The video is about two minutes long. It begins with a voiceover and a menagerie of shots taking stock of athletes who haven’t yet reached their full potential.
The narrator of this advertisement has plenty to say about what real dreams look like and what their individual struggles may bring. And then the voice appears in person, and what was at first a straightforward inspirational message becomes something bigger.
Colin Kaepernick is back in the social forefront as the ambassador of Nike’s newest “Just Do It” commercial campaign.
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback and current activist was always going to be a controversial choice for a landmark campaign. The responses to the campaign highlight an important misunderstanding between the factions on all sides of the national anthem debate.
The video itself starts out as something less than a political statement, but the rollout campaign that came along with it changed everything. Kaepernick was announced as the representative for the campaign before the video was released, shifting the perspective of everything afterward. He does not actually appear in the video until more than halfway through, but his voiceover work casts an immense shadow over the ad.
Those who oppose Kaepernick, regardless of their understanding of what he and the other kneeling NFL players want, could probably care less about the diverse athletes and dreamers Nike chose to portray.
Instead, Kaepernick’s voice and appearance make the entire ad out to be a tale of ambition when it’s really about his political standing. The cause is supported by fellow Nike representatives Serena Williams and LeBron James. You probably saw people going viral on Twitter and Facebook over the weekend, burning their Nike gear and cutting the swooshes out of their socks. Boycotting Nike after already buying its products is even more misguided than the alt-right campaigns that purposefully misunderstand Kaepernick’s stance and paint him as disrespectful to veterans and a disgrace to the country.
Jonah Baker | Argonaut
Nike’s choice to include Kaepernick as a spokesperson did nothing to advance his movement or further the discussion, yet. So far, all we have seen is an utter breakdown from the people that are still incensed by his appearance.
Since belaboring the point has become necessary, Kaepernick’s protest has never been about disrespecting the military. The original idea to take a knee came from Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret and NFL player. Kaepernick, football player Eric Reid and dozens have stayed consistent to the message of addressing police brutality, especially against black people.
The vast majority of those enraged for the armed forces because of a nonexistent transgression are not in fact service members. Boyer himself came forward after the ad was announced and tweeted “Some [veterans] are offended, some aren’t, it’s really that simple. To push roughly 20 million veterans onto one side or the other of the anthem debate (bc you know a Vet who feels a certain way) is just stupid. We’re as diverse (and sometimes just as stupid as any other American microcosm.”
That same sentiment is echoed throughout the social sphere far more often than outright disgust at Kaepernick. To add to the chain of stupidity and misunderstanding, these same people are declaring a Nike boycott, crusading for the veterans that they believe are so desperately hurt by Kaepernick. They have already bought Nike merchandise and somehow feel as if burning or defacing it will be what makes the difference.
The irony of these protests was not lost on the internet, as many people simply posted drop-offs for homeless and at-risk veterans that would certainly benefit from having the shoes and clothes that so many people now find insensitive and expendable.
Nike’s stock took a brief dip before returning to typical gains about a day after the initial backlash. Twitter boycotts have never been the best examples of capitalism at work, and the nonsensical grounds of this most recent one certainly did not help.
When Kaepernick finally does appear in the video about 45 seconds before the commercial ends, he utters the phrase that is the perfecly sums up this debacle: “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything.” On its own, it’s a wonderful piece of inspiration. By a few illogical leaps, one could say that Nike is equating Kaepernick to the members of our armed forces who truly sacrifice everything.
The issue has never truly been, and never will be, that Kaepernick and others have been taking shots at the armed forces to raise their own cause.
We should be so far past this, bickering about whether these national anthem protests and the ensuing other forms of demonstration are respectable and proper. We could be actually addressing the issue of police brutality and making progress toward compromise. Instead, like in so many issues of the day, we are at a roadblock because one side of the issue cannot get over their own wild mistakes in understanding.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @jonahbaker