Even as he likens the National Football League to modern-day slavery, former NFL player Colin Kaepernick continues cashing massive checks from Nike, which was named among a group of brands benefitting from China’s slave labor program.
Kaepernick’s new bio-doc, Colin in Black & White, recently dropped on Netflix, and in one episode, Kaepernick claimed that being an NFL player is something akin to modern-day slavery. During a scene, Kaepernick decries that the players are “poked, prodded, and examined” for defects ahead of an NFL Draft. And in another, the show portrays players standing on an auction block as white people bid on them.
Kaepernick adds that this process is how “they” establish a “power dynamic” over the black players.
The controversial, former second-string quarterback more famous for protesting against our nation than for playing football didn’t mention in his bio-doc that white NFL players go through the same process to be drafted into the league.
Yet, there is something bigger that Kaepernick did not feel disposed to mention to his fans in his bio-doc. He has a bit of a slavery problem of his own. Kapernick has for years been a multimillion-dollar partner with Nike, one of the world’s biggest sportswear makers. And it just so happens that during the entire time that Nike has capitalized on Kaepernick’s popularity in some circles, the company has been embroiled in accusations that it uses Chinese slave labor to produce its products.
Last year, for instance, a report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) revealed that up to 83 internationally known brands – including Nike – have active ties to factories where the Communist Party has shipped Uyghur Muslims to be “re-educated” as slave labor.
In August, Nike CEO John Donahoe admitted during an interview that his company hasn’t been “more vocal” about China’s human rights abuses because Nike makes billions of dollars doing business — both by manufacturing and selling products — to the Chinese.
Donahoe compounded the situation in June by saying that Nike is “a brand that is of China and for China.”
The Nike chief made his comments during a phone conference with Wall Street analysts about Nike’s fourth-quarter earnings report.
With all these controversies surrounding Nike’s controversial connections to China despite the communist nation’s ties to slave labor, Kaepernick has never once aimed his purported interests in human rights at his billion-dollar partners.
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