Answer Case Question

Nike, as many other companies like Tesla, Lyft, Airbnb, Starbucks, along with numerous tech giants have raised their voice related to political concerns. The information below offers some background and overviews of ​Nike’s controversial ad. ​ After critically reflection on the sources​, post your response to the following question: Is an organization taking a political stand an ethical dilemma? If so why, if not why not? Draw on course vocabulary to support your thoughts.

Are you aware of Nike’s controversial ad where they used a picture of Colin Kaepernick for their “just do it” advertisement? To understand this case, we need a little background knowledge about this football player. Colin Kaepernick was a well-known NFL football player. In 2016 he choose to kneel on one knee rather than stand during the national anthem before a game as a sign of protest again injustice against African-Americans in the United States. At the pre-season game in 2016, Colin Kaepernicksat on his chair during the US national anthem, later, he kneeled to show his protest (Mindock, 2018, paragraph 6). He said: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour,” (Mindock, 2018, paragraph 8).

Barack Obama was still in office that time and said that Colin Kaepernick has rights to protest. However, Donald Trump blamed Colin Kaepernick’ behavior in his rally in September 2017 (Chambers, 2018, paragraph 21). The words from Trump made this case more influential than before (Chambers, 2018, paragraph 21). It is normal for athletes shows their dissatisfaction with politics, however, NFL disagreed with his behavior (Mindock, 2018, paragraph 4). Colin Kaepernick chose to leave the San Francisco 49ers and became a free agent (Chambers, 2018, paragraph 22).

For more information on this incident, please read the following article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/sports/colin-kaepernick-nfl-protests.html

Mindock C. (2018). Taking a knee: Why are NFL players protesting and when did they start to kneel?, ​Independent News. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/taking-a-knee-national-anthem​ nfl-trump-why-meaning-origins-racism-us-colin-kaepernick-a8521741.html

Chambers E. (2018). Colin Kaepernick: From kneeling NFL player to face of the new Nike advert, how has he become a political force?, ​Evening Standard News, https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/who-is-colin-kaepernick-nfl-player-nike-advert-whats-hi s-kneeling-protest-for-a3927201.html