd better be standing outside with their hands pressed to their chests if they want to get paid.

Free speech, guaranteed by the First Amendment, is an important right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

Of course the militaristic, slavish support of country without criticism began with the infusion of money from the Pentagon into our national pastime, football. In the military one is supposed to follow orders without question. In our republic, which is solidifying into an oligarchy under Trump and his neo-liberal predecessors, the First Amendment guarantees our right to free speech. Free speech is complicated by the fact that NFL players get paid to play, just as many of our politicians get paid by their rich donors to vote a certain way, allowing them to ignore their constituents as long as they get voted into office. NFL players have an employer. If their employers are racist and adhere to a racist agenda, the players have to go along or consider the fate of Colin Kaepernick, who no longer has a job with the NFL.

Consider Nike's stance in taking on Colin Kaepernick with a healthy bit of skepticism. There's a big market for Nike products among black athletes and African-Americans generally. The white racists poisoning themselves with polyvinylchloride fumes (melted plastic) by burning Nike products to make a point about their cultural affinities instead of -- I don't know, donating their shoes and clothing to the homeless, aren't the majority of Americans anyway. Last I heard, Trump's approval rating was 36%.

Nike hasn't always taken the moral high ground. In a 2/13/94 piece, the New York Times called out Nike management for taking an "Ostrich Defense" for claiming they knew nothing about manufacturing; they hired Asian contractors to have the shoes made. In 1994 Nike used Indonesian contractors to chase the cheapest labor they could find. Nike sports shoes alone brought in $2 billion a year. The company, based in Beaverton, Oregon, had 8,000 people in management, design, advertising, and sales and 75,000 mostly Asian workers who actually made the shoes. Nike shoes cost about $5.60 to produce in 1994 and were sold for between $45-$80. Michael Jordan's reported $20 million fee for promoting Nikes in 1992 cost Nike more than the entire payroll of the Indonesian factories that make the shoes. The Indonesian women and girls starting work in those factories made $1.35 a day -- not per hour, but per day.

An American company in southeast Asia locked up SE Asian women in their factories 29 out of every 30 days and allowed them to go home one day a month to their families. It could have been Nike, Apple, or any one of a dozen companies seeking cheap labor.