On September 1, 2016 Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the U.S. national anthem because of the rapid cases of police brutality and racial injustice. In an interview, he stated the reasoning behind him taking a knee during the national anthem was “Because I’m seeing things happening to people who don’t have a voice.” In response of this Colin Kaepernick has been a free agent with no offered contracts from any NFL teams. Soon after he filed a grievance against the league with accusations that the team owners are colluding to keep him from getting signed.
A few years later on September 5th, 2018 Nike aired a new commercial of Colin Kaepernick begin the face of the campaign bringing an uproar of insight and abomination.
“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
After releasing the Nike advertisement, it resulted in backlash with a side of rage. People across the United States began to burn, cut, and ban Nike branded items posting it with hashtags such as #justburnit and #boycottnike. After receiving the news the mayor of Kenner Louisiana, Ben Zahn, decided to take action by issuing an order to ban local booster clubs in Kenner from purchasing any Nike apparel. New Orleans Saints players Cam Jordan and Terron Armstead were gathered in the Kenner park with townspeople to protest against the order. The rational decision soon grew a mass amount of attraction from across the country causing the mayor to have to rescind his order.
“These are not darkening times, these are awakening times,” Jennifer Lewis said.
Besides all of the aversion, there is an infinite amount of people who stand with Nike during this campaign controversy. At Serena Williams’ returning tournament, she wore a black bodysuit designed specially by Nike. Everyone was in love with the sleek look except the French Tennis Federation. An operative of the organization, Bernard Giudicelli, had made the remark that “I think sometimes we’ve gone too far. One must respect the game and place.” Analysts immediately began to draw attention to the disrespect in his comments, the main reasoning behind Serena wearing the catsuit was because of her current medical issues. In result of this Nike responded by incorporating Serena Williams into the commercial.
“You can take the superhero out of her costume, but you can never take away her superpowers.”
