Photo : Getty Images , Graphic : Michael Harriot ( The Root )

First, there were the tiki torch marches by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va.; then there was the Roy Moore, Sean Hannity-inspired coffee smashing protest, and now there is the “cut the Nike symbol off socks you already own” protest of 2018.




On Monday, Nike announced in typical Nike style that Colin Kapernick was the face of the 30th anniversary of “Just Do It” campaign. The ad featured a close-up of Kaepernick’s face with words: “ Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

And the Make America Great Again crowd lost their collective shit .

It’s as if the ad literally created a wypipo wedgie by jamming their shorts into their tightly clenched asses. It didn’t help matters that ESPN reporter Darren Rovell revealed that Kap had been on the Nike payroll the entire time that the NFL whiteballed him for protesting injustice, inequality and the deaths of unarmed black men, women and children by police .


Snowflakes immediately ran to the internet to post images of them burning old-ass Nikes purchased during the late ’90s and cutting the Nike swoosh off their socks because, judging from their level of outrage, tube socks mean much more to them than black lives.

Seriously, look at this goofy shit. This dude burned a complete set of Marshalls clearance-rack Nikes that he purchased with his own money to protest Nike standing with Kap .


Look at these old shits. I’m pretty sure these are the cleats that the Pilgrims wore during the first Thanksgiving throwback football game .


And this asshat cut the swooshes off his socks, which is mad dumb because do you really think the folks at Nike are sitting in their big Nike tower, worrying about socks for which they have already been paid ?


This joker put like five Nike items in a trash can and faked like he was going to burn them .


This Nike controversy reveals that the people who really support the Nike brand are people who look like Kaepernick. Nike knows who’s waiting in line to purchase the exclusive Nike releases and it’s not the pickup truck-driving, Arkansas good ole boy whose alternative brands of footwear is usually tied together by the shoestrings and retrieved from a bin next to the lawn mower blades.

Make no mistake about it, Nike is a huge company whose hands are not clean, but it does feel good to know that the company who makes NFL uniforms; a company that has one of the biggest ad buys during NFL games; and a company that was recently used to bait teens in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood stands with the guy who’s protesting for black people’s right to life.


But don’t get it twisted, Nike is fully aware that the MAGA crowd purchases the majority of their sneakers from Costco, so from a business standpoint, they aren’t going to lose anything.

In other news, Kanye West just announced his new line of footwear. The “Free Thought Yeezy 45s” will be out next week. Because, like slavery, protest and getting upset because a black man used his right to free speech ...


Outrage is a choice.