The New Nike Campaign

Nike is celebrating the anniversary (30th) of its slogan 'Just do it' with a new campaign, featuring Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick was one the most famous quarterbacks in American football (NFL), when he decided to kneel during the national anthem (at the beginning of the 2016/17 season two years ago), which is played before each NFL game. He did so in protest against police violance against black citizens and racism in general. He gained both huge following - many players followed his example - as well a critique (from many amongst whom president Trump). I should add hyperlinks here, but just google...

Screenshot taken from @Kaepernick7 (Twitter)

Anyway, taking a political stance is not common in professional sports and also goes against (unwritten) rules, rooted in the original olympic value. In Bourdieu's terms, he choose to ignore his habitus and ignore the doxa. Doing so has repurcussions usually, as Giddens (by the words of Falkheimer) warns us. In Kaepernicks case that means that he is without a contract because noone wants to, or dares to offer him a contract.

In that context it is also remarkable that a major sponsor of the NFL, Nike, take a stance by making him the face of their new campaign, because of his protest actions  (repeat doxa, habitus, etc.).


Two links:
A CNN report on the Nike campaign.
Back ground article in the New York Times (online)


NB1: This is NOT a 'good' example of a proper blog post, rather a hasty 'note'
NB2: It is very much okay to add your own (relevant) hasty notes on top of your assignment blog posts here. Especially when you have addressed an actuality in class, or found one that is too juice to safe until the next class.