Welcome to Buster's Blog

Irregular commentary on whatever's on my mind -- politics, sports, current events, and life in general. After twenty years of writing business and community newsletters, fifteen years of fantasy baseball newsletters, and two years of email "columns", this is, I suppose, the inevitable result: the awful conceit that someone might actually care to read what I have to say. Posts may be added often, rarely, or never again. As always, my mood and motivation are unpredictable.

Buster Gammons















Thursday, September 6, 2018

On Second Thought, I Really Loved Those Shoes.


Nike's new ad campaign featuring the blackballed former NFLer Colin Kaepernick has sent conservatards into paroxysms of indignation and silliness.  How dare Nike glorify this un-American traitor?  Harrumph!  Let's all boycott Nike!  Harrumph harrumph!  I'm going to burn every bit of Nike apparel I own!  Harrumph harrumph harrumph!

A good friend and reasonable fellow had a FB post wondering why Nike didn't instead have an ad featuring some of its female former employees who suffered from sexual discrimination/abuse while at the company.  He felt that would have been more "digestable" and less divisive.

That's a bit of topic-changing what about-ism, but the issue he cites is real.  Nike does have that skeleton in its closet.  Which has nothing to do Colin Kaepernick.

Nike didn't create an ad like that because:
  • #TakeAKnee and #MeToo are similar but separate.  Don't conflate the two.  One at a time.
  • Kaepernick's already a symbol with a well-known and justified cause, custom-made for simple but powerful advertising.
  • The ill-treated women of Nike need their story to be told, but a "sacrifice everything" ad from their former employer ain't happening.  Would the NFL owners run a mea culpa ad supporting the outcast Kaepernick, the man they discriminated against?
  • Perhaps Nike could be persuaded/pressured into a PSA-style public apology.  That would be good to see.  So would a similar spot from the NFL apologizing to Kap.
For the issue at hand, let the haters hate and burn and boycott till the cows come home home.  (Just think about it before you torch your favorite shoes.)  If you still don't get what the #TakeAKnee activism is all about, I can't help you at this late date.  If you merely don't like it, OK, that's you.

As for me, I'm with Kap.




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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 7, 2018 at 2:53 PM

    Many good points Buster!
    After learning more & thinking on it some time ago, I got no agrument with Kap. As I told a friend, I was hopeful the Browns might give him a shot last year. Nike on the other hand might be the one pulling the old switcheroo, 'don't look here, look over there.' Kind of like the McDonald's drive-thru I went to one time when I was told after complaining about their slow service, "If you think we're slow, you should go to the one down the road!" Yep, Nike, with their work place full of misogyny is saying, "You think we're bad, look at them." A move certain to be of Billy Flynn's liking!
    Nike could have done us all a favor, especially the #metoo movement & acknlowledged to the world what they have discovered about their house because women there had the courage to 'just do it'!
    That same friend told me that Nike knows their target audience, & they're marketing to it! I believe that!
    See ya Monday! Brent

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