(2018-09-04) — On the heels of its new ad campaign with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Nike announced today it would “sacrifice everything” to benefit the urban Black community for which Kaepernick has become a champion.
When corporate officers saw the public response to the new ad slogan — “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.“— they decided to “Just Do It.”
Starting today, Nike will put its $36.3 billion in annual revenue, and its U.S. employees, to work on behalf of inner-city communities hit hard by income inequality, by institutional racism, and most tragically, by President Trump’s Tweets about NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem.
Nike launched several new “sacrifice everything” initiatives, including, a commitment to…
1) Manufacture all of its products in U.S. inner cities like Detroit, MI, and Compton, CA, by the 3rd quarter of 2019.
2) Slash Nike shoe and gear prices so even the poorest of the poor can afford them.
3) Redistribute headquarters personnel from their suburban homes to urban-core communities where they’ll live, work, send their kids to public schools, and serve on late-night volunteer neighborhood-watch patrols.
4) Diversify its board of directors and executives in design, marketing, and sales, to mirror the racial and ethnic population proportions in the average U.S. inner city.
5) Donate every penny of profits to drug rehabs, tuition assistance and vocational training programs for inner-city youth.
“All of these ‘sacrifice everything’ initiatives put our money where our mouth is, and our feet on the move,” said a Nike spokesman. “We don’t want anyone to think Nike’s using Colin Kaepernick to appropriate ‘the struggle’ in some crass corporate way just to boost our $15.9 billion annual profit.”