by Kim Joseph and Ashley Anderson
In the days following Nike’s announcement that Colin Kaepernick would be the new face of their “Just Do It” campaign, online sales increased by a startling 31 percent. Almost immediately, the public responded to the Nike ad with cries of “woke-washing,” a phenomena that occurs when corporations use social justice as a marketing strategy. This may be in part because Nike is still heavily endorsed by the NFL, which has opposed Kaepernick’s kneeling protests since day one. However, the issues with Nike’s appropriation of social justice movements and their corporate racial politics do not stop there.
The ad features a black and white portrait of Kaepernick, with the words “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything” displayed across his face. This is, of course, a reference to the intense backlash he faced from both the public and the NFL in response to kneeling during the national anthem. Kaepernick’s protest was to raise awareness of rampant racial injustice in the United States, following a slew of videos showing white police officers shooting and killing unarmed black men. Of the officers who commit this brutality, many never see the inside of a prison cell for doing so. Nike has turned Kaepernick’s monumental activism into advertising, and they have turned a profit.
To understand what it means when a company is accused of “woke washing,” we need to know what it means to be “woke.” The term “woke” first appeared with political connotations in 1962, when African-American novelist William Melvin Kelley used the word in a manner similar to how it is employed today in a New York Times article, “If You’re Woke You Dig It.” Erykah Badu brought it back in 2008 by singing the refrain “I stay woke” throughout her track “Master Teacher.” This was a sort of early marker in the emerging relationship between staying woke and being vigilant in one’s awareness of social issues.
The word really became popular thanks to Twitter, when the Internet started to see #StayWoke being used on the social media platform in connection with racial and social justice issues. Badu herself invoked “stay woke” first on Twitter—in solidarity with Russian feminist group Pussy Riot. In response to members’ arrests she asked that the world “Stay woke. Watch closely.” When Black Lives Matter activists created a website to aid in getting volunteers, they named it StayWoke.org. Woke and political action were sufficiently wed. Woke became synonymous with awareness. To be woke was to be truly informed of current affairs, to know what was really going on.
Soon, the word needed no hashtag or even context to be deployed in the public sphere. Critics of wokeness claim that the term, meant to symbolize action and social justice, actually stagnates it, since it is often used as a pedestal for moral superiority and hubris. As The New York Times article “Earning the ‘Woke’ Badge” notes, it has become not just honorable to be woke but fashionablefor people to broadcast their wokeness. The appropriation of wokeness by those claiming to be socially, racially, and culturally in tune frequently highlights a disturbingly widespread lack of self-awareness, and the term has come to signify this misuse. As the article poignantly comments, “When white people aspire to get points for consciousness, they walk right into the crosshairs between allyship and appropriation.”
Do corporations seeking to profit over social justice movements lie in these crosshairs, or are they perhaps hedging their bets on the sidelines? Or, more to the point, is Nike woke?
Let’s look back at Nike’s history. Founded in 1964, Nike has become the world’s largest supplier of athletic wear since its inception. In recent years, Nike has been more vocal about inclusion and supporting marginalized communities. Take, for instance, the Nike Pro Hijab and the company’s commercials highlighting the LGBTQ+ community. We would do well to remember, though, that Nike was once the face of everything wrong with major corporations.
Nike came under fire in the 80s and 90s for using underage workers in their factories, which were more like sweatshops due to their poor working conditions. In 1997, a man named Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong actually died in one of their Vietnamese factories while manufacturing a pair of the brand’s shoes. Nike’s response to his death? “We don’t make shoes.” In addition to the apathy towards their workers’ well-being, Nike also strove to suppress talks of unionizing and anti-sweatshop protests from organizations like United Students Against Sweatshops.
After intense and swift backlash from the public and international organizations, Nike began changing and improving working conditions in their East Asian factories. They introduced a code of conduct and allowed non-governmental organizations to visit and inspect their factories. After this falling out with the public, Nike worked hard to restore its name as a brand worth supporting. Through a widely successful ad campaign and sponsorship with Michael Jordan, the brand was back on top.
Knowing more about Nike’s history offers insight into their most recent sponsorship with Kaepernick. Nike is working with a man fighting against racial injustices when the company has a history of and continues to exploit its workers, most of whom are young, poor women of color. It is interesting that Nike is being applauded for giving Kaepernick a voice when it continues to work with the very corporation trying to silence him, the NFL. These contradictions suggest that Nike’s partnership with Colin Kaepernick is nothing more than another case of appropriation.
In working with Kaepernick, Nike has taken the struggles of Black Americans and turned them into a source of profit. It is important to remember how Kaepernick ended up out of a job in the NFL. In the 2016 football season, Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, began kneeling at games during the national anthem as a way to draw attention to the injustices Black Americans faced. This action was in response to the shooting deaths of black people by white cops, in particular the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. Eventually, his protests led to him being unable to work in the NFL. No team would sign him. Though he lost his job, he gained much respect from the political left and inspired athletes all over the country to protest the treatment of black people as well.
Additionally, Nike is appropriating Colin Kaepernick’s hard-earned respect—and, in some corners, hatred—from the public in order to turn a profit. Aligning the brand with him means aligning Nike with a new buyer demographic. While the company neglects the more conservative and pro-Trump crowd, it finds that the liberal and anti-Trump crowd wants to consume its products out of respect for the company’s apparent morals. This plan is working; remember, the company’s online sales grew to over 30 percent after the announcement.
At the end of the day, it is essential to remember why Nike does stunts like this collaboration with Colin Kaepernick: money and reputation. As Joshua Hunt of the Atlantic writes, “Nike’s standing with Kaepernick has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the fact that he has transformed himself into an icon. For Nike, Kaepernick’s cause is simply good business.” Regardless, as the sales demonstrate, Nike may have already won in this publicity stunt. But is Nike a woke company? We’re betting not.
Kim Joseph and Ashley Anderson are students in English 291: What Is Racial Difference?