Sacrifice

I don’t know that I’ve ever bought a NIKE product. I am now sure that I never will.

NIKE decided that Colin Kaepernick had made the “ultimate” sacrifice and therefore deserved huge benefits and millions of dollars to represent NIKE and its products.

I would like to suggest to NIKE’s customers, their shareholders, and their Board of Directors that Mr. Kaepernick and the executives at NIKE have no idea what true sacrifice really is.

Indulge me in giving NIKE some real examples of what sacrifice looks like:

• Cops running toward a bad guy who is shooting anything and everything in sight.
  
• Teachers who take their own hard earned money to buy school supplies for the kids in their classrooms because the school district has misspent taxpayer funds.
  
• Individuals who volunteer their time, money, and energy to help kids through Big Brothers and Big Sisters and a host of other charitable and religious organizations.
  
• Firemen who run up 80 stories of a building that’s engulfed in flames to rescue survivors on the upper floors.
  
• Medical teams of doctors and nurses who travel the world on their own time, and their own dime, to help the desperate and hopeless with severe medical problems.
  
• And of course, those individuals who join the ranks of the Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard and swear to defend their fellow Americans and our nation’s constitution against all enemies. Many of these brave men and women make an incredible sacrifice when wounded or killed for love of country.

These, Mr. Kaepernick and NIKE are what sacrifice is all about. It is NOT about some peevish malcontent who insults America’s flag and anthem — the symbols of a country that have provided him and a great many others with levels of wealth, opportunity, and freedom that billions of other people in the world only dream about.  

It is NOT about mediocre football players who wear socks depicting cops as pigs.

And, the ultimate sacrifice is most certainly NOT about signing a multi-million dollar contract with a company that pays pennies an hour to those who work in near slave-like conditions to make their products.

Since neither NIKE nor Mr. Kaepernick seem to have any understanding of sacrifice, this article probably won’t help.

Then again, maybe it will — at least if enough of NIKE’s customers and shareholders not only understand sacrifice, but regard it highly enough to punish NIKE for their cynical marketing ploy.