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As I watched the new Colin Kaepernick ad with Nike, I kept thinking of the words, "Say it". The advertisement begins with Kaepernick who assures us that "what non-believers do not understand is that it's a compliment."
Good start, now: Say it.
"Do not try to be the fastest runner in your school or the fastest in the world. Be the fastest ever. "
OK, but say it.
"Do not imagine wearing the OBJ shirt; OBJ image with yours.
Of course, let's dream big, I'm totally for that … but say it all.
"Do not settle for a queen or a linebacker back home; do both. "
Oh, my God, just say why we are here.
When Kaepernick was finally revealed as the narrator in the ad, he turned to the camera and declared the slogan that had been attributed to him, saying, "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything" .
At that time, I realized that the advertisement would never say the necessary thing. The "it" in question is what has made Kaepernick a subject of contention in recent years. "That's the reason the NFL has ruled it out, the president of the United States has ridiculed it, and people are burning their shoes and cutting swooshes in their shorts."
"It" is Kaepernick's original and personal protest against racial injustice in the United States. In this announcement, this "something" he believes in was drowned in a sea of inspiring sports clichés.
We should rarely turn to sports ads to say something important. They deal with aesthetics and generalities in order to appeal to the greatest number. But Kaepernick is one of a kind, one of the few sports personalities to fight for something so fragile and so much sport that she has to be protected.
How Nike addresses his protests against the brutality of blacks and people of color in America. An application for equal treatment is a radical action, which must be specific and explicit to have an impact. Protest can not be simply "something" in which one believes. That's why the ad campaign quickly turned into a meme. The Kaepernick line could apply to anyone, from Thanos at Slender man.
Everyone who has a goal believes in "something," but not everyone gets on their knees because, as Kaepernick once said so clearly:
"I will not get up to show the pride of a flag for a country that oppresses blacks and people of color. For me, it's bigger than football and it would be selfish for me to look on the other side. There are corpses in the street and people paid to leave with a murder.
The announcement confirmed the fear I had on the occasion of the first announcement of the last transaction of Kaepernick with Nike. It illustrates the inherent conflict between social justice and brands.
Social justice should challenge the fundamental world in which we live and measure itself against changing human conditions. Those who promote social justice, like Kaepernick, are often outcasts. They are stripped of their positions and ostracized. Despite what Nike suggests, they do not want to sacrifice anything.
In the case of Kaepernick, the career for which he worked hard was taken away from him. To say that he "sacrificed" does not understand the story and blames the consequences on him, rather than on the people who wanted it. He was sullied because his stance against racial injustice forced people to face an uncomfortable reality in their country.
This nuance is lost when manipulated by the marks. A brand aims to seduce widely and is measured in profit. The protest, however, is specific and provocative and is not meant to be an easy sell. Justice is about restoring the dignity of people and often requires systematic change through totally invisible and unmarketable processes.
Nike's announcement shows that society is uncomfortable portraying Kaepernick in his radicalism. It does not show the disproportionate way that police officers kill blacks and people of color in America, nor can it use its campaign to detail the long history of American racism and how it continues to infect every aspect of our daily life. Doing it would not be financially wise for a giant sportswear.
What Nike has done instead, is a campaign similar to that of co-opting the body's positivity movement by other brands, an effort by those whose popular culture had rejected and denigrated the bodies. It quickly became an empty sales argument in which the responsibility for change was lost. Racked:
Dove and his advertising agency had taken important steps to respond positively to his first announcement: they did not need to take responsibility or propose a solution. While the logical continuation of this idea for anyone not working in an advertising agency would be that brands should be concerned about their business instead of interfering with ineffective cultural criticism – these may not be the subject institutions at all – they saw an opportunity.
The cultural narrative about women's bodies was so bad that just identifying the problem was worth to Dove the credit and the product, but the need to talk about a cultural problem while refusing to name a bad actor women who had the temerity of not loving enough.
No business has the duty to be a force of social justice, of course. At the same time, brands like Nike and Dove are striving to present themselves as moral authorities. Brands are present in so many facets of our lives that morality has become a resource like everything else. The more we invest in our brands, the better. And in this world, self-help nonsense messages are selling, and more difficult, specific, and less marketable societal messages are disappearing.
Kaepernick's protest was such a topic of conversation that it became inevitable that someone would try to sell it. Nike had been paying Kaepernick since 2011 – long before he started protesting – and by that time, they were rightly doubting how to campaign against his activism. When other brands have proposed to take this initiativeNike renegotiated the Kaepernick deal and then presented its message in the safest possible terms.
And yet, Kaepernick's decision to accept Nike is easy to understand. With the support of Nike, his image will remain in the national spotlight. Since he started demonstrating, he has donated more than a million dollars to organizations that help the oppressed, and Nike's money should help him do even better in the world. Blacks and people of color can also rejoice that a big company will stand up for someone who cares about them. The economic nature of the transaction is uncomfortable, but symbolism continues to inspire.
But it's a cynical agreement. If Nike really supported Kaepernick's message, it could start by reforming:
It's hard to trust a company like Nike and understand its standards. The brand has been linked to many anti-sweatshop protests and their toxic treatment of women. Last year, Nike's co-founder, Phil Knight, donated up to $ 500,000 to GOP entities. In 2016, Knight donated $ 330,000 to Oregon Republicans and over $ 100,000 to Republicans at the national level. The organization is headquartered in Donald Trump's towers in New York, for which California grassroots groups harangue them.
Knowing the ethical problems that exist in the partnership, Kaepernick is confronted with an enigma: can the agreement be a net benefit for his cause while Nike dilutes it actively? This is a more pronounced version of the struggle that many people are trying to do well. To denounce injustices, it takes a platform and brands have the means to provide one. The eternal hope for Kaepernick and others is that they can create progress in the time that they have, not to mention their relationship with an entity that continues to embark on its business.
It's a delicate balancing act for influential people that I'm not sure I've ever done. The person and the brand mainly use for opposite purposes. We have been forced to make sacrifices to try to put an end to bad things, while the other wants to take advantage of the fact that bad things exist. And once Kaepernick's celebrity is gone to the point that his message is no longer profitable, it's hard to imagine Nike keeping it, even if his fight continues.
But most of all, the Kaepernick agreement with Nike is frustrating because it may be necessary – to keep a message of justice alive, you have to become a partner with entities that are indifferent to the success of justice. Kaepernick himself is not as big as the NFL, but Kaepernick with Nike behind him can be. And fighting for a living while continuing his work towards progress requires money.
This is a sad truth about Kaepernick's agreement with Nike: In today's world, easing the pain and suffering of a people sometimes means allowing a brand to take advantage of that pain.
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