I EAGERLY AWAIT COLIN KAEPERNICK AND THE NBA’S FORCEFUL CONDEMNATION OF THIS: Beijing’s Uighur Policy: ‘Show No Mercy.’
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THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD: Kaepernick’s Kaper (Updated).
Note the Nike-endorsed former player’s choice of T-shirt for what was billed as a politics-free return to football:
THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD: Breaking: Kaepernick’s Kaper. “Stay tuned for updates. My hunch is, this workout may not come off at all, but if it does and if teams are unimpressed with his readiness to play, he’ll blame it on the NFL’s conditions that “forced” him to change the venue, and we’ll start a new round of stunts.”
THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD: Colin Kaepernick Moves Workout After Dispute with NFL.
IT’S COME TO THIS: NFL Arranges Private Workout For Colin Kaepernick: “NFL clubs were informed today that a private workout will be held for Colin Kaepernick on Saturday in Atlanta. Session will include on-field work and an interview. All clubs are invited to attend, and video of both the workout and interview will be made available to clubs. The NFL arranged this workout opportunity for Colin Kaepernick, and teams will have the opportunity to evaluate his readiness and level of interest in resuming his NFL career. His agents have said he wants to return to the NFL, and the league hopes this provides that chance.”
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? NY Daily News Hypes Colin Kaepernick For NFL Pregame Shows.
Barring that, perhaps a History Channel series…
HOW CAN WE MISS YOU IF YOU WON’T GO AWAY? It’s Time for Colin Kaepernick to Move On.
WITH ATTACK ON U.S. FLAG, COLIN KAEPERNICK SHIFTS THE GOALPOSTS: Nike turned into a bunch of 4chan trolls so slowly, I hardly even noticed. Some thoughts and links over at Ed Driscoll.com.
WILL THEY DUMP HIM IF I CRAY STUPIDITY? Nike Dumps Betsy Ross Sneakers Because Colin Kaepernick Cried Racism.
WHY NIKE’S CAPITULATION TO KAEPERNICK MATTERS:
Colin Kaepernick has made a fantastic living out of protesting the America flag. That’s fine. No political speech should be inhibited, not even pseudo-intellectual historical revisionism. But let’s stop pretending that kneeling during the national anthem at sporting events is really about “respecting the flag” or criminal justice reform or any fixable policy problem.
Whatever the underlying causes for Kaepernick’s popularity—some of them certainly legitimate—these protests are acts of contempt toward an irredeemable nation created in sin. This view of our founding is an increasingly popular position on the left. And if it ever takes hold in mainstream American life, we’re in real trouble.
After pictures of Nike’s Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July edition were released online, Kaepernick, who “sacrificed everything” by making tens of millions of dollars as a corporate-sponsored activist, complained to company officials that the Betsy Ross flag on the back of a proposed sneaker was an offensive symbol because of its “connection to an era of slavery.”
That’s true, but not in the way that Kaepernick thinks:
IT’S COME TO THIS: Nike Nixes ‘Betsy Ross Flag’ Sneaker After Colin Kaepernick Intervenes.
Nike Inc. is yanking a U.S.A.-themed sneaker featuring an early American flag after former NFL star-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick told the company it shouldn’t sell a shoe with a symbol that he and others consider offensive, according to people familiar with the matter.
The sneaker giant created the Air Max 1 USA in celebration of the July Fourth holiday, and it was slated to go on sale this week. The heel of the shoe featured a U.S. flag with 13 white stars in a circle, a design created during the American Revolution and commonly referred to as the Betsy Ross flag.
After shipping the shoes to retailers, Nike asked for them to be returned without explaining why, the people said. The shoes aren’t available on Nike’s own apps and websites.
“Nike has chosen not to release the Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July as it featured the old version of the American flag,” a Nike spokeswoman said.
After images of the shoe were posted online, Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery, the people said. Some users on social media responded to posts about the shoe with similar concerns. Mr. Kaepernick declined to comment.
The design was created in the 1770s to represent the 13 original colonies, though there were many early versions of the America flag, according to the Smithsonian. In 1795, stars were added to reflect the addition of Vermont and Kentucky as states.
Related: From yesterday, Kevin Williamson on Nike as “The Disciplinary Corporation:”
Nike, the athletic shoe giant, has pulled a product off the shelves in response to a storm of social-media protest. The product was a sneaker collaboration with sportswear brand Undercover, whose principal designer, Jun Takahashi, published these unspeakable words on Twitter: “No extradition. Go Hong Kong!”
Nike says it made the decision “based on feedback from Chinese consumers.” Just so.
The context is this: Hong Kong, a free, liberal, democratic, self-governing city was handed over to the powers that be in Beijing — a clutch of corrupt, brutal, dishonest, organ-harvesting, gulag-operating murderers — as part of an agreement with the United Kingdom, who once had sovereignty over Hong Kong as a colonial power. Beijing wants Hong Kong to be more like the rest of China, and the people of Hong Kong do not. They recently took to the streets to force the reversal of a decision that would have subjected Hong Kong residents to extradition to the so-called People’s Republic of China for certain crimes rather than be tried in Hong Kong under Hong Kong law. Because the junta in Beijing has no compunction about drumming up charges for political purposes, this would have represented a noose around the neck of every dissident in Hong Kong. Jun Takahashi tweeted his support for liberal democrats against mass-murdering national socialists.
And Nike sided with the mass-murdering national socialists.
As Kevin wrote yesterday, “Swoosh: There goes your soul.” Which also neatly sums up Nike’s decision today to 86 the flag of the 13 original colonies.
UPDATE: Here’s a photo of the hate sneakers that Kaepernick bravely saved us from:
Apologies for triggering our more sensitive readers.
DAVID HARSANYI: The Devolution Of Man. “Of course, it’s not Kaepernick’s fault that our culture is transforming virtue signalers into heroes. These are the same forces, after all, that pummel us with insufferable harangues about appropriate gender roles. Men are acting too masculine while women aren’t acting masculine enough, it seems, and the nation is in the midst of a crisis. So perhaps it’s my pathological masculinity speaking, but it’s all become quite insufferable.”
They can’t help yammering and virtue-signaling, apparently, but there’s no reason you have to listen, or pretend to respect their twaddle.
AAF WANTED COLIN KAEPERNICK, BUT $20M PRICE TAG WAS TOO HIGH:
[Alliance of American Football] co-founder Bill Polian told The Athletic that CEO Charlie Ebersol reached out to Kaepernick, but nothing came of it.
“I don’t know what transpired, but he’s obviously not playing,” Polian said.
According to the Associated Press, Kaepernick wanted $20 million or more to consider playing with the league, which opened with its first set of games last weekend with the likes of former Jets Christian Hackenberg and John Wolford, and former Toledo standout Logan Woodside owning starting QB jobs.
Kaepernick does fit the description of an Alliance player — one looking to entice NFL teams — though his contract demands are astronomically higher than the league norm.
Players earn $225,000 over three years in the Alliance. They are free beginning in May to pursue NFL careers, but should they not land a job there, they are obligated to return to the AAF.
“If you truly wanted to play quarterback wouldn’t you want to dominate in a minor league and force a team to sign you? Kap and his supporters are such a joke. He doesn’t want to play because then he isn’t a martyr,” Clay Travis tweets in response.
As I wrote last year regarding the NFL, “Does Kaepernick actually want to be signed? Unless he delivers Johnny Unitas-level talent to whoever he plays for, actually suiting up and riding the pine each week as a backup, or a return to his mediocre performance during the 49ers’ 2-14 season in 2016 would be anti-climactic. Kaepernick has become the athletic equivalent of Michael Moore’s deception in his first movie, Roger & Me. Then-General Motors CEO Roger Smith had met with Moore — reportedly twice — during the shooting of his agitpropumentary, but Moore wouldn’t have a movie if he actually included that footage. Similarly, Kaepernick needs to remain permanently off the gridiron, to keep his uber-woke SJW pose alive.”
JEFF DUNETZ REMINDS THE LEFT, Maroon 5 Should Be Left Alone — Colin Kaepernick Earned His Unemployment:
Face it, Colin Kaepernick’s unemployment has nothing to do with the color of his skin, and everything to do with a disrespect for America which was seen by some as disrespecting the fans. Because of his insolence, the fans cut back watching the games on TV, which meant Kaepernick’s protest led to a revenue loss for the league’s network partners meaning that Colin Kaepernick’s protest demonstrated disrespect to the organizations funding his salary. With all that disrespecting of others, why should Colin Kaepernick deserve respect when he declares free agency and looks for a position that will pay him more money? Unless of course, you believe everything is racist.
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Why should Maroon 5, or anyone else turn down an incredible opportunity because of a self-absorbed mediocre quarterback who hurt the business who paid his salary?
But what (if anything) will Maroon 5 do to further tarnish the NFL’s reputation? Or, to put it another way, as with Kaepernick’s kneeling, what will Roger Goodell let them get away with?
WHY DOES CBS HATE AMERICA? CBS rejects pro-flag, anti-Kaepernick ‘Just Stand’ Super Bowl ad.
BLESS THEIR HEARTS: NBC Frets Super Bowl Halftime Show is ‘Personal Affront’ to Colin Kaepernick.
[Today Show Co-host] Craig Melvin conducted a softball interview with Kaepernick’s attorney Mark Geragos, who was given a platform to push conspiracy theories about his client’s professional football career coming to an end.
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Melvin followed up by worrying that musicians agreeing to perform in the Super Bowl halftime show were offending Kaepernick: “As you know, a number of the halftime acts have taken heat for performing at the Super Bowl this year, Maroon 5, Big Boy, Travis Scott among them. Does Collin Kaepernick see their participation during the halftime show as some sort of personal affront?”
Gergagos launched into a tirade condemning the performers:
I think what it says is, number one, they do take a lot of heat, and I think rightfully so. I mean, the idea that you’re going to basically cross a picket line – because that’s what they’re doing, they’re crossing an intellectual picket line. They’re saying to themselves, “I care more about my career than I do about whether what I’m doing is right”….could cross the intellectual and ideological picket line, I think there’s something wrong with that and they should be called out.
Melvin lamented that given the “successful season for the NFL” in which “ratings are up,” Kaepernick’s “mission” might have “failed.” Geragos rejected the notion and bizarrely tried to blame Russia for the controversy swirling around his client’s national anthem protests: “I think he opened the door to a robust discussion. And I think there’s also an element of this, there’s been quite a bit of reporting, that basically the so-called divisiveness that this caused was actually ginned up or generated by a Russian disinformation effort.”
Umm, during the 49ers’ 2-14 season in 2016, Kaepernick wore socks depicting cops as pigs embroidered on them, kneeled during the national anthem, and wore a pro-Castro T-shirt during his postgame press-conference after losing to the Miami Dolphins. Wasn’t the goal of all that SJW cosplay to gin up plenty of “so-called divisiveness?”
In any case, as a prominent employee of both NBC and Comcast, Melvin has direct access to the corporate boardroom. If he concurs with Kaepernick’s attorney that the NFL should come to a halt until his client can lace up his cleats again, shouldn’t he be publicly demanding that NBC blackout their Sunday Night Football show each week, and/or Comcast blackout NFL coverage on all their cable channels until Kaepernick has a starting job somewhere? Why is he so eager to cross the “intellectual picket line” himself?
In the summer of 2016, around the same time as Kaepernick began his protests, an attempted coup against the Turkish government sparked a crackdown on dissenting voices by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kanter is a longtime critic of the regime and a supporter of US-based Fetullah Gulen, who Erdogan blamed for the coup. And so he became a target.
The New York Knicks player had his Turkish passport revoked, and Erdogan issued a warrant for his arrest. Kanter’s father even had to disown him in a bid to safeguard their family.
Despite playing for a popular NBA team, the 26-year-old cannot find a sponsor. This is because, he says, sportswear companies are wary of damaging their commercial prospects in Turkey. And in an interview with Vice Sports last month, he singled out (you guessed it) Nike as one of those companies:
‘I talked to Nike and they said “we want to give Enes a contract, but if we give him one [the Turkish government] will shut down every store in Turkey, so we cannot”… I’m an NBA player with no shoe deal. No endorsement deal. And I play in New York!’
It seems that Kanter sacrificed everything for something he believed in, and yet Nike was nowhere to be found.
Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it.
FLASHBACK: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Kaepernick protests: ‘I think it’s dumb and disrespectful.’ Then she climbed down, under lefty pressure.
ECLECTICISM FOR THE WIN: MAGA Hat and Colin Kaepernick Shirt Make Kanye West a One-Man Bridge Across Our Political Chasm.
SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “President Trump’s unemployment rate is so low, even Colin Kaepernick found a job!”
HOME ON THE FRONT RANGE: Local sports store boycotts Nike after Kaepernick ad, sells all Nike gear at 50%.
Stephen Martin has owned Prime Time Sports for 21 years but this is the year he’s going to stop selling Nike gear.
“It’s probably 40-50% of the store,” Martin said, shrugging. “They are the exclusive dealer of the NFL jerseys, it’s all Nike.”
Owner Martin said NFL jersey sales are a huge part of his business. He said he will miss the sales but this is a sacrifice he’s willing to make.
“The thing that fired me up the most, that got me motivated to put the sign up and the sale was the last two words of their add, ‘sacrificed everything,’” Martin explained.
“He doesn’t know sacrifice, not in my opinion.”
Related: Nike’s Reputation Takes A Hit Overall and Across Key Demographics.
NIKE STOCK PLUNGES AFTER TAPPING KAEPERNICK AS ‘JUST DO IT’ CAMPAIGN POSTER BOY.
But is that merely a temporary blip that was already calculated as an acceptable loss by the giant corporation? Jim Geraghty explores “The Audacity of Nike:”
You almost have to admire the audacity of Nike; for decades they’ve cemented their position as The Man by marketing an image of fighting The Man. Don’t let anyone tell you that they’re a group of daring, iconoclast rebels. They’re a massive publicly traded corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of athletic shoes, sporting equipment, and apparel, and their chairman is worth about $22 billion. They’re getting sued for “pay discrimination and limited opportunities for women to win promotions” and failing to address sexual-harassment complaints. They’ve settled class-action racial-discrimination lawsuits for millions of dollars. They operate a political-action committee that gives to both parties (although more to Democrats) and are quite active in Oregon state politics.
They are the kind of big, powerful corporation with a long history of documented exploitation of overseas labor that is usually the villain in leftist narratives. Staunch progressives who proudly wear the Nike swoosh are like impassioned environmentalists wearing Exxon Valdez t-shirts.
And now, for the cost of a few million — remember Nike had nearly $10 billion in revenue last quarter — the company bought the loyalty of the woke Social Justice Warrior crowd. Sure, some folks on the right will announce they’re boycotting, but nobody collects and analyzes marketing research data like Nike. They’ve no doubt run the numbers on this and concluded that the controversy was worth it. In fact, the controversy is the whole point of the marketing campaign. (It sure as heck isn’t Kaepernick’s performance on the field!) The aim is to get every Kaepernick-hater in the country publicly raging about it — the president, conservative-talk radio, sports-talk radio — so that everyone who agrees with Kaepernick feels almost obligated to go out and buy the Kaepernick sneakers, shirt, hat, etcetera.
To paraphrase Jonah Goldberg on Twitter, The Man Can’t Bust Our Sneakers!
