Last Monday, Nike revealed an ad campaign featuring former National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick.  
The ad, which states, “Believe in something. Even it means sacrificing everything,” is a striking nod to Kaepernick’s 2016 public statement against racism and social injustice, in which he kneeled during the national anthem.
Kaepernick understands racism is far from being dismantled in America. Our country reeks of it, its infrastructure is embedded with it still. Consider underfunded school systems in primarily-black neighborhoods, the “war on drugs“ and the pot-bellied kids in the Mississippi Delta without access to food. We cannot deny these issues are bigger than coincidence, chance or circumstance. They are microcosms of injustice, scars left by white supremacy.
And this is why Nike’s decision is necessary: an international, multi-billion dollar organization with vast media influence is publicly acknowledging the present culture and the toxic history of our country which inspired Kaepernick’s resistance. This decision is not without controversy.
John Rich of country duo Big & Rich expressed his disdain for Nike’s new endorsement deal almost immediately.
Rich tweeted, “Our soundman just cut the Nike swoosh off his socks. Former marine. Get ready @Nike multiply that by the millions.”
Others have burned or tossed Nike apparel. According to Blair Kerkhoff of The Kansas City Star, College of the Ozarks even terminated a contract with Nike.
Valorie Coleman, public relations director of College of the Ozarks, laid out their reasons for dissatisfaction with Nike. College of the Ozarks President Jerry Davis stated Nike’s ad promotes “division and disrespect.” Expanding on his statement, vice-president Marci Linson said the college is “honor-bound” to respect “those who truly served and sacrificed.”
Of course President Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting ”The issue of kneeling has nothing to do about race. It is respect for our Country, Flag, and National Anthem! NFL must respect this!”
We could discuss how most people enraged by Nike are white and how this may indicate something problematic. We could ask ourselves if a protest for something as crucial and relevant as race is really disrespecting soldiers and veterans. We could even note the immense privilege which comes with owning name-brand apparel, or how blatantly cruel and privileged it is for the president of the United States, a white man behind a screen, to tell a black man his protests have nothing to do with blackness. With something like this, we must look deeply at the root. This is an issue of erasure.
Erasure is a literal removing, an invalidating of someone’s, or a group of people’s, history, beliefs, needs and ideas. It is saying, “you do not matter to me.” It is empathy stripped. And African Americans have faced erasure since their time in America began.
We see this history in enslaved women who recounted tales of rape against them, which were not recognized because they were black. Instances such as Fanny Lou Hamer having her organs removed, or when the University of Southern Mississippi denied Clyde Kennard education. We have even seen white people question former President Barack Obama’s citizenship, and an innocent Trayvon Martin murdered while his killer walk free.
This erasure is exactly what is at play here with Kaepernick. Every charred shoe is a representation of black voices being drowned out and burned, of history being ignored. Rich, Davis and Trump are representations of the privileged who are unwilling to listen, of white people wound in racist ideologies. This is about race and the need for constant social reform, for a critical lens to be at work for the good of all people. The work for equality is not done yet. Look at your communities, look at the poor and look at statistics. 
Kaepernick is not saying soldiers do not matter; saying he is ungrateful or any other rhetoric from those who over-simplify his stance is simply untrue. Kaepernick is fighting for the history of black people to be rewritten, and written soundly, into our socio-political sphere. For how can he have love and devotion for his country if an entire demographic is oppressed?